Weekend in the 'Naki

Wow, what a weekend, and how does one follow such a well written blog of the same thing? Well, I thought id focus more on what we were drinking (what I can remember) and the brew day..

We arrived at Joking's place at about 6pm, I stepped out of the car and before I knew it I was being handed a full glass of Dubbel - My first beer of the day at 7.5% - this was also an indication of the kind of beer we would be drinking that night, bloody strong ones!

The Dubbel was tasty, rich, malty and rasin like with a big phenolic thing happening, some banana, some bubblegum, and it finished with a chewy malt finish...

After this I was lucky enough to have a tasting of Jokings IIPA - It was absolutely amazing! A hefty alcohol content and a truck load of hops to follow, the aroma was bursting out of the glass and trying to slap me in the face! Still cloudy as it has only just started to condition but that didnt stop me, I finished the glass and couldnt help but feel a bit sad that I had none left...

Then Mike showed up and things started to get a bit crazy - started off with a taste of Pliny the Elder (i couldnt afford a whole pint at $25 - this was also the only commercial beer consumed on that night) and then we all wanted each other to try each others beers and there was a bit of "try this one next", "but we were supposed to be drinking this next", "ok well crack this one next" pint glasses were being handed round left right and centre and the smallest beer being my AAA at 6.1%, me being a wee bit smaller than Jo and Mike and lacking years of drinking experiance, by this stage I was finding it hard to keep up...

Im going to make a special mention to Jo's fermented Cranberry Juice, it was really really tasty and something im going to give a crack myself one day, a nice sour drop but still deviously drinkable!

But that didnt stop Mike busting out some seriously huge beers! And I mean HUGE!!! An IIPA weighing in at 11%, which I note he wasnt happy with (allthough I really enjoyed it) and a smoked RIS also at 11%, the last one did it for me and sent me off to bed with a fairly hefty hangover to follow the next morning :o( But it was worth it! There were so many more beers so I apologise for missing out any really good ones..

The following day we got to drink Epic Porter at a reasonably high altitude, it was a good walk which made me feel a million times better by the time it was over, allthough im sure the Porter helped too :o)

We went home shortly after to brew Mikes absolutely insane BW on the JoKing brewery which definately turned out to be an interesting experiance! Jo's obviously been perfecting his set up over the years as the brew went fairly painlessly, even with a 90 min mash and a 2 hour boil.. One thing ive realised, is that a pump will make your brew day a million times easier and let you do some pretty cool things, like whirlpool chilling! I took alot of pics of the whole thing so go and check it out on JoKings pic album..

That night we didnt hit the beers as hard, just nice tastings with 300ml and 500ml bottles being split three ways, resulting in us actually enjoying everything that passed our lips - alot of random Belgian beers, and my first ever taste of Rodenbach Grand Cru - So utterly awesome and sour and like cranberry juice with other sorts of funky bretty type things going on, absolutely unique!

I then woke up on sunday and had to drive back to shitty Auckland - I cant say I was happy to be home after such an awesome weekend! Hope my read is good without the pics to brighten the page :-/

A massive thanks to both Joseph and Mike for sharing the amazing beers, and to Joseph for putting us up for the weekend!