Hopulist Issue Eight

SISTERS, BROS AND DOGS
The next three brewpubs on our list just so
happened to be so close together you could throw
a craft beer merch t-shirt over them. Okay, perhaps
not that close, but very suitably positioned for
people who were going to have more than three
beers inside their legs. The first stop was Black
Dog Brew Co, another brewer that sprung up
in 2011. In their own words this brewer likes to
do things a little different and smash opposites
together when it’s making its beer. The brewpub
is pretty unassuming, like most of the places here,
with fermenting and storage tanks crammed into
a relatively small bar that has plenty of character
and quite possibly the friendliest bar staff we
encountered on our adventure. The guys here
really took their time to make sure we were getting
beers we’d enjoy and even explained a little of the
thinking that went into each one. It’s also a bar that
heavily promotes the use of growlers, so it stokes
up some regular business for itself that way.
After this, it was on to a bar you might miss
if you were simply searching for those with the
names of brewers. Husk just looks like a regular
bar from the outside, but once inside you quickly
realise this is the home of another famous
Wellington name Choice Bros. Promising
innovative, experimental and occasionally mad
beers, Choice Bros claim to have a knack of
balancing both malts and hops in their beers and
this method has seen them rise to fame within
the city and the country alike. Some of the
highlights on tap when we visited included: I’m
Afraid of Americans, a smack-you-in-the-face
American IPA and the incredible On the Brain
peanut butter and raspberry ale (just trust us on
that one).
After Choice Bros we headed to one of the more
eye-catching of Wellington’s craft beer purveyors
Whistling Sisters. Nestled on the corner of the
wonderfully typical Kiwi named Ghunzee Street
and Taranaki Street, the bar is quite hard to
miss with large posters and branding occupying
billboards on the outer walls. Inside you’ll find a
very comfortable and welcoming venue that has
definitely placed huge emphasis on experience as
well as its brews. It is also a very good venue for
food, with a large kitchen hidden away behind
the mash tuns and fermentation tanks – while we
sampled the delights there was a steady flow of
diners from all walks of life.
FORTUNATE FINDS
We managed to squeeze in a couple of other visits
during our stay in Wellington (on the next day we
might add, our livers are not made of stone). First
up was Fork and Brewer, the bar and restaurant
of Fork Brew Corp. Blink and you might miss this
one as it is basically just a doorway, but it opens
onto a stairway to craft beer heaven. This brewer
has a slightly different business model to most –
it is the production arm of the Fork and Brewer
ale house and in its own words brews ‘outside,
inside and through the box’. A lot of its business
is catering for events and hospitality, giving more
mainstream mass events the chance to have decent
beer available to drink. There was only one choice
of beer for us at this place and that was Hyperlocal,
its New Zealand pale ale that is packed with
Riwaka and Nelson Sauvin hops.