Altitude Brewing’s been punching above its weight for almost a decade, but now it has the belt to prove it.
The Sugar Lane-based brewery’s Fest Bier’s just won the ‘Lager than Life’ competition, an event in its fourth year, organised by Wellington bar The Hudson.
Altitude’s head brewer Eliott Menzies says every year The Hudson invites who they consider to be the top dozen or so breweries in New Zealand to compete in the lager-fermented beer competition.
‘‘It encompasses a few different styles, but it has to be fermented with a lager yeast,’’ he says.
It was the first year Altitude Brewing Co was invited — they were in with 15 of the biggest names in the country, including 8 Wired, Epic, Panhead and Parrot dog — making their win ‘‘even cooler’’.
Menzies says the Fest Bier’s a stable for their annual Oktoberfest celebrations, and is a special style of beer created for Munich’s Oktoberfest event.
‘‘It’s more high-strength, yet still quite clean.
‘‘It’s an easy lager — it’s quite funny, you read the description and it’s designed to be drunk ‘‘in large quantities’’; so, made for steins, in other words.’’
For him, though, he’s particularly stoked to have picked up a win in a lager competition, his favourite style of beer.
‘‘I’m not a hop-head … [lagers] are the hardest beers to brew, in a quality sense, there is nowhere to hide with a lager; you have to get everything right in terms of its technical aspect, otherwise you get picked apart quite readily.
‘‘So, if I was to choose any competition to win, it would be a lager-brewing competition — it means you’re technically on point.’’
Earlier this year Altitude also came tantalisingly close to being named Brewers Guild of NZ champion small brewery for the second year on the hop.
Menzies says they entered about 25 beers and came away with 19 medals and trophies for their stout, Starlight Highway, and Snow Dance, an amber ale, but they lost the overall title on a countback.
‘‘It would have been nice to back up … but it just means we’ve got to do it again next year.’’
