On Tour in New Zealand

New Oxford CAMRA chair John Winney goes searching for real ale on the far side of the world

Last year Rob Walters wrote here about his difficulties finding real ale on his travels, so when I booked to visit New Zealand (NZ) I thought I might have more chance of seeing a Hobbit than a hand pump. Everyone I spoke to said you won’t find much/any and my online research suggested NZ would be something of a cask desert, but I knew it would still be an adventure..…

A couple of hours after arriving in Christchurch I found myself in Pomeroys, a brew pub that is unashamed about trying to create the atmosphere of an English pub. They had three hand pumps. I had the guest Townshend Extra Special Bitter, which was excellent. Staff said they had cask ale because that’s what you get in England, but it was popular. They only brew keg themselves – I tried their Captain Garcia, a rather nice unfiltered IPA. The music in the pub was at a volume that was conversation friendly, and what a playlist! It turns out that NZ not only produces great beer, but almost every pub playlist was stacked with great tunes – which I really wasn’t expecting.

The Pomeroys line-up. Image: John Winney

When we stopped the next day in Oamaru on the east coast of South Island I had zero expectations, as it was not a town I had heard of let alone researched. We passed on the Steampunk museum as we needed to get some lunch and stumbled across Craftwork, a wonderful brewery tap with two hand pumps. This accidental find is now my favourite pub in all the world – such a shame it’s 11,853 miles from my house! I often say, “Never underestimate the importance of being lucky.” I was lucky that day.

Craftwork declares itself to be idiosyncratic (adj. possessing a distractive or peculiar characteristic), and that seems spot-on. This is down to the founders Lee-Ann Scotti and Michael O’Brien. Their passion and personalities ooze from the walls of their wonderful venue and manifest in the delicious beers they make. Inside it’s an unexpectedly splendid bar with the brewery visible at the back. It’s housed in an old limestone warehouse which, while grand, gives little hint of the delights within. As you enter the building below the Craftwork name, it states No Lager. It brews no lager and refuses to stock any.

Lee-Ann Scotti and Michael O’Brien at Craftwork (own image)

Craftwork beers are available on draught and/or in bottles, plus an impressive range of other bottled beers and even two hand pumps. The hand pumps were originally bought to dispense young “Lambic styles”, which they had tried in Brussels, but are mostly used for more accessible guest British style beers.

All of Craftwork’s own beers are ales, either bottle- or keg-conditioned on yeast. Even their “fast” beers take a minimum of two months to mature, and many take longer. There are no compromises allowed, in ingredients or process. They are true artisan beers in the very best meaning of that term.

Talking to Michael it is clear he is a man of strong opinions/preferences and ready to back them up. It does seem something of a madcap notion to brew quality Belgian-style beers on the opposite side of the world, but that is just what Craftwork does. That dedication (obsession?) manifests in some of the very best beer (Belgian or otherwise) I have ever tasted. The Good Lord and Dark Lord are simply sublime examples of a Tripel and a Quadrupel. As we left my partner said, “You’d be happy to stay there all day.” My reply was: “I think I’d be happy there forever.”

We next rolled into Dunedin and I visited the Albar where there’s nothing to see from the outside but inside has a strong Scottish theme. They have four hand pumps and the stand-out beer for me was the local Emerson’s London Porter. It’s day three in NZ and I’ve already found three pubs with cask ale! Also in Dunedin, near the station and hidden behind a larger bar, I visited Noisy Brewing. This is a wonderful micro-brewery, and while they don’t brew cask ale their beers are stunning. I particularly liked the Stout and White Stout. It turns out that while there is a lot of hazy IPA etc, NZ offers much choice including plenty of sours.

I don’t want to give the impression you can just turn a corner and find cask in NZ. Most bars don’t have it and only a few of the 200+ NZ breweries produce it. More on the state of NZ cask towards the end.

We spent a few days in Queenstown, one of NZ’s adventure sports hubs, where I twice had the loaded fries at Atlas Beer Cafe. It has two hand pumps and as well as the fries I was really impressed by the range of 20+ local beers. The staff really knew about the local beer scene and made some top-class suggestions, and I particularly liked some of those from Altitude Brewing.

The bar at Volstead in Christchurch. Image: John Winney

Looping back to Christchurch we visited a couple of venues of note. Volstead is kind of hidden away on Riccarton Road, which has a good range of places to eat (I can recommend the pizza at Volstead itself). This is the brewery tap and boasts six hand pumps. It believes this is the largest number of any venue on South Island, though it might be matched or beaten on North Island. The cask ales were all from guest breweries, and in excellent condition. Volstead offered 20 craft beers, a mix of its own brews, guests and some interesting collaborations and special editions.

Though it had no cask ales, another Christchurch venue I really liked was Canterbury Brewers Collective, located in the Riverside Market. The market is a vibrant social space with many food outlets, and the collective offers more than 20 diverse craft beers.

Next stop was Wellington, the nation’s capital, on the southern tip of North Island. Internet research hadn’t offered much hope of cask but there were some candidates for decent bars. First try was the Malthouse, with two hand pumps and a great range of craft. The cask was good but the real delight here was the wonderful Laika, from Double Vision — a Bourbon Russian Imperial Stout at a very satisfying 11.5% ABV.

The next day included a visit to the multi-award winning brewpub Fork & Brewer which has 30+ of its own beers, plus some guests, and had two hand pulls. One of these was its own “I Lava You!”, a delicious Lava Flow American Strong Ale, which was being served in two-thirds pints as it is 8% ABV. It was my pick of the F&B beers I tried, but everything I had delighted me and the staff were great helping to navigate the mindbogglingly wide range.

I did spend a couple of days in Auckland, NZ’s largest city, with an old school friend. Although we drank no cask, he did back up Rob Walters’ endorsement of Galbraith’s Alehouse as great real ale pub, and said there are a couple of other bars that serve cask in the city.

Tall order at Craftwork. Image: John Winney

My last few days in NZ were spent in the small town of Paihia, located on the beautiful Bay of Islands. The Internet gave me no hint of any cask here, but I was delighted to find the just opened Crafty Local with two hand pumps and a good range of beers on tap. The highlight was The Eyes Have It, from Kererū Brewing Company, a Baltic Porter at 7.1% ABV and a great example of a beer very well suited to cask.

So what did I learn?

While there is not a lot of cask in NZ I visited eight venues with 23 hand pumps between them. Some people told me Covid almost ended cask in NZ, but my visit gave the impression it is more than bouncing back. Some of the venues were openly admitting they had cask to appear more British, but this was not the only reason. Others appreciated that cask offers something keg can’t, and wanted to differentiate from bars that lacked it. The range and quality of the NZ beers is truly impressive and cask does seem to have broken out of being seen as just a nostalgia gimmick, albeit that it still needs some tracking down.

New Zealand has many things to recommend it and the beer scene is among them.