Morland Old Crafty Hen

When I lived in London you could always rely on an Old Speckled Hen as a tasty reliable and widely available ale (as well as sponsor of nights on Dave). I was therefore pleased to see that my friends Ian and Amy had bought me an Old Crafty Hen for my birthday. Old Crafty Hen comes from the Morland Brewery in Suffolk, which is owned by Greene King who also own various pubs across the UK.

It has only been around since 2008 and is apparently a combination of the Old Speckled Hen and a discontinued Greene King beer called 5x. It comes in a clear glass bottle which is unusual when most of these sorts of beer come in brown. The Old Crafty Hen is an English Strong Ale.  At 6.8% it is pretty strong for an English beer but pretty standard compared to many modern NZ craft beers.

The beer itself has a strong malty taste to it. It continues with a fruity flavour across your tongue and then an ever so slight hop to finish it off. This might be one to try again on a cold winter's night to remind me of the way you warm yourself up from the cold in the UK.

Funk Estate So'phisticuffs

A distinctive brewery that I have seen offering its beers on taps at bars around Wellington for a while is Funk Estate. It's picture of a woman with a big afro stands out from the usual pictures of hops and brewery names. The three young guys behind Funk Estate look very different than their logo and seem to be a direct product of spending your formative University Years in a newly booming craft beer culture in Wellington. Long may the remain inspired.

Other than at the bars (which I am not at very often) I haven't really seen any Funk Estate beers for sale in bottles,  so in a chance look in the Craft Beer Fridge at New World Railway Metro when I was supposed to be picking up family dinner I saw an opportunity that was not to be passed up,  Funk Estate So'phisticuffs.

It is an IPA,  which is a competitive market in NZ. I have already said that I think sometimes the IPA seems to be a competition for how much hoppyness a brewery can pack into its beer. So'phistocuffs is much more balanced, with the malts and the hops working together to produce a very tasty beer. This is just what I like when I drink an IPA and I will happily track this one down again.

Croucher Pale Ale

Another beer that I feel like I have seen around a lot but haven't tried is the Pale Ale from Croucher Brewery in Rotorua. The Pale Ale was their first commercial release but they now have a variety of beers on offer. Theirs is a tale similar to many other NZ craft breweries. In the mid 2000s a passion for brewing turned into a commercial enterprise and a few awards later and they have gone from strength to strength.

I picked up a Croucher Pale Ale at the local New World. Poured it out and had a try of Rotorua's finest. Every NZ brewery needs it's take on the Pale Ale so there is a lot of competition out there and it's hard to stand above the crowd. Croucher's Pale Ale has a mellow blend of malts and hops. It is a fitting member of the crowd but doesn't really stand above it. I would happily drink it again though which is probably better than having a point of difference if people only try your beer once.

Regent 58 Pale Ale

Small breweries are booming these days and their beers are much more available with the craft beer wave washing over everything. That means you get ready access to beer which might previously only have been available if you visited the brewer themselves. With that in mind I decided to pick up a bottle of Regent 58 Pale Ale from the local New World.

Regent 58 is a pretty new brewery from Carterton started by a couple of long term home brewers. They want to do something a bit different than the standard heavily hopped beers which dominate the NZ brewing scene at the moment. I have a lot of respect for that as I agree that the market is probably too full of hoppy beers at the moment. 

I mentioned that Regent 58 was formed by home brewers and that is what you get...home brew. It looks like home brew (sediment and all), it has a home brew smell and it tastes like home brew. It is good home brew, but still home brew. I wouldn't pass it up if I was offered one but it has a ways to compete with the depth and range of the craft beer market out there at the moment.