Demand for Brew School beer
OTAGO Brew School beer was popular over ChristmasNew Year — so much so that a lecturer and a couple of students came back to make more.
When the Otago Polytechnic’s brewing course in Bannockburn ended in December the beer remaining in the tanks went on sale in bottles at the office in Cromwell and in kegs at some bars.
Nearly 2000 litres were sold in a month.
To meet demand, two students came back to make 1200 litres of mainly lager, then a lecturer and one of them made 600 litres of pale ale.
This year’s course, which starts on February 17, will have 12 students compared with four at the 2019 inaugural course. Two of last year’s graduates are setting up family breweries — one in Auckland and one in India.
Beer at festivals
The annual Waitangi weekend Central Otago craft beer festival is at Pioneer Park in Alexandra from 1pm until 8pm on
Saturday, February 8. Local breweries include Manuherekia (Alexandra), Seahorse (Cromwell) Wanaka Beerworks, Rhyme and Reason, Ground Up (Wanaka), Altitude (Queenstown) and Catlins with Double Vision from Wellington and Renaissance from Blenheim.
Craft beer will also feature at the Tuki music festival at Rippon vineyard on the same day. Rhyme and Reason, Wanaka Beerworks and Ground Up will be there as well with B. Effect (Wanaka) and New New (Dunedin).
Top bartender
Sarah Ewing, bartender at the Thomas Green in Gore, has won Heineken’s bartender of the world competition in Amsterdam.
She was one of 10 finalists from around the world after being judged New Zealand’s best at pouring the brew from a tap: the size of the head is important and the way a beer is poured into the glass can affect its flavour.
Rice and corn
The previous column mentioned wheat beers which have some wheat in them with the traditional barley, but rice and corn also go into a lot of the world’s beers, especially in North America and Asia.
The giant American breweries such as Budweiser, Coors and Millers use either rice or corn syrup, mainly because it is cheaper than barley: corn syrup produces more alcohol and rice is higher in starch — from which sugars are converted into alcohol. But both produce less aroma and flavour than barley and the dextrose in corn syrup produces a watery consistency compared with the aromas,
Mexico’s Corona is made from barley, but also relies on corn syrup. A new version, Ligera (meaning “light” or “thin” in Spanish and pronounced “leehereah”) has arrived. It is 3.2% compared with the standard 4.5% Corona Extra.
Like any beer in clear glass, it contains hop extract because ultraviolet light reacts with the oils of dried hops to produce an off odour.
Extra is about $30 a dozen.
The new one is $32, which is strange because its lower alcohol costs about $2 a dozen in alcohol tax and GST on the tax. Corona comes in 355ml bottles, however, which nearly equals 13 standard 330ml bottles.