Beer #79 - W/C 29 August 2016
BREWERY // Birkenhead Brewing Company (playfully shortened to BBC) has it's home in the eponymous village on Auckland's North Shore. Brewers Steve & Brad are both longterm fixtures of Birkenhead and these days you'll likely run into one of them in their 'Tasting Studio' (aka. pub) where they enjoy nothing more than talking beer with enthusiasts and ensuring the quality of the 10 taps pouring beer from NZ breweries. While they are pretty new on the scene, BBC beers have been picking up medals and the brewers are already looking to open more Tasting Studios as well as export BBC beers to the world.
TASTING NOTES // Pacific Pale Ale is from the Village Series of beers from BBC, inspired by the history of the brewery's Birkenhead home. The beers honour the history of the communities who first settled in the area. This is a clean, fruity and rather resinous 'session' pale ale which is very different to the beers the early European settlers would have drank. The malt has a delicious biscuit sweetness and gives the beer plenty of body to support the selection of hops. Those hops cycle through a pine, citrus, tropical 'kaleidoscope' of flavours making for a very interesting beer in a category which can often be one dimensional.
BREWERY // Birkenhead Brewing Company
BEER // Pacific
STYLE // Pale Ale
ORIGIN // Auckland
HOPS // Pacific Jade, Kohatu, Pacifica & US Chinook
MALTS // Gladfields Ale, Pilsner base with Medium Crystal, Gladiator, Biscuit and a touch of wheat
ABV // 4.6%
IBU // 27
TEMPERATURE // Cool- 10-12C
FOOD MATCH // Honey Garlic Spare Ribs. Vegetable Steamed Dumplings. Vintage Cheddar.
GLASS // IPA Glass, Tulip