Words on Wednesday: Beervana

On Saturday afternoon, we headed over to Beervana. Now in its 21st year, Beervana started as the New Zealand Beer, Wine and Spirits Council’s NZ Beer Expo in 2001 with events all over Wellington celebrating the growing craft beer industry. Beervana became part of the trust that run Wellington on a Plate in 2015, hence the dates are now in the middle of that festival. This year there were over 70 breweries, mostly from New Zealand but also Australia and elsewhere.

My first beer was from Eddyline, and was an American Pale Ale, a nice refreshing start. Opposite that stall was Garage Project, perhaps Wellington’s best know local brewery who always have a large stand showcasing new (and often unusual) beers.

To be honest, I didn’t keep note of everything I tasted, but here is Karl, glass in hand and me with a peanut slab porter from Fortune Favours. Oh and this is a peanut slab ie chocolate with peanuts.

It is, of course, impossible to try either all the beers or even from each stall, but here are some others: Panhead from Upper Hutt, Heyday (great to see the black cats!) from Wellington and Crimson Badger Brewing (complete with a stuffed possum if you look carefully) from Queenstown.

Of course, it is important to eat, and this year we ate focaccia bacon butties which came with a good barbeque style sauce from Dusted and Delicious’ Smoko Station, and of course oysters from Mahurangi Oysters. For those who don’t know. the word ‘smoko’ comes from stopping work to have a cigarette, cup of tea…or a bacon sandwich….

Every year I try a sour beer and every year I regret it and this year was no exception – just not to my taste. I enjoyed a few IPAs and APAs and couple of nice porters, not something that I drink outside of Beervana. I didn’t taste any cider this time, nor try anything from the meaderies. Below are some more stalls: you can see they all aim to be eye catching in some way: Urbanaut based in Auckland, Boneface Brewing from Upper Hutt, and Wellington locals Fortune Favours.

So that was Beervana 2022 – see you next year!

Thistles and Kiwis is a Wellington, New Zealand based blog written by Barbara, who likes cats, summer, good food and pretends to garden.

You can find Thistles and Kiwis on Facebook, and also on Instagram @thistlesandkiwis.  As for Twitter….am totally inactive these days.  If you want to get in touch, email me on thistlesandkiwis@gmail.com