BeerSaturday - Drinking in Auckland - New Zealand.

The internet is not always the most reliable place. I happened to find myself in Auckland NZ last weekend and as I do when I know I'm going to be a in new place I tend to type 'Craft beer' into google maps, look around a find some places to drink if I has some time.

We I did have time, as it was raining, solidly which put some of our outdoor sightseeing options on hold, we had spend the morning running from place to place in the rain, but that had got old. This was fine my usual Google trick told me that Urbanaut Brewery was just a short uber ride away so off we went.

And Urbannaut was good, good but nit great, and after a couple beers and what I have to say was a great burger I was running out of things that were interesting me. So back I went to the internet to start searching what (non beery) things might be near us, and something came up that had not come up in the previous searches.

Apparently right across the street was a bar, called Beerspot, I looked it up on Untappd, it looked impressive. we decided to head there, and as soon as we got outside we realised we must have literally walked past it on the way in, or more correctly run past it to get out of the rain - damn rain.

But entering now it was like an oasis... Neon signs announced the Tap 40...

That's right - forty taps of beer at the Beerspot. Interestingly they listed them by genre which I really liked, as it can be hard to understand/read what everything is for a tap hear. As you can see from the above, it was a well thought out list, with 3-4 choices in each section from 'come to the dark side' to 'Amercian Graffiti (all American IPAs)

So it was time to step up to the bar, and what a bar:

The chalk sign telling me that there was a Staff Pick Paddle intriguied me, I was happier still when told I could make my own paddale or whatever 6 beers I wanted. And when I'm away from home (which is Australia) I like to try as much as variety as possible - and NZ beer is excellent so there was some good choices.

I proudly wrote my numbers on the paddle, in order as I've been taught to do to make it easier for the bartender and I had myself a whole journey ahead of me...

So what did I have:

Mean Doses - Spiced Citrus Sour. Now Mean Doses was a brewery/bar I'd missed when I was in Wellington the week before (darn Easter public holidays) and this beer made me even sadder about that, it was good, weird, but good, there were these weird clove and cinnamin tastes through it, not much Cirtus, but a lot of spice.

Laughing Bones - LA Getaway, which as you likely guessed was a West Coast IPA, straying more towards the juicy side of the spectrum rather than aggressive resiny hops.

Bach Brewery - Cryo Genius Hazy IPA - Bach (pronounced Batch) is New Zealand speak for a beach shack or what us Aussies would call a Holiday House. This was the type of beer you could absolutely imagine yourself sitting on the verandah off drinking of few off. (If of course it wasn't raining)

Small Goods - Gargoyle - this was one of the not quite as successful beers, it's another West Coast IPA (This fresh hop season in NZ at the moment, so there were a lot of fresh hops beer around, some were amazing, some where a little paint by numbers)

Eddyline - Midnight Harvest Black IPA - This was another of the fresh hop beers. I had to have it as I have to have a Black IPA anytime I see them - why don't people make more Black IPAs?

Sunshine Brewery (ironic isn't it) - Tiramisa Stout - This was a reasonable stout, but in a world were I'm used to intense sweetness and coffeeness I didn't understand were the tiramisu went.

But I was very very happy to have stumbled upon the beer (and it turns out there is like 5 of them in Auckland), it was a fantastic way to spend an hour or so as we waited for the rain to stop. If I lived in Auckland, I would have been quite happy to have this as my local, I feel like I would never get board with 40 Taps to play with.