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.
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| Did I create a photo studio in my room? PERHAPS. |
I'm not going to beat around the bush with this review (startling I know), so let's just get amongst it. As the name suggests, this beer is GOLD in colour, though not the lighter gold you'd see with the big chain beers in Canada. I would say it's a deeper gold, approaching an almost amber type colour. As for the taste, it's nothing spectacular: it does have a mildly hoppy taste (the label tells me it's brewed using ORGANIC HOPS - ooh la la) which is certainly nice, but overall, it's not a particularly strong flavour - almost to the point of it being watery. Perhaps this has to do with the use of 14,000 year old water in the brewing process (again from the label). Water that old KNOWS how to do its job, and it does so well here. Interestingly, it had almost no aftertaste. Not sure what that means, but I figured it was worth mentioning. Finally, the label mentions that this beer is "tank conditioned" for three weeks, giving it a "smooth mouth feel." Taken out of context, that last bit is perhaps the creepiest thing I've ever read on a beer label, but it is fairly accurate - it is a very smooth drinking beer. Kudos to Stoke for nailing that one, bit the wording could use a little work (if you're reading Stoke, I'm certain to be unemployed and looking for work in a few months!).
Now, on to the rating. As I will cover in my next post (recapping my trip to Nelson and the Abel Tasman National Park), Nelson is regarded as having some of the best weather in New Zealand, allegedly (thanks Wikipedia!) receiving upwards of 2400 hours of sunshine a year. I've done the rough calculations, and that equates to 6 and a half hours per day, which doesn't sound all that impressive, but then again, night exists so there's not much sunlight when that's going on. Regardless, I will use Nelson's sunny climate as my scale and give Stoke Gold...1769 sunshine hours out of a possible 2400!
What does that mean? Who knows! Who cares!
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| Palmerston North, during one of their 1732 sunshine hours. |
I used a picture of Palmerston North as the Official Rating Picture for a few reasons. Firstly, I'm not going to insert 1769 pictures of suns in this post. Far too time consuming. Secondly, using a city to represent sunshine hours relevant to a beer rating only adds to the confusion and meaninglessness. Finally, Palmerston North gets closest (without going over. Always Price is Right Rules* up in dis HAUS) to 1769 hours of sunshine per year, clocking in at 1732. So there you go.
(As an aside, I've never understand why they didn't name that city something else. The original Palmerston is on the South Island (about 40 mins from Dunedin), and obviously Palmy North was established after. Why was the Palmerston name so important? Why not call it something else? Calmerston? Think of the spa opportunities in a town called Calmerston!)
Anyway, that concludes another edition of Beer Friday!. I hope you all found it enjoyable, informative and possibly
Dave
*It is the position of Upside Down Dave that Bob Barker is the TRUE host of the Price is Right. Drew Carey's not terrible, but you can't hold a candle to Bob (seriously, keep fire away - his complexion is so waxy he'd probably melt away. No offense Bob. You're a Legend).
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