Daylight Saving ends with Beer Festival

Daylight Saving ends with Beer Festival

10,000 festival-goers enjoyed the last day of daylight savings, attending the sell-out New Zealand Beer Festival at The Cloud on Auckland’s waterfront Saturday.

The sun was out and beer flowed for the biggest event at Queen’s Wharf since the Party Central heyday of the 2011 Rugby World Cup. With 70 types of beer from more than 28 breweries, food to match, The Feelers and Peter Urlich on stage, the atmosphere was electric!

Many came in costume, from traditional German Lederhosen to “The Beer Arabs”. “I’d love to see the Beer Festival be Auckland’s version of Sevens with everyone getting in costume,” said Mark Hurley, an event-goer who particularly enjoyed Tuatara’s Ardennes Belgian-style Ale.

Police, Liquor Licensing and Auckland Council were extremely happy with crowd behaviour, proving that Kiwis can appreciate great craft beer without the negative drinking culture we often hear about. “We have a great working relationship with authorities,” said event co-founder Andrew Somervell. “They have a lot of experience and help us run things smoothly, I’d like to thank everyone that attended for a completely incident free event.”

The crowd ate well with a wide range of food, from Hell Pizza, to Spanish Paella and Empanadas from Uruguay. One of the 15 food vendors sold over 500kgs of ribs alone.

Smaller breweries from around the country started to sell out as the evening progressed, some bringing every keg they owned. “We love the opportunity to showcase our product to so many new people at once,” said Ron Trigg, owner of Mike’s Organic Brewery, who had run dry by 7pm, “it has been a great night.”

Mr Somervell said a big part of the events success was having an exciting new waterfront venue: “The Cloud is such an asset to Auckland, with such changeable island weather we need more indoor-outdoor venues like this. One of best things council can do to achieve their goal of making Auckland the world’s most liveable city is to hold onto quality infrastructure to run world-class events. We look forward to the chance to bring the beer festival back to the Cloud in 2013.

ENDS

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