At the start of next month Wellington plays host to the biggest event on
the beer world calendar. This year Beervana has made a few important changes.
Earlier this year the Brewers Guild of New Zealand made the decision to sell
the festival to malt importer David Cryer. Under private ownership the festival
has moved venue from the Town Hall to the Westpac Trust Stadium. This year’s
festival is going to offer some new features and a new format. The new festival
format is based around regional bars rather than the individual brewery stands
that filled past festivals. A few breweries will have their own bars including
Emerson’s where the Emerson’s Brewery/ Regional Collaboration brew RSB will be
pouring from the handpump.
This year food will be provided from a
range of Wellington
restaurateurs including Boulcott Street Bistro, Logan Brown, Martin Bosley’s,
Monsoon Poon, Steve Morris, The General Practitioner and The Hop Garden.
The robust new venue means that live
brewing displays will be held throughout the festival with brewers Ron Trigg
(mike’s Organic Brewery, Urenui), Andrew Dixon (The Mussel Inn, Golden Bay),
Andy Deuchars (Renaissance, Blenheim) and Paul Croucher (Croucher Brewing,
Rotorua) all showing how it’s done.
There will also be a return of the popular
seminar programme including sessions on beer and food matching; women and beer;
sensory evaluation; hops and malt and the ever popular beer and cheese matching
hosted by Regional Beer Specialist Kieran
Haslett-Moore.
The beerlist for the event has been
finalised and can be viewed here. It features more than 200 beers from over 80
breweries!
Beervana Session times are
Friday 5 August: 12-4pm and 6-10pm
Saturday 6 August: 12-4pm and 6-10pm
Admission
Entry to a Beervana session costs $35. The
ticket price includes entry into the festival plus a festival glass, a
programme and three Beervana tokens. Tickets are available from Ticketek.
For more info see http://www.beervana.co.nz