Beer O'Clock: Moa. Not endangered at all.

The sun's past the yard-arm, what little of it can be seen, and there's a great few hours of footy in store. Time to think about what we'll be watching the footy with. This week's Beer O'Clock advice comes from Real Beer's Neil Miller:

Any number of beers around the world claim to be unique.

It is a big boast and many brews simply fail to live up to it. They may very well be different, but that is not the same as being unique.

Sometimes, the beer are actually unique but for a good reason. For example, perhaps no one else thought popcorn and tomato sauce flavored lager was a good idea. Those people would be right of course.

Occasionally though, something strides through the palatial door of my secret overground worldwide headquarters that is both unique and good.

One such thing is Moa.

Given the high calibre of readers attracted by the philosophical and architectural musings of Not PC [a group that clearly excludes the thin-skinned the overly sensitive, and those "too busy to think about what people might think of their image" - Ed.], I have to add the caveats that Moa is, to my knowledge, a unique style in New Zealand.

Moa appears in a classy 750ml champagne bottle complete with wire cage and cork.

The champagne allusions don’t end there. The brewing process borrows techniques from the classical “methode champenoise” which the brewer Josh Scott picked up while learning wine making in France.

This includes freezing the contents and disgorging a plug of sediment. The beer is also re-fermented in the bottle and is still very much alive when you pour it.

An attractive pale straw in colour, it positively bursts with the smallest bubbles I have seen in a beer. These push up into a bright white head which will usually sustain right to the bottom of the glass.

Slightly fruity and spicy on the nose, the beer is spritzy in the mouth with brushes of citrus fruit and a gentle cleansing finish.

A further advantage is that you can usually drink it in BYO Bottled Wine only eateries.

Strong sales indicate this Moa is not an endangered species.

LINKS: Real Beer
Moa Beer

TAGS: Beer_&_Elsewhere