Beervana: Surprises, Regrets, and Victories

Beervana in bullet points – lazy but effective.

Surprises:

• I found a cider I liked: Zeffer Slack Ma Girdle. West Coast’s Dave Kurth (owner of the coolest jumper on BOTH Beervana days) insisted that I try his and it was freaking delicious. So much so that I may considering doing the unthinkable and buy some cider.
• Harrington’s taking out Champion Brewery – apparently I’ve been underrating Harrington’s and I think I’ll have to give them another go. Also, Wigram taking out two trophies – I’m ashamed to say I’ve never tried any of their beers, something else I’ll have to remedy.
• I went the entire weekend without getting a hangover. True story.

Regrets:

• Not taking a photo of either of Dave’s jumpers. Luckily someone else (Jayne Lewis) did. The other one was just as cool.
• Wearing girl shoes on Saturday. Four blisters later and I had to give up a free iStout to go home and put my feet up. Bad, silly, girl shoes.
• All the people I didn’t get to talk to! I’m not saying I was trapped talking to uninteresting people (I certainly wasn’t!), but more that there is simply not enough time to catch up with everyone – there’s simply too many interesting beer people and not enough Beervana!

Victories:

• Feral Watermelon Warhead – this definitely lived up to the hype it created at GABS. So  refreshing, so unusual, and the perfect slow-it-down-a-bit beer.
• The Festive Brews – namely Three Boys Coconut-Milk Stout, West Coast Sour Berry Black and Liberty’s Rennals Towards Muriwai (although I prefer its alternative name, ‘Ladies Beer’). All of these had both great bodies and interesting flavours that left me wanting more. I really hope I can get more of all three up here in Auckland.
• The food at LBQ. Or the Hop Garden. Or at Beervana itself. Seriously, if I lived in Wellington I’d be even curvier than I am now. Recommendations: The Four-Wheel Drive Pizza at LBQ (blue cheese and steak), the chocolate sour cherry tart at Hop Garden (especially with Invercargill Brewing’s Pitch Black Boysenberry), and the dumplings from Beervana (I think they were from Dumpling House and are available outside of Beervana).
• BEERVANA! Once again it was a massive success and big three cheers  to David Cryer, his team and all the volunteers!