Brew Moon Brewing Company pour 16 of their own beers on tap with fresh and funky seasonal brews that sit alongside delicious classic styles. Oscar McCauley from the brewery tells Cityscape about their latest beer and grape fusion, which is part pale ale and part riesling juice, and what a typical working week looks like.
What’s new at your brewery? In terms of production, we are scaling down our list of ‘core range’ beers and having a greater number of one-batch brews. We want both our trade and taproom customers to have a new and interesting experience every time they deal with Brew Moon, so it’s more variety and less of the same old.
What’s your beer and food match for this summer? We’ve just made another of our beer and grape fusions, called Hop-over-Vine. Its 75% pale ale and 25% riesling juice fermented in a tank together. It’s fresh, slightly sweet and a little bit tart, and pairs up very well with whitebait fritters. There’s a little bit of acidity as a result of the riesling juice, which almost makes the lemon slice on the fritters redundant.
What are some interesting trends in beer? Sours and hazy beers are both interesting trends right now. Which we are personally very thankful for because they are both delicious! Sour beers often include fruits, herbs and spices and are really tart and fresh (some liken them more to ciders than beers). Hazy IPAs or New England IPAs are really aromatic, fruity and juicy beers that look a bit like fruit smoothies. They are much softer and more approachable than the traditional West Coast IPA due to a scaling down of the perceived hop bitterness.
How willing are consumers to try these new beer styles, or is it still IPA all the way? Our biggest sellers are still the classic styles like pale ales, pilsners and IPAs. But consumers are certainly the ones driving the movement towards interesting new beer styles. Breweries are essentially very reactive; we watch what is moving well in our own taprooms or craft bars and take our lead from that.
What is a typical week for you? As a brewery, probably about 30 percent new product development, trialling, costing etc, and 70 percent making sure we have a good supply of keg and packaged stock of our ‘core range’ styles. As mentioned before, we are starting to see this balance out more and more as we take the focus off packaged and core range stock and try to create more new brews to keep things fresh and interesting for our customers.
What do you enjoy most about the work? There is huge variation in the day-to-day, given the size of our brewery team. There is no one person in charge of accounts, or sales, or brewing or packaging. Everybody helps out over all sides of the business so no two days are the same. There is also huge variation in styles of beer we make, which also keeps things fresh. One day we might be picking fruit for our new sour; another day we might be making a hazy IPA with interesting new hops; another we might be putting an imperial stout into barrels for ageing.
Are there any perks to the job? Access to tasty beer and pizza is a pretty good perk! We also work in hospitality and alcohol, which are some of the more fun-loving industries. So generally our customers have a smile on their face, which plenty of people can’t say!
What excites you about Christchurch in the summer? The cold easterly wind – come out to North Canterbury! No, we love Christchurch, especially in the summer, when the bars and restaurants along the river are full, the tourists are floating around our beautiful gardens, the festival season is in full swing in Hagley Park and the whole city has a great vibe about it.