Beer Friday!...Sunday Edition

Welcome to what will hopefully be a weekly series examining the wide range of brews on offer here in New Zealand. Each week I will endeavor to try something new and update you on how delicious (or not) it is. Ratings will be given in a completely arbitrary manner, because really, is there such thing as a truly bad beer? Didn't think so. This week, a look at a newer beer from an old favourite: Ein Stein from the Boundary Road Brewery.

Hello again dear friends, and welcome to yet another (albeit belated) edition of Beer Friday!! I'm writing this on a Sunday evening, and must apologize for the lateness of this typically Friday-timed feature. As I mentioned previously, I am rather busy with school work, and thus couldn't find the time to get this review to the metaphorical presses on time (also, I had no beer). Nevertheless, I am here now with, as the introductory paragraph alludes to, another selection from one of my favourite NZ brewing establishments: Boundary Road Brewery. Last time we met these folks, I took a look at their Chocolate Moose porter and Bouncing Czech pilsener. This time, we'll take a look at BRB's Munich-style lager, the ingeniously named Ein Stein. Read on after the break!

Summer July in Winter July - Abel Tasman National Park

Hello again, and sorry for the long-ish layoff. If you've been holding your breath for a new post, I'm sorry on at least two levels. Then again, you've managed to hold your breath for like, 4 whole days, so good on you for that. A real accomplishment if you ask me.

There are, however, a few reasons why the posts have been a little thin on the ground lately. Firstly, I'm back in school, so I don't have a lot of exciting things to write about. Oh for the halcyon days when I was wandering the New Zealand countryside, seeing the sights, eating the food and drinking the beer. Now, I'm just in regular ole Dunedin, toiling away on a seemingly never-ending pile of work. Which brings me to my second reason: I'm back in school, and thus have assignments, unit plans, personal reflections and resource files due almost non-stop until I go out on my second placement in mid-August. And as doubtlessly exciting as my writing can be, I don't have much faith in my ability to thrill you, the reader, with how I stayed shut in my room all weekend writing "Learning Objectives" and "Success Criteria".

Nevertheless, there is a point to this post, and as I'm sure you've inferred from the title, it concerns my trip to the Abel Tasman National Park to walk the Coastal Track, one of NZ's ten (and my second) "Great Walks". I have alluded to this adventure before, and here I will attempt to expand, ever so slightly, on the sheer adventure of it all. There's more blather, if you'd care to continue, after the jump.

Beer Friday! - Stoke Brewery

After a one-week hiatus, this week Beer Friday! returns with a vengeance. Well, not really a vengeance, but it is returning, and that is the important bit that we all need to focus on. I forgot to mention this in last week's explanation of the missing Beer Friday!, but because I deprived you all of what I'm sure was developing into a weekly tradition (where you gathered your children around the warm glow of the computer screen to read about whatever beer I chose to get pissed up with that week), I've decided to, in the near future, give you a special Beer Friday! treat. Whenever it is financially responsible for me to do so (hopefully in August), I will be LIVE-BLOGGING a super special, super sexy edition of Beer Friday!. Get your popcorn ready Terrell.

Anyway, on to THIS week's beer, Stoke Gold, which comes to us from Stoke Brewery, located in a suburb of Nelson called, fittingly enough, Stoke (I may have just set the record for most uses of the word "Stoke" in a sentence). I selected this beer not only because I had never tried it, but also because I spent some time in Nelson on my most recent break, so it ties in nicely with what I've been doing lately. Read on for the review, as always, after the jump.

I MADE THE PAPER!

That's right, your dear Blogger made it onto page 7 of the Otago Daily Times (Independent Voice of the South)! That's one item added to and then immediately checked off the ol' Bucket List.

The ultimate goal should be GETTING IN THE PAPER. Mission accomplished.

Does it matter that it's a small picture, you can barely see me and it's on a 2-page ad for an all-girls school? Not in the slightest. Any press is good press.

Dave

RANT

Thus far, this blog has been a fairly happy-go-lucky, "look at all the pretty scenery" general New Zealand love fest. And realistically, that makes perfect sense, as I have enjoyed my time here immensely. The scenery is indeed magnificent, the people are friendly to a fault, the beer is tasty and overall, things here are just peachey peachy. All is well in the world, and there is sunshine and rainbows everywhere and unicorns are prancing about all magical and stuff (metaphorically speaking of course. Unicorns aren't real...yet).

HOWEVER, last week arose a situation that provided me with my first real "bone to pick" here in New Zealand. So, if you'd like to read on in what will likely be a post filled with ALL CAPS (anger!), frustration and probably some unintentional comedy please do. Be warned though, this post is all about frustration and anger, and thus there may be some accompanying harsh language. If you can't handle that kind of heat, best stay out of this kitchen hombre.

Ferg Babies, BNO, Sunny and Shredding Gnar - Queenstown Boarding Trip (Feat. Ping)

Hello again dearest readers, I've missed you all greatly over the past few weeks. I feel like I haven't been giving you enough attention lately (just one post in July? Unacceptable!), but I'm back now to rectify that situation.

For loyal followers of the blog, you'll likely be wondering "Where is Beer Friday!? I need that post to get me geared for the weekend!" Unfortunately, there will be no Beer Friday! this week, for two reasons. Firstly, I haven't really had a new type of beer lately (I could review some of the Monteith's range, which I am quite familiar with, but I'd like to have it fresher on the palette to do it justice) and secondly, I don't want to have back-to-back Beer Friday! posts - this is, after all, primarily a travel blog.

So with that out of the way, what follows will be a thrilling recap of what went down in Queenstown, where I spent the first part of my school holiday snowboarding, nerding it up and generally causing a ruckus. Read on my intrepid friends, and figure out what that blog title means!

Beer Friday! - Tui

Welcome to what will hopefully be a weekly series examining the wide range of brews on offer here in New Zealand. Each week I will endeavor to try something new and update you on how delicious (or not) it is. Ratings will be given in a completely arbitrary manner, because really, is there such thing as a truly bad beer? Didn't think so. This week, a look at Tui.

When I moved to New Zealand and began my quest to sample as many beers as this wonderful nation could deign to offer me, one simple question kept floating into my brain. "Which beer," my brain asked, "is the Kiwi equivalent to Pabst Blue Ribbon, aka PBR, aka the official cheap beer choice of 80 Dorset (my former residence for the uninitiated)?" Not that PBR is particularly delicious (it's decidedly average, and the "Blue Ribbon" in the name is a prize from the 1800's or something), but I felt it was critical to find the NZ equivalent, in the event I needed to acquire an above average amount of an average beer for a below average price. And I did. And it is Tui. Read on for my review, I promise it's not too mainstream for all the hipsters following along at home.