Inaugural NZ Beer Cup Crowns Croucher Patriot

Inaugural NZ Beer Cup Crowns Croucher Patriot

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The Brewer's Guild of New Zealand

Monday 13 June, 9am

The inaugural New Zealand Beer Cup has been hailed a success by the Brewer's Guild of New Zealand, with Croucher Brewing's Patriot taking the title.

Held at the historic Pomeroy's on Kilmore in Christchurch, and with an invited panel of fourteen guest judges across a variety of industry sectors, the Beer Cup pitted 32 entries against each other in a blind tasting knockout format.

After two hours of deliberation, and the vanquishing of entries from Stoke, The Twisted Hop, Mountain Goat and Harringtons, the final saw West Coast Pale Ale face off against Croucher Patriot for top honours.

This pilot event was created by the Brewer's Guild to drive the awareness and profile of the craft of brewing in New Zealand. Guild executive Craig Bowen explained that the Cup, "is a complimentary event to the big show that is the BrewNZ Beer Awards.”

Bowen said the event addressed some key issues for the local industry. “The idea behind the event was to address two concerns we hear most often from the brewing community. Firstly, the demand for a competition not based strictly on style guidelines, and secondly to introduce important hospitality, industry and media people to the world of quality beer with the aim that this expands the profile and the market for these products."

Judges for the event included renowned chefs Johnny Schwass (Restaurant Schwass), Bruce Griffiths (Cook'n With Gas) and Edesia's Managing Director Leighton Henshaw; Beer and food writers Carl Hadler and Stephan Heppleston; local brewers Ally McGilvray (Golden Ticket) and Fraser Kennedy (Adlib); and publicans, key retailers and local beer aficionados including Steve Pomeroy, Braddon Millar and Charles Swettenham from the University of Canterbury Staff Club.

The New Zealand Beer Cup also harnessed the power of social media, with a stream of tweets throughout the night from entrants, beer aficionados and the brewing community at large as each round and result was communicated live via Twitter.

"The brewing community has embraced Twitter in particular", noted Ava Wilson of Pomeroy's, Christchurch's largest craft beer pub. "It was amazing to see the flood of notifications to our account and an actual dialogue take place online between the official NZ Beer Cup account and passionate onlookers trying to pick the eventual winner".

That honour went to Croucher Brewing, with Paul Croucher happy to accept the accolade. "We were pretty excited about the different format of the NZ Beer Cup. We have grown up passionate about flavours and have found the style prescriptive nature of most beer competitions a little stifling. This competition was a challenge to the judges as to whether they like the beer rather than whether or not it fitted into a particular category. There were some hot beers in the competition so we were more than a little humbled to take out the top prize!"

With the first event completed successfully the Guild are now looking to expand and refine the competition when it reappears in 2012 either in Wellington or Auckland.

"The other push behind the competition is to provide an annual or possibly bi-annual competition that can travel the country and make a significant and targeted impact in each region", explained Guild Treasurer Martin Bennett. “With our experience in Christchurch we're confident the event will go from strength to strength and extend the scope of the Guild's activities beyond the BrewNZ Awards week in Wellington in August."

For more information visit www.nzbeercup.com or www.brewersguild.org.nz.

ENDS

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