Beer O'Clock: A fine spring beer, Wanaka Brewski

Your weekend beer recommendation comes from Stu at Real Beer.

As spring continues to tease me with lovely sunny mornings and then torment me with day after day of strong nor’westers, I found myself thinking about perfect spring beers. In spring I’m looking for a beer that goes down just as well at a beachside barbeque as it does after a hard day skiing (not that I’ve ever been skiing).

My mind wandered through a plethora of fantastic kiwi beers and an almost as impressive list of quality imports -- stopping only for the briefest of moments to ponder how a pantomime donkey managed to sneak into the thought process -- before settling on a beer from Wanaka, a place where you might just be lucky enough to ski in the morning and have a beachside barbeque in the evening.

Wanaka Brewski was one of my great surprises of 2005. I’d seen it in bottle stores and supermarkets all over the country but never managed to get around to picking it up. Perhaps the name put me off? It’s more likely that sometimes, and thankfully often in the bottle stores I shop in, there is simply too much to choose from. I have, however, been picking it up here in there ever since my first sample.

Pouring a lambent pale gold, almost green-hued, it throws off a soft white foam that contains a divinely fresh aroma of sweet malt, cut grass and a hint of fruit. In the mouth there is a lot going on - the sweet malt is very juicy and delivers a delightful hop flavour that’s full of grassy, tropical fruit and spicy notes. The crisp hop bitterness cuts through the malt, leaving the juicy fruit notes to linger on the palate.

As delicate as great sauvignon blanc, yet far more quenching, the Brewski is a superbly-balanced kiwi Pilsner that lovers of Emerson’s Pilsner, Mac’s Reserve and Mac’s Wicked Blonde will appreciate.

The folk at Ratebeer agree. Beer lovers from Sweden, Denmark, Canada, USA and the Czech Republic (the home of Pilsner) are lining up to declare this as a world-class drop. Join up to Ratebeer and let the brewer know what you think, it’s only a couple of good ratings away from taking a place in the top 10 Bohemian Pilsners on the site.

It certainly deserves to be.

Slainte mhath
Stu

LINKS: Wanaka Beerworks -
Ratebeer (don’t just take Stu's word for it)
Society of Beer Advocates

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