Transatlanticism

Transatlanticism n. The state of being in a long-distance relationship with another person over the Atlantic Ocean, for example, with one participant living in the United States and the other living in the United Kingdom, along with the emotions that accompany such a state, such as the desire of physical intimacy, melancholy and hope. Coined from the song of the same name by Death Cab for Cutie (source: Urban Dictionary).

I've no idea if David Bishop (@broadfordbrewer) named this beer based on the above, or if perhaps the meaning was derived from the marrying together of the two styles (London Porter and US IPA) it draws from. What I do know is that the beer was brewed specifically for a competition run by Rooster's Brewery in Knaresborough, North Yorkshire for Leeds home brewers. As I've acknowledged in previous posts, David has been hugely supportive of my own first steps into home brewing, and for me is the very definition of the friendliness that underpins the UK scene. As he explains in his post about it, "the beer is a hop forward porter, meaning that in the first instance I aimed to brew a Black IPA, made it too roasty (possibly) and viola!". 

To those who've tried some of David's brews, it will come as no surprise that the beer wowed the judges and won the competition. The judges noted that "the beer screamed HOPS at you from the glass. Bursting with juicy fruit aromas amidst a touch of coffee, backed up by a big hit of roasty bitterness". David's prize was to have the beer brewed commercially in collaboration with Roosters, who made it clear on the brew day that they wanted the scaled up version to closely match the flavours and aromas of the original brew. Fast forward a few weeks, and the commercial version of this beer hit the shelves of Beer Ritz in Leeds, where a whole case was sold in about 2 hours! Now, having been lucky enough to sample a few of David's brews in the past and having enjoyed everything I'd tried from the Rooster's brewery, this was something I had to get my grubby mitts on.

I placed an order (If you're quick, you can still grab some from their mail-order site here) and waited for it to arrive. I didn't have to wait long. The service from Beer Ritz was excellent as always and the bottle arrived at my door some 19 hours after ordering - impressive!

The beer pours an opaque black colour, although if you hold it up to the light, the edges turn a transparent dark golden brown. It had a thin magnolia coloured head that subsided quickly. The initial slow pour produced no head, so I switched to a more vigorous pour towards the top of the glass.  Holding the glass up for a sniff, I first picked up the pine and citrus (especially orange) notes produced by the Centennial and Cascade dry hopping, but swirling and sniffing more I was able to pick up a roasty smoky quality beneath the hops, with a distant hint of caramel. As a huge fan of the Black IPA style, it smells delicious. 

In terms of initial mouth feel, there was very little carbonation to speak of. If you hold the beer on your tongue, you get a subtle fizz that soon subsides. There's plenty of body to underpin the flavours, which start out with hints of roasted coffee before subsiding into a lovely fruity hop bitterness. The orange I picked up in the aroma carried through to the middle of the beer. I can see why this is described as a hop-forward Porter. It certainly had plenty of dark roasty flavour to support the description, but this is first and foremost a hoppy beer and the finish has the perfect amount of hop bitterness for me.

All told, I think this is a very good beer (it certainly disappeared quickly, despite being a large 750ml bottle!) but I feel more carbonation would make it a great beer. It's possible that the lack of carbonation may have been specific to this bottle. The good news is I ordered two, so watch this space!

Adnams - Social Media and Sole Star

Adnams is a brewery with a lot of history. However they are a brewery that has also shown a desire to move with the times, be that through the beer they're brewing, their branding, or how they engage with their customers. They produce a range of traditional ales, interspersed with some interesting, modern twists and the occasional special release. Since being acquired by the Adnams family in 1872, they've remained independent and focused on retaining their links to their Southwold, Suffolk home, although their beers are available nationwide these days.

Over the past few years, I've enjoyed a good number of their beers, with the delicious Ghost Ship on cask (first sampled in a Wetherspoons in a West London business park of all places) being a particular favourite. Fittingly, it's a recipe based on one from Adnams' archives with Citra and other American hops providing a modern twist. This was originally a seasonal beer intended to available in the Summer months. However, the response of the drinking public saw it become a permanent fixture and made available in both bottle and more recently canned form. 

Its permanent launch in May of this year was marked with an innovative social media campaign, #showmetheghostship, which had a huge online response. Adnams worked with Spring Agency (case study here) to come up with the content, which climaxed in a ghost ship being projected onto the side of the brewery at a special launch event. Adnams (@Adnams) gained over 1000 twitter followers during the campaign, which can be seen in the graph below:

@adnams twitter follower over time,  graph courtesy of wildfire

Adnams, in my view, have a fantastic online and social media presence and are one of the most engaging of the breweries I follow across all platforms. As an example, a couple of years ago, a friend mentioned in a tweet that he was looking forward to visiting the brewery on his birthday. Their marketing team saw this tweet and made him feel special on the day, sending him away with a few beers to celebrate. That kind of engagement is priceless in terms of driving loyalty and he still talks and tweets about them. Sarah Howe (@sl_howe), who tweets for Adnams, attended the European Beer Blogger's Conference this year (coincidentally, also in May) to present the newly launched Ghost Ship as part of the speed tasting session and it was interesting talking to her about the importance they attach to how they engage with customers on social platforms.

Anyway, on to the beer in hand! With increasingly high beer duty being a hot topic at the moment, the recent halving in duty for beers below 2.8% ABV has provided a rare break in the storm. The fact it was offset by a huge increase in duty for high strength beers is not lost on me, but the cut, most likely made to favour supermarkets and other mass producers, has provided an incentive for brewers to innovate in arguably the most technically challenging of categories - flavourful low strength beer. With no significant malt base to underpin them, low strength beers can be watery and can also struggle to maintain mouthfeel, head and any lasting flavour on the palate. A guardian blog post discussed some of the products released in light of this drop in duty, and it doesn't make good reading. 

Adnams' effort, Sole Star, is described in their tasting notes as a 'full-flavoured and great tasting pale amber beer, with a light floral/citrus aroma, gentle caramel notes and a good level of bitterness'. It comes in at 2.7%, so qualifies for the lower duty rate, enabling Adnams to sell it online at a very reasonable £10.99 for 8 bottles.

So, what did I think of it? The beer pours a very clear amber/copper colour with a small white head. The floral/citra aroma is certainly there amongst some caramel notes from the malts, which also carries through to the initial flavour. It has a nice bitterness, which is well balanced and not overpowering, but it fades fairly fast, which is to be expected given the thin body. Here's a wordle word cloud pulling together the collective view of those who've reviewed the beer on ratebeer:

The bottle I sampled was decent enough, and my glass emptied quickly and left me wanting another, but in all honesty this is not probably a beer I'd drink lots of. If you go up another percentage point, you'll pay more for the pleasure given the standard rate of duty, but can enjoy much more flavour in beers such as Brewdog's Dead Pony Club, Redemption's Trinity and Kernel's Table Beer in what I'd still consider the sessionable 3.x% ABV bracket. I applaud Adnams and other breweries who've released products in the lower duty bracket but hope and pray that the government increases the lower duty threshold an extra ABV percentage point (or even half a point!) in future. Flavourful beer within this lower duty rate category remains something of a holy grail.

Thanks to Adnams for sending the bottle through for sampling.

Update on home brewing exploits

After the relative success of my first two adventures in all grain brewing, I've really caught the bug. The idea of making tasty beer at home at a reasonable cost is one thing, but having my eyes opened to the infinite possibilities accessible through four simple ingredients is a different thing altogether. Brewing has, of course, been around for thousands of years and yet styles continue to evolve with commercial brewers always willing to push boundaries in search of The Next Big Thing.

As a home brewer, I started out brewing stuff in styles I like drinking. AG#1 was a shameless clone of Green Flash's excellent West Coast IPA. I like to think of it as a sincere form of flattery of what I consider to be absolutely the best IPA coming out of San Diego. Best drunk fresh, of course, but more on that later. The support I received before, during and after that first brew really pushed me on to brew more. The brew itself wasn't great. It was decent, and I'm still drinking it, but I know I can do better. Like most things in life, there's always room to improve. That brew taught me that dry hopping doesn't just involve sprinkling hops on top of a fermenter and hoping for the best - you need to get the little bleeders actually suspended in the beer for good results and that's not as easy as it sounds.

The second brew, Nelson Saison, was my contribution to SupSaison, a celebration of the style hosted by top beer blogger Phil Hardy. I was pretty pleased with how it turned out. The wonderful Nelson Sauvin hop turned out to be a good bedfellow for Wyeast's 3711 French Saison strain, their aromas and flavours sitting together very nicely in the glass. I drunk about half of it and gave the other half away and people seemed to like it, which was very rewarding for me. I can understand why some brewers read their reviews on ratebeer and similar sites, especially if that's their only window for feedback, but in my view you can't beat face to face (or tweet to tweet) personal feedback to learn how to improve and know what people really think. I've certainly learned the most from talking to other home brewers and commercial brewers, and they're a very supportive bunch.

The first two brews were pretty big (8% and 7% ABV respectively) so for my third, I wanted to try something a bit more sensible. Here's the recipe:

The brew day was a bit of a disaster. Actually there were two brew days. The first involved me flooding my kitchen and the second saw the hose attaching the false bottom of my mash tun to the tap fall off during the mash (twice). I fell out of love with the brew from the outset and, convinced it was spoiled, left it far too long in secondary fermentation. My second lesson in dry hopping is that you can't leave a beer on hops for weeks on end. It'll end up smelling like vegetables. In a miracle of brewing science, the beer itself isn't too bad. Yes, it smells a bit odd (that may settle down) but tastes pretty nice. A lovely pale colour, decent body and rasping but not overwhelming bitterness. I will revisit this recipe and try not to mess it up next time!

My fourth brew was a revisit of Nelson Saison but with a pomegranate twist. I had intended to brew a beetroot Saison, but couldn't get the juice I wanted to go along with the veg itself. Instead, I opted to brew something similar to my first Saison but use pure fruit juice to hopefully add some flavour and colour to the beer. The recipe was similar to the first attempt but I substituted Maris Otter for the Pilsner malt and used Nelson in flower rather than pellet form (can't find the latter for love nor money!) and toned the bitterness down a bit. As I write, that's in secondary fermentation which saw me add some more Nelson Sauvin hops for aroma and another bottle of POM brand juice, which handily is chock full of sugar.

My fifth and most recent brew was an Imperial Stout. This is my wife's favourite style and I wanted to brew something for her to enjoy. Here's the recipe:

I'm planning to split the batch and age some on French Oak chips soaked in Maker's Mark bourbon and some on Coffee beans with Vanilla pods. This brew was the first where I'd used a yeast starter, following the excellent instructions David Broadford Brewer Bishop wrote up here after a talk at the Leeds home brew club from the ever helpful Dominic Driscoll of Thornbridge Brewery. The brew day was my smoothest yet but I did lose some gravity points from running off too quickly, so the beer started off at 1.085. Two days in the fermentation is going great guns (pic to the right) so I'm hoping to be able to transfer it this coming weekend, which will also see me bottling the Pomegranate Nelson Saison (it's all go!). 

When I wrote last December (as part of my Golden Pints submission) that the beery thing I'd most like to do in 2012 was to start home brewing, I had no idea how fun and rewarding I'd find it. I've met new people, learned an awful lot about the art and craft of making beer and most importantly, found a new passion to get my teeth in to. This Sunday (November 11th) I'm entering my first home brew competition, organised by London Amateur Brewers, having entered my West Coast IPA and Nelson Saison in their respective categories. I'm really looking forward to getting some judges feedback as well as spending the afternoon chatting to fellow home brewers and I'm sure sampling some wonderful beer. Home brewing is on the rise in the UK and I, for one, am happy to be involved in the vibrant, supportive and sharing community that underpins it.

Weird Beard Brew Co - New Prototypes & Shark Biscuit

I recently caught up with Gregg and Bryan from Weird Beard Brew Co (<- check out their shiny new website) and other than a chance to have a good natter about what they'd been up to since their meet the brewer at The Rake, they kindly provided some new prototypes brews for me to sample.

More on the beers shortly. First of all it was great to hear that they've finally got premises sorted, kit ordered and are days away from finalising their lease as summarised on their blog here. That means they should be brewing before the end of the year which is great news for the thriving London brewing scene. 

Gregg and Bryan have had something of a frustrating time getting things off the ground, having been let down on two previous premises. Back in April, the target was to be brewing from around about now. Given these set backs, that hasn't been possible but they've both working hard on prototypes brews and one of these (Sadako Imperial Stout) scooped a bronze medal at the UK National Homebrew Competition with the oaked version of the same receiving an honorable mention.

A shortage of the 'new world' hops used in some of their original recipes has provided a huge challenge, with some of their intended core range of beers having to be tweaked or replaced with other brews until they can secure the ingredients they desire. The allocation of hops is a source of frustration for many UK craft breweries. With priority being given to established customers, new breweries face a real challenge when working with importers to purchase hops and are often fighting for scraps - a few kilos here or there - or missing out altogether. 

Consistency will be key to their success of course, so securing a regular supply of the ingredients used in their core range is vital. This brings me nicely to the first prototype beer. This was a re-brew of the Sunshine Saison I'd sampled at The Rake. Reading my notes back then ("a nose dominated by the French Saison yeast with a hint of lemon and peppery spice") and comparing with the beer in my glass provided a bit of a flash back to that very wet April afternoon, and not just because the weather was the same. A good sign on the consistency front.

The other two beers were new to me. The first, Holy Hoppin' Hell, is a US style double IPA, weighing in at a hefty 9.3% ABV. The beer poured a deep amber red with an off-white pillowy head. The nose was delicious with oodles of orange, mango, grapefruit being followed by hints of caramel - classic of the style. These aromas were backed up by the taste with some pineapple and bitter grapefruit pith thrown in to the mix. The finish was long and bitter with a nice boozy warmth coming in at the end. 

The second is called Black Perle Stout. This is a milk stout aged on coffee beans, brewed using only the Perle hop and coming in at 4.5% ABV.  This poured jet black with a great looking honeycomb bubble head. The nose was dominated by black coffee. The coffee was the first flavour I got too followed by a pleasant sweetness which provided balance against the bitter finish. This was a solid brew and one that I suspect would really sing when cask conditioned. With the ABV being session friendly, I could see myself downing a few of these.

Weird Beard recently brewed their first commercial beer. This was a collaboration with London Brewing, a microbrewery based at the The Bull in Highgate, and another amateur brewer Daniel Vane, who brews under the pseudonym The Dukes Brewery. The guys blogged about their brew day here (<- check out the sparge arm 'modification'). Dan also provided the art work (below) which looks great. The beer, a 7.4% Aussie-hopped IPA named Shark Biscuit, which rather fittingly is Aussie slang for newbie surfers, launches on Tuesday 9th October at The Bull from 7pm. If you're in town, why not head along. I reckon the beer will pair nicely with The Bull's excellent spicy buffalo wings and intend to test this theory by having my fill of both.  All in the interests of entertaining you, dear readers!

Sophie's Rustic Ale

Photo from google reviews, copyright unknown

Last week I was invited along to the launch of Sophie's Rustic Ale at The Bricklayer's Arms in Putney. This was my first visit to this award-winning pub, tucked away down a side street close to Putney Bridge. On walking in, my first impressions were of a cosy, traditional country pub that had somehow got lost on its way to the countryside and settled on this quiet residential street in South West London. Maybe it was enroute to Berkshire but couldn't escape the clutches of the M4 elevated section. In any case, its horse-shoe bar covered in hand-pulls with a smattering of keg lines was a welcome oasis after skipping past the wine bars and chain pubs on Putney High St. The pub positions itself as "London's Permanent Beer Festival", a free house which takes pride in offering customers an array of choice and beers they might otherwise not find elsewhere. For example, later this month they are hosting a Kent Beer Festival, which offers Londoners a chance to try the beers brewed as part of the Kent Green Hop festival, where Kent's brewers turn their skills to brewing a beer made with freshly picked hops, harvested from the county's local farms.

Art Brew Hip Hop (Green Bullet)

Sophie's Rustic Ale is the result of a collaboration between Dorset's Art Brew and beer writer, journalist and recently qualified beer sommelier Sophie Atherton. Sophie worked with Art Brew's Becky Whinnerah to devise the recipe after they'd decided to brew a beer inspired by the Belgian Saison style. Their challenge was to bring the influence of Dorset's farming history into their interpretation of this traditional Belgian farmhouse style. 

Sophie's research led her to learning that marigolds were grown in the area in Victorian times.  After discussing this with Becky and conducting a few tests to see what flavours they would bring to the mix, the two agreed to incorporate dried marigold flowers into the brew, looking especially to bring the distinctive aroma to the fore. The marigolds were added to a recipe which also includes Maris Otter barley, East Kent Goldings and Challenger hops and Saison yeast (actually a blend of yeasts, as explained on the night). 

Two versions of the beer were presented, fined and unfined. I tried the fined version first. It felt odd being presented with a perfectly clear Saison. The fined version had a sweet floral nose. The taste presented a very dry beer with fruity notes being followed by a hop bitterness and hints of green apples. The dryness was in tune with the Saison style but I couldn't pick out the distinctive fruity and spicy flavours the yeast typically brings to a traditional Saison. The unfined beer for me was much better. The flavour profile I'd associate with a Saison was thrown into the mix with the dryness and floral notes being retained - very enjoyable.

This was the first time I'd tried cask conditioned Saison, in fact the only draught dispense I'd had before was Saison Dupont in keg. Without the fizz of carbonation to lift it, the dryness of both was prominent, which was going to make our challenge for the evening - matching the beer with food - an interesting test for my palate. To that end, our hosts had provided a delicious array of bread and cheese from the South West to sample alongside the beer, curious to hear our views on which best sat alongside the flavours in our glasses.

A delightful spread of West Country treats

The impressive spread above included the following foody delights:

• Cornish Brie and St Anthony's goat's cheese from Cornish County Larder
• English goat's cheese from Dorset's Woolsery Cheese
• Dorset Red, a smoked Cheddar from Ford Farm
• Dorset Blue Vinney from Woodbridge Farm 
• Westcountry Denhay Mature Cheddar
• Jalapeno Jack from Hawkridge in Crediton, Devon
• A bespoke focaccia from the River Cottage Canteen in Axeminster
• Tomatoes on the vine, grapes, bread and last but not least...
• Cherry cake made to Sophie's mum's recipe

The focaccia recipe had been designed by one of River Cottage's chefs specifically to match the flavours in the beer. It was perfectly presented, topped with marigolds and green tomatoes. This was a real treat and provided a great accompaniment to the cheese. As I set about tasting the cheeses alongside the beer, it struck me that this was a delightful way to spend an evening, talking all things beer with like minded folk and comparing notes on what provided the best match. 

After dutifully working my way through sampling everything on offer (well, I do aim to be thorough!) along with a few more halves of the unfined beer, I felt the best match for Sophie's Rustic Ale was the Jalapeno Jack from Hawkridge. As the chilli heat from the peppers started to warm the palate, washing a swig of the ale around the mouth presented a completely different beer and really accentuated the spicy, fruity notes brought by the yeast, lifting the dryness away beautifully. It has to be said the Blue Vinney also worked really well for me too, although I may be biased there as I'm a huge fan of that particular cheese.

All in all, it was a thoroughly enjoyable evening, hosted impeccably by Sophie and Becky and John from Art Brew, with the Bricklayer's Arms providing the perfect venue. Sophie's Rustic Ale will be available in London and in Reading, Berkshire in the coming weeks. I'm not sure where specifically but if you'd like to try it, drop Sophie (@SophWrites) a tweet to find out where to go.

Adventures in all-grain brewing #2

It had been a while since my first brewing adventure (a huge IPA) and I was keen to have a go at a different style. The first brew was reasonably successful to the point I was brave enough to hand some bottles out to fellow home brewers, with positive and encouraging feedback being received along with some great advice on how to overcome some of the problems I'd encountered while brewing it (with special thanks to David Bishop @broadfordbrewer).  I also seized the opportunity more recently to get some under the nose of Evin at Kernel, who provided some stellar advice on yeast pitch volumes and first wort hopping when tackling the double IPA style.

Armed with the experience of my first all-grain brew and a bag full of New Zealand hops from our recent trip, I fired up BeerTools Pro and set about piecing together a recipe, having researched some previous home brew recipes for inspiration. This was to be my contribution to the Saisonathon Phil Hardy (@filrd) over at the excellent Beersay blog had been scheming. 

The plan was to produce a single hop Saison using only Nelson Sauvin hops. I felt the dryness typical of the Saison style would sit nicely alongside the gooseberry and fruity white wine notes that this fabulous hop brings to the mix and aimed to get plenty of them into the kettle, with a focus on late additions for flavour and aroma rather than early bitterness additions.  After some tinkering, I settled on the below:

Nelson Saison Recipe

The malt bill is, I think, fairly typical of a Saison with the bulk coming from Pilsner malt. The hop schedule saw only half an ounce hit the kettle within the first 40 minutes, with a further ounce and a half being added before the final dump of three quarters of an ounce at flame out. I let this last addition sit for a while (having stirred up a whirlpool) to give it plenty of exposure to the wort before cooling it down to pitching temperature and transferring to the FV. The recipe calculator suggests it'll be 50 IBUs, which is outside the style guidelines but not insanely bitter.

The choice of French Saison yeast over the Belgian Dupont strain was driven purely by the temperatures at which it does its work, which perfectly matches that of my fermentation (ahem, dining) room. 

Brew day went fairly smoothly. The OG was slightly lower than the target at 1.058. The yeast got to work quickly but after a week it was sat at 1.020, without much airlock action going on, so I transferred it to a glass carboy to give it a bit more head space and wrapped it in a blanket to encourage it along. This seemed to do the trick and I'm now patiently waiting for this slow-burning yeast to finish off and hopefully take it down to 1.006 or so, which'll put it in the 6% ABV ball park. I was really pleased with the most recent sample I took. The aroma and taste was encouraging and I'm hopeful this'll be ready and tasting good by the time Saisonathon rolls around on Saturday 15th September.

A visit to Moa Brewing Company

I could write a few paragraphs on the story of how this Marlborough, New Zealand based brewery came to be, but I feel they've captured it perfectly on their packaging (see photo, click to enlarge).

The "Proudly brewed in New Zealand" tag-line is something they back up solidly through their actions. More on that later.

What their own back story doesn't tell you is that Josh is the son of Allan Scott, a renowned wine maker in this, one of the world's top wine making regions. He grew up in the area and has been around wine all his life. Their respective businesses are barely a few hundred yards apart and I must admit to having genuinely laughed out loud on being greeted by the below sign. I can imagine it creating some banter between Father and Son when it first appeared. 

Fittingly, the Moa Brewing Company's premises are nestled snugly between several neighbouring vineyards and the narrow driveway leading up to them takes you between two fields tightly packed with perfectly straight rows of vines. A site featuring prominently in the surrounding area which, as you'd expect given the pedigree, contains many fantastic wineries. 

In a future post, I'll talk about the booming hop farms which are now competing for this nutrient rich, fertile land across the top of the South Island (home to Nelson, Motueka and Riwaka). Of course, that means Moa has access to some fantastic locally grown hops and their beers feature them in abundance.

"FINALLY SOMETHING DRINKABLE FROM MARLBOROUGH"

The brewery and tasting room building itself looks small from the road but extends to the rear. The sign outside on the left of the door reads "Brewed using traditional, costly, inefficient and labour intensive techniques" - something I'm sure most craft breweries can relate to.

The brewery (to the rear) and tasting room

We arrived just after opening (11am) on a Saturday morning in June, to be greeted by a cheerful, if camera shy host. Her passion for the beers on the bar was infectious as she poured and talked us through a tasting. Moa has a core 'estate' range produced in volume and a number of 'reserve' beers, brewed seasonally in smaller batches. Details and tasting notes can be found on their website.

The bar inside the cosy tasting room, complete with roaring fire

On the bar for sampling were Pale Ale, Methode, Noir, Original, Imperial Stout and  Weka Apple Cider. The Pale Ale, which uses both US Cascade and Nelson Sauvin hops, was a standout for me being fresh as a daisy, whereas Jane adored the Imperial Stout aged in Oak Pinot Noir barrels.  Takeaway bottles are keenly priced and we took the opportunity to stuff our campervan's fridge full.

As we tasted, our host explained that a lot of their passing trade are wine tasters, on self-guided or organised tours of Marlborough region. Her favourite moments behind the tasting taps are those where she manages to open a wine drinker's eyes to the world of craft beer. Each one chalked up as a victory for Moa and what it stands for. Of course, with Moa's heritage I'm sure they're happy to see both wine and beer thriving in New Zealand but given where they're based, it must be fun to change perceptions.  

The brewery is fully self contained and I was allowed to sneak out the back for a few minutes to snap some photos of the kit. There is a small viewing window within the tasting room but as they've expanded outside the building, you can't see too much from there.

HLT, mash tun and kettle. Perhaps the kit they started on?

Shiny new kit outside including all-weather fermenters

Bottling line, apparently as temperamental as bottling lines the world over

After visiting the brewery, I sought them out on twitter (@moabeer, worth a follow) and later learned that they were partners/sponsors of Kiwi House, a 'haven for friends, family and proud supporters of the New Zealand Olympic Team' during the London 2012 games, based near King's Cross. They celebrated every medal won by NZ athletes with aplomb, with golds being toasted with $1 beers back home.  While those inside the park were supping bland rubbish thanks to multi-national brewing giants securing exclusive rights to sell beer at the games, vistors to Kiwi House were enjoying craft beer supplied by a brewery obviously proud to be kiwi.

Kiwi House got through so much Moa that it had to appeal for folks flying in from New Zealand during the latter stages of games to bring more with them (a reward was offered)! I'll drink to that!