Hoppopota-monster

In our endless task to brew better beer, we decided to go BIG with our ninth batch of home brew. Our original attempts at an IIPA fell woefully short of the style and it was time to remedy that. This beer, Hoppopotamus, was to be one of our entries for the National Home Brew...

Beer Cocktail Recipe – Baltimore Zoo

Baltimore Zoo is a beer cocktail recipe that I discovered in a cocktail book that I had been sitting on for a few years. Beer writer Neil Miller asked the twitter verse if they had any good beer cocktails and I thought I could offer this up. It certainly made for some great Christmas...

Countdown to Beervana almost over

The weekend of Beervana is almost upon us, and I can see from the Twittersphere that beer enthusiasts and afficionados are already descending on the Craft Beer Capital. Our brew team are all headed down to partake in the shenanigans with our varied strategies to tackle the multitude of beers on offer. With 271...

Drink Better Beer

In a calculated move to assist the craft beer movement amongst my mates, I hosted a beer tasting last weekend. Growing up with these boys and girls, they’ve always been a pretty hardy lot when it comes to alcohol retention and big beer consumers (though I refuse to divulge what beer in particular is...

OUTBREAK!!

This is a public service announcement. There has been reports of multiple zombie sightings across the city. And I’m not talking bath salts incidents, these are bonafide Epic Hop Zombies. Reports have been coming in from Brew on Quay, Liquorland Newmarket, New World Vic Park, beerstore.co.nz even stretching as far as New World Thorndon....

Humble beer-ginnings

After some deliberation all of us boys have come together on a name and a direction. Here I tell the story of five mates trying to get their sh*t together to make better beer. All our film work; shooting, editing and post is done by Carl Budden. If you’re looking for some quality production...

Cheese and…. beer. Who knew?

Last week I was fortunate enough to get my hands on tickets to a beer and cheese matching night at Hallertau put on in collaboration with Kapiti. What was even more fortunate was that I also managed to get myself a sober driver for the evening. When we turned up I was a little...

Let’s go to The Hop, ooh baby

Saturday 21st of April, I awoke with the trembling excitement of a well-behaved child on Christmas morning. From midday, me and the lads would be out sampling tasty brews and rubbing noses with beer geeks from near and afar. In case you missed the memo; the latest addition to Auckland’s burgeoning craft beer scene...

Fill your boots… or maybe just your bottles

The twitter network works! Last Thursday I found out on twitter that the latest addition to Auckland’s craft beer scene had finally opened. The place I’m talking about is Hopscotch Beer Company. Hopscotch has recently obtained their license to sell alcohol and are now selling a great range of beer on fill-your-own taps. I...