It used to be that if you wanted a good selec­tion of inde­pend­ent and craft beers, your options were lim­ited: Malt­house, per­haps Bar Bodega back in the day, or a bus out to New­town for Bar Edward. But since the arrival of Hashigo Zake, it seems that boutique beer is in, and there’s a sud­den rash of bars that care about good beer … or at least look like they do.

The latest is Little Beer Quarter, or LBQ for short, tak­ing over from the much-lamen­ted Watusi. It’s much more spa­cious and pub-like than its leo­pard-prin­ted fore­run­ner, but retains a reas­on­ably cosy atmo­sphere with some cute touches (upside-down pot plants and beer bottle chan­deliers). The beer range is impress­ive, and everything on tap (cur­rently a nice mix of Tuatara, Emer­son’s, 8 Wired, Three Boys and oth­er loc­al favour­ites) is also avail­able in jugs or flagons. There was a nice moment the oth­er night when an intim­id­ated out-of-town­er was going to default to Corona, but his com­pan­ions and the staff helped nudge him towards Tuatara Helles. Baby steps, sure, but friends don’t let friends drink bad beer.

I haven’t tried much of the food yet, but I can attest that the spicy saus­age pizza does exactly what one would hope of a pub pizza … which is more than I can say for the offer­ing at Tap Haus across the road, where a friend’s pizza order was burnt bey­ond edib­il­ity. Des­pite what looks like a com­pre­hens­ive beer selec­tion, it seems to suf­fer from some of the prob­lems that plague its cous­in Brühaus: a hasty con­ver­sion, lack of a heim­lich atmo­sphere, a tend­ency to treat food as an after­thought at best, and ser­vice that, even without obvi­ous signs of incom­pet­ence, does­n’t give the impres­sion of a pas­sion­ate ded­ic­a­tion to good beer. It’s not just the incon­gru­ous leftovers of the creaky old Curry Club decor (though thank­fully now wood-pan­elled and gold-painted rather than pas­tel): it’s the com­bin­a­tion of high ceil­ing, bright lights and uncer­tain cli­en­tele that leaves me cold.

That’s not a prob­lem at The Hop Garden, which rel­ishes its quasi-out­door set­ting and cher­ishes its grow­ing status as a Mt Vic loc­al. The selec­tion is extens­ive and per­haps a little more idio­syn­crat­ic than at die Häuser, and the place already seems as much a favour­ite among the brewer­ati as Malt­house and Hashigo Zake. But it’s the food that sets it apart, with brunches to die for … or per­haps from, if you have too much of their black pud­ding, pork belly and streaky bacon hash combo. Or you could com­bine that with a pint of Renais­sance Chocol­ate Oat­meal Stout for the per­fect break­fast.

And there’s more to come. The Malt­house dir­ect­ors are cur­rently con­vert­ing the former Loaded Hog (remem­ber when that coun­ted as a “spe­cial­ist beer pub”? Shud­der!), Syn and Ruby Lounge premises into a micro­brew­ery and craft beer bar. Its rumoured name is “Fork and Brew­er”, and it will fea­ture a large car­ci­no­gen­ic hell­hole roof garden as well as 40 beers on tap. It will go under the motto “Non timebo cervisa”—“I will fear no beer”, though as fel­low Wel­ling­tonista and beer geek Alan said, “some beer should be strongly respec­ted” (nev­er turn your back on a Rex Atti­tude).

Even if not all of the new craft beer bars deliv­er on all the dimen­sions that might be expec­ted of a qual­ity estab­lish­ment these days, the fact that more places are offer­ing impress­ive ranges of inde­pend­ent beers instead of the usu­al branded swill can only be good for Wel­ling­ton. If not for our liv­ers.