Champion homebrewers release commercial brew
Acouple of Dunedin blokes who won the homebrewing championship at the 2016 Dunedin Craft Beer and Food Festival have produced their first commercial brew.
Workmates Saul Ross and John Creighton discovered a shared love of homebrewing and have now set up One Six Five Brewing (the street number where they made their pilot brews) and have a milk stout (5.2%) in several Dunedin outlets.
It is has hint of sweetness, chocolate and coffee.
They won with it at the annual festival (which is on again on November 19) and, as part of the prize, it was brewed for them by Emerson’s for serving at last year’s event, where they won the fruit beer category with an IPA.
Their stout was last month awarded a bronze medal at the Brewers Guild awards. It is made for them in Christchurch by Beer Baroness. The 500ml bottles are, so far, in Fresh Choice supermarkets and Henry’s in Dunedin.
They plan other styles and hope to get their beer into more bars and outlets.
Cheaper by the dozen
The price of beer rose by more than 4% in the year ended June 30, according to Statistics New Zealand. That is about $1 extra for a dozen 330ml bottles or cans.
Overall, the price of a 12pack rose by 11% between 2007 and 2016, and the latest rise is the biggest annual increase since 2012.
Buying by the dozen (between $25 and $26 for 5% brews) is the most economic way. Smaller packs, which the liquor trade considers are for trial or impulse buyers, are the most expensive: fourpacks work out at the equivalent of $42$60 a dozen, sixpacks $28$46.
Most of the small craft breweries cannot compete with the highvolume economy of scale of the big breweries. They instead rely on single bottles to sell their relatively small production. Single bottles, though, are another way of overpaying: even 750ml bottles of the likes of Steinlager and Heineken work out at more than $30 a dozen of 330ml equivalents.
Dunedin brewery Emerson’s has nine packs in cans (United States brewers Miller and Coors have nine packs, too) for $23, which works out at more than $30 a dozen, but far cheaper than buying them in the brewery’s 500ml bottles ($7.50 each), which is the equivalent of $45 for a dozen of 330ml.
Corona has a 10pack for $28.50 (equal to $34 for a dozen).
Generally, only the lowerstrength cheaper stuff comes out in 15 or 18 packs. The doublesized 24packs — popular in Australia — do not usually offer much saving. There are 30packs overseas, but I have not spotted any locally. The biggest was a 99pack by a Texas brewery as a shortrun promotion in 2014.