For the fourth year, the Greater Wellington Brewday has brought our regions finest craft breweries in to one paddock in sunny Martinborough to celebrate wheat, hops and malt.It's the second year I've helped out with what many consider to be the best craft beer festival in the country. My role was focused around the seminar tent, making sure everyone was lined up to share knowledge and to run a team of volunteers to make sure the punters were happy.
We had this great idea to do a beer and cheese matching seminar and sell tickets to it. Paul from C'est Cheese in Featherston and beer writer Neil Miller ran a hilarious 45 minute session where five cheeses were sampled with 5 craft beers.Instead of just matching one beer with one cheese, you got to sample each beer with each of the five cheeses and talk about which ones you liked best and why.
I'm not sure if there were any losers at this seminar - I mean, cheese + beer = WINNING!
For the second year, Brewday hosted a home brewers competition, proudly sponsored by The Occasional Brewer.
Neil Miller, Kelly Ryan and Ellory The Great were the judges, sampling half a dozen beers that had been finalised in to the Gold or Silver medal categories, and chose the winner.
This home brew competition is a great opportunity to get feedback from the industry greats - they're more than happy to share their knowledge and get everyone enjoying better beer. If you're on the fence about entering any home brew competition, just do it!
Crocky came along to share wisdom about how to brew cold nitro coffee - two times stronger than an espresso and a wonderful cool afternoon pick-me-up.
It pours exactly like a Guinness, and settles in to a velvety treat.
And who wouldn't like the smile it's served with?!
Has got to be the camaraderie among every single person in that paddock. The organisers, the bands, the volunteers, brewers, foodies, the attendees, everyone all muck in and get on with their day with smiles all round.
The Greater Wellington Brewday has got to be (in my opinion) NZ's best craft beer festival, and I look forward to seeing you there next year!
