Beer Awards and Beervana

The results from the 2010 BrewNZ Beer Awards were announced during a big dinner at the Duxton Hotel this week. Our Tuatara team was well represented in the crowd and we were delighted to see our beers similarly well represented in the medals.

A big team of local and international judges blind tasted a record number of entries (over 450 this year) in a range of categories. Only a third of entries received a gold, silver or bronze medal from the judges.

We entered all of our beers into the awards and were delighted that three of them received silver medals. Specifically, we picked up:

Class E: European Ale Styles	Tuatara Ardennes	Silver Medal
Class F: New Zealand, US and International Ale Styles	Tuatara APA	Silver Medal
Class H: Wheat and Other Grain Styles	Tuatara Hefe	Silver Medal

What makes these awards particularly pleasing is that Class E and Class F were the amongst the most hotly contested categories, both in terms of number of entries and number of medals awarded. Both categories were eventually taken out by Auckland’s Steam Brewing, with Cock and Bull Fuggles winning Class E and Cock and Bull Monk’s Habit victorious in Class F. Congratulations to the team at Steam.

Beervana has arrived and that means the Tuatara stand will be open for business in Wellington Town Hall. Sessions are 12-4pm and 5-9pm on Friday 27 August and Saturday 28 August. Full details, including how to buy tickets, are on the Beervana website. There will be door sales - but only if the session is not already sold out.

We will be pouring the entire Tuatara range and debuting our much-anticipated anniversary beer. In honour of ten years of being in business, Carl and brew team have created a 10% beer in the style of a Belgian Tripel. It is strong, spicy, yeasty and tasty.

It is called X as a reference to the X-Ale we once made and the fact that X, is of course, the Roman numeral for ten. We think it is quite clever really.

There will be strictly limited quantities of X on tap at Beervana and we will be releasing it in bottles relatively soon. Come and see us at Beervana on stall 19 (to the right as you enter the main hall) for one of the first tastes of this special beer.

Cheers from the team at Tuatara