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Sky Stadium’s concourse was packed as 4000 people sampled their way through a menu offering beers with flavours from croquembouche to chilli on Friday afternoon.
It was the first of four Beervana sessions in the capital, marking the 22nd annual beer festival in Wellington.
Beer enthusiasts entering the concourse for Beervana are greeted by a Dungeon of Dankness D&D themed stall from local favourites Garage Project.
Garage Project founder Jos Ruffell said the day had been great so far. “It’s the biggest day of the year for beer fans.”
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Jos Ruffell from Garage Project says Beervana is the “biggest day of the year” for beer fans.
”With Beervana we always want to put on a show. People are here spending money to buy a ticket so we’re here to give them something new, something they can’t buy in a bottle store.”
This year’s offering include a yuzu rising sun, a beer with a sweet yuzu base layer topped up with berry to make a sweet and sour mix.
Simon Nicholas from Hop Federation, a Motueka craft brewery which is celebrating its 10th birthday this month, said they’d made a special pilsner to mark the occasion.
”We just thought we’d do something a little different really.”
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This year’s speciality, Garage Project’s Yuzu Rising Sun, is a perfect combo for fans of sweet and sour.
He said for the first session, it had been pretty busy, and he was happy with the response so far.
Down the far end, Kiwi-turned-Aussie Clay Grant had come over from Sydney with his craft brewery One Drop.
“Kiwis seem to be loving the beers so it’s nice, it’s a good place to be,” he said.
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Liam Shemesh and Sam Shillington enjoying a drop at Beervana.
This was One Drop’s second year at Beervana, and after receiving positive feedback from the last festival Grant was glad to be back.
An interesting beer on the menu from One Drop was the Beeline Pastry Stout – “it’s made with salted honeycomb caramel, sits around 10%, it’s a good after-dinner dessert beer,” he said.
The Beervana day sessions for Friday and Saturday had both sold out, with 4000 people in each, while there were still tickets available for the night sessions.
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Beervana returns this weekend, with more than 70 local and international breweries taking part at Sky Stadium in Wellington.
More than 70 breweries were serving around 400 different beers, said Beervana spokesperson Jade Lucas.
Among them were the usual hazies and IPAs, alongside some fun flavours for Beervana like Renaissance Brewing Co’s Mystery Beer (you have to guess the style of beer), Liberty Brewing Co’s Birthday Carrot Cake, and no less than four blueberry sours.
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