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.

Produced by Waitemata Brewing Co. in Otahuhu, a suburb of Auckland, Tui is very similar to its American counterpart. Not particularly heavy, it has a rather undistinguished flavour profile, certainly not WOWING the tastebuds with a blast of flavourful hops or citrusy notes or any other notable characteristics. Simply put, it is a regular tasting beer. It doesn't belong on either extreme of the horrible/delicious spectrum, but rather pretty much directly in the middle. The major difference between Tui and PBR is the "hipster factor." In AMUR'CA, PBR is widely known to be the beer preferred by hipsters, despite being all "mainstream" and "a thing people have heard of before, but I totally liked it first." That is not the case with Tui, as mercifully, NZ is pretty much devoid of hipsters (though, I imagine in ten years time, they will be everywhere. That's because NZ is so far away from everything, it takes a looooooong time for things to catch on here. They just got Doritos. SERIOUSLY.)

If you're still reading, you are likely wondering why I chose to review this beer at all, seeing as how it is spectacularly unremarkable. Well, mostly so I can take the piss out of hipsters. AND, so I can create another Arbitrary Beer Ranking Scale! In honour of the hipster theme of this post, I will use a ubiquitous hipster symbol: the thick, black-framed HIPSTER GLASSES. Without further ado, I give Tui, the New Zealand PBR...5 and a half hipster glasses out of a number you probably haven't heard of, but is totally my favourite number since I saw it play with like one other person in a bar on the lower east side (stupid hipsters)!

I had a picture for here, but it got too mainstream

so I removed it

Well, that does it for a rather short edition of Beer Friday!. As I said in my last post, I'm not really at home much for this current two week stretch, so posts will be short (as this one is) or non-existent all together. I can say that the Queenstown Boarding trip was a smashing success (shredded some serious gnar), and there will be an extra-long post for that one. As for the rest of my break, I'm leaving in about 7 hours for Abel Tasman National Park (via Kaikoura and Nelson) and won't be back until next Friday. But never fear, more posts will be happening then!

Dave

Note: Tui got an extra half on the scale because I wanted to smash some hipster's glasses. HAHAHAHAHA!

BOOKED (image courtesy here)