Mountie's home brew delights Beervana beer and cider festival judges

Beervana festival home brewing silver medalist Paul Shepherd and the brewing utensils at the heart of his satisfying hobby. Photo/John Borren

The traditional Kiwi OE to Britain had a silver medal winning spin-off for Mount Maunganui home brewer Paul Shepherd last weekend.

His recipe based on a traditional malty English brown ale impressed the judges at Wellington's hugely successful Beervana beer and cider festival.

"I was really happy to make the top eight - anything past that was a bonus."

It was the culmination of eight years painstakingly producing his own brews, sparked by the absence in New Zealand of affordable English-style brown ales that he had developed a big taste for in the UK.

The entry into the home brew section of Beervana, a team competition, was initiated by Hose Supplies NZ general manager Blair Williams who paid for the ingredients and labels for the brew named Hose Brew Crew.

Mr Shepherd, who worked in the company's Hull Rd national head office, had already impressed his boss with his beer-making skills after producing two kegs for the office Christmas party.

Apart from winning a gold medal and a couple of bronzes in an Auckland home brewing competition four years ago, he had never bothered much with contests until Mr Williams thought it would be good idea to enter Beervana.

The enormously successful Wellington festival sold out three of its four sessions last weekend and attracted 14,500 patrons. Hose Supplies paid for Mr Shepherd and three workmates to attend the festival.

Coming runnerup to a Hawke's Bay entry, Baby Named Brewce, vindicated his dedication to a hobby that shifted eight years ago from using tins of brewing extract to doing the whole process himself.

It was a miniature version of a commercial brewery, starting with cracking the grains of malted barley and ending with rapid cooling using a coil before the brewing barrel spent 20 days in a converted temperature-controlled refrigerator. After that it was kegged.

Mr Shepherd produced 20 litres per batch, or the equivalent of five dozen stubbies. Depending on the style of beer, it cost him 50c to 60c a bottle, with the biggest cost imposed by the current worldwide shortage of hops.

"I make everything, but my favourite is English-style brown beer."

Looking back on his brewing efforts over the past eight years, Mr Shepherd reckons that now he would not even drink the first brew he put down using the miniature commercial process.

"It's been all about constant improvements and tweaking."

The only person quietly confident about Hose Brew Crew's superior qualities was a workmate with an educated palate who sampled the brew before it was dispatched to Wellington, telling Mr Shepherd: "You will definitely come somewhere with this."

He has proper beer dispensing taps set up in the Mount home that he shared with partner Louise and son Campbell.

"There is always someone coming round for a beer."