lackbook bottoms up DB and Lion. It was then up to an ex-All Black, Terry McCashin to break the deadlock, launching his McCashin’s Brewery in 1981. So well did it do that, as with Matilda Bay in Australia, it was snapped up by one of the big boys, Lion, in 1999. Nonetheless, the trend was set and followed with gusto. Emerson’s emerged in the early 1990s, and was also bought by Lion, albeit more than a decade later in 2012. There can be no doubt that Kiwi tastebuds are tingling for good beer again. “New Zealand is bit more individualistic with its beers,” explains beer writer Mark Chipperfield. “They go out on a limb; it’s like the whole ethos of New Zealand – this little guy on the end of the world still wanting to mix it with the big guys, and that’s what they brought to brewing. Beervana is phenomenal proof of that. It’s based on a generation who were brought up on big global brands and are questioning it through food and drink.” The likes of the Yeastie Boys, 8 Wired, Sprig and Fern, Epic and Moa are making the kind of beers that should make their Aussie neighbours green with envy – that is, if they weren’t doing such a damn fine job themselves. Back in Oz, that rivalry certainly spurs on the beer makers. For example, among the newcomers to the Australian scene are a Russian imperial stout called Boris, from Feral, and a dessert beer with more than a hint of caramel called Magic Pudding, courtesy of 2 Brothers. Not that you even have to own a microbrewery to get involved in the scene: outfits such as Doctor’s Orders simply come up with the recipes and then borrow someone else’s facilities to make them – hence the increasingly popular epithet “cuckoo brewers”. With all this experimentation going on, it’s only a matter of time before the new formula for the Aussie beer is stumbled upon. Smith reckons it’s already been found. “Something like Pacific Ale has a real Australian feel to it,” he says. “It’s made with Australian hops, so there are these passion fruit, tropical characters. It’s from Byron Bay and it just feels like what you would want to drink when it’s 35 degrees and you’re on a beach in Byron! The old Australian would be Coopers, but the new ones tend to go for big, fruity aromatics – beer here is sunny and summery.” As good as they are, those summery flavours are yet to reach a lot of taste buds, with most estimates putting the independent craft beer market share at just one or two per cent, a figure that doubles when you add in the likes of Little Creatures and Coopers, and one matched in New Zealand, too. And while that may be a comparatively small drop in the beer ocean, at least it’s a good-tasting one. Coffee & Fig by Auckland brewer Epic boasts ingredients ranging from Philippine toasted coconut and Ethiopian coffee beans to caramelised Turkish figs spectacular suds As the microbrewery scene in New Zealand and Australia burgeons, so too does its eclectic range of tastes and quirky, offbeat marketing schemes, like Feral’s Boris, a jetblack Russian imperial stout with chocolate barley “imported from the free world” or the Yeastie Boys’ awardwinning Pot Kettle Black, a black IPA that puts a spin on an old adage to convey the brew’s contradiction in style. Say the brewers: it’s “fresh and hoppy, yet dark and rich”. courtesy of the breweries 44 departures-international.com
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