Drain your glasses, beer's getting sassy

By SARAH CATHERALL

Angela Morgan sniffs her glass of beer and says: "It has a lot of personality. It's as though you're sticking your head in a hop sack."

The "sassy red" boutique beer made at Lion Breweries' Wellington brewery, Shed 22, tastes like a typical bitter.

But Miss Morgan, a trainee brewer who helped to make this brew, says it has a nose reminiscent of spicy ripe stone fruits - like a gewrtztraminer wine.

What on earth has happened to beer?

When the country's largest brewer sends beers out with tasting notes and recommends beer and food matches, you know that something is brewing.

Beer tasting notes read more like an exotic dish - craft beers on tap at Shed 22 contain ingredients such as orange, citrus and coriander, rosemary and yarrow.

This weekend, Wellington hosts a special event to celebrate the country's increasingly sophisticated beer industry. Judges will sip 150 specialty beers from New Zealand and around the world.

The BrewNZ festival comes as the country's micro-brewing industry is tipsy with delight, with about 55 boutique and corporate breweries producing a range of craft beers.

The two beer giants, Lion Breweries and DB, who make about 90 per cent of the amber fluid in the country, say their craft and premium beer sales are bubbling, with more people drinking Heineken, Stella Artois, Monteiths and Macs.

Lion Breweries has just re-released four of its Macs beers, dubbed the "flavoursome foursome", after tinkering with the recipes.

The shift from mainstream beers to boutique and premium styles comes when overall beer consumption has dropped in the past decade, from 355 million litres in 1994 to 313 million last year.

Chris O'Leary, of the award-winning Limburg Brewing Company in Hastings, says premium and craft beers are saving the market, with premium-beer consumption growing to about 18 per cent of the total.

He credits small micro-brewers such as himself with helping the beer barons to sell more product.

"The big guys are chasing us," he says. "People may be drinking less but they're drinking beers of a better quality."

Lion Breweries managing director Julian Davidson agrees.

"There's an absolute truth in that. Ten years ago, we were making only one to three styles of beer [in New Zealand] but now 26 to 30 are being brewed.

"Micro-brewers have shown us the way and consumers are showing us the way, too."

He says the beer industry is where the wine industry was "about 10 to 20 years ago", when wine was mainly sold in casks.

"There has since been a huge shift into high-value wines and boutique brands.

"The trend around the world in most western countries is that beer markets are flat but what is happening is that beers are shifting to premium styles.

"We are seeing that growth here."

John Duncan, a fifth-generation brewer in Nelson who runs the country's only true organic operation, Duncan's Founders Brewery, says New Zealanders now have more beers to choose from than local wine varieties. New Zealand also has one of the highest number of breweries per head of population.

"People are travelling and they're developing a taste for interesting beers," he says

Mr Duncan, who set up his brewery in 1999, says history repeats itself.

"Around 30 years ago, every small town had a brewery and they were taken over by the big breweries and they closed down.

"Now, Nelson has five breweries here, which is more per head of population than any other centre."

Nicky Stewart, chief executive of the Beer, Wine and Spirits Council, confirms the shift to sophisticated beer drinking and tasting.

"It wasn't that long ago that we had booze barns that had to have 450 carparks to get a licence.

"Those days have gone. With themed restaurants and Irish bars and that sort of thing, it's more of an event to go out and drink beer now."

Kerry Tyack, author of The Beer Book and director of the third BrewNZ festival, says mainstream beers continue to appeal to ardent drinkers, but the emphasis is now on variety.

New Zealand beer could be as high-profile overseas as our award-winning wines, he says.

"To a degree that's already happening - we've been successful in international awards. But the problem is that we make so little in international terms and we're still not a major player in the international market."

Angela Morgan and brewing colleagues will release Shed 22's festive brew 6XB this weekend - "a celebration of hops; a special limited edition".

It is described as a voluptuous beer with toasted malt characters that compliment the nose and hint of spearmint, "achieved by an innovative blend of German Tettnang tettnanger hops and New Zealand Fuggles".

It makes you want to hop along to the beer festival to try it.