Last night I sat down and drank a glass of my very own home-brewed IPA (India Pale Ale). It was­n’t my finest work (I’d rate it alongside/just under Tui in palat­ab­il­ity) but it was mine, I made it and I enjoyed mak­ing it.

I’ve made bet­ter beer. In fact I’ve even made one that I thought decent enough to inflict upon people oth­er than close friends. I entered said beer in the Home Brew Comp at Beer­vana, which kicks off this Fri­day (22 August). Now I doubt it’s a win­ning beer that’s going to blow the judges minds BUT it’s a pretty damn tasty Oat Stout!

I like a lot of things about beer. Brew­ing it, learn­ing about it, the vari­ation in ingredi­ents, the stor­ies behind spe­cif­ic beer ori­gins and of course tast­ing it. I can get involved with all of these things in one way or anoth­er over the two days that Beer­vana runs and this is why I love it so.

Homer Simpson dreaming of himself prancing around a tanker spouting beer like a fountain
I appre­ci­ate the sen­ti­ment but abhor the wastage of beer.

Beer­vana is now into its 13th year and this year is set to be its best and biggest yet!

There’s:

  • the New Zea­l­and meet­ing of the Pink Boots Soci­ety, who are an awe­some organ­isa­tion who are “Empower­ing women beer pro­fes­sion­als to advance their careers in the beer industry through edu­ca­tion”;
  • three award win­ning brew­ers fly­ing out from ‘Big Wel­ling­ton’ oth­er­wise know as Port­land as part of the inaug­ur­al “Beer­vana Exchange”
  • the media brew com­pet­i­tion is sure to be grand with 19 brew­ers teamed up with beer-lov­ing journ­al­ists to make a Spring themed beer which can con­tain any yeast, any liquid, any grain and any hops but must also con­tain one intrins­ic­ally or nat­ive New Zea­l­and ingredi­ent.
  • a new Beer­vana App where you can log and rate the beers you sample dur­ing your ses­sion at West­pac Sta­di­um
Screengrab of Beervana App lo
Be warned: You may encounter spam as a res­ult of installing this app

There is far too much on offer to pos­sibly hope to exper­i­ence it all, nev­er mind the fact that you’d be spend­ing over $600 on tast­ing every beer and your liv­er would murder you in your sleep if you put it through such tor­ture.

BUT.…

With so much on offer you are prac­tic­ally guar­an­teed a great time. You’ll have the oppor­tun­ity to taste fant­ast­ic beers from NZ, Aus­tralia, UK & Amer­ica and apply the Buf­falo The­ory as you wander about  expand­ing your know­ledge on all things good about beer.