Galbraith's Alehouse

Visited on a recent trip to Auckland. A bit snotty, craft beer snobbish which doesn't help. The English bitter (not sure which one) was too warm and when I remarked to the 13 year old barman he said that was intentional to mimic English conditions. Except that it was summer in Auckland! And that is a myth. I have never had warm beer in England! But has some reasonable beers and is well decked out and a pleasant place for a drink.

Galbraith's is on the tourist circuit and is an established institution of those things English. It is on the main Inner Bus loop and also one of the tourist hop-on-hop-off bus stops. Converted from a neighborhood library, it makes for an interesting scene... and a bit of blast from the British past.

I liked the beers. A flight of cask-conditioned soft, round beers. Not too bitter. Just right for a malt-head like me.
The bartender was very knowledgable and took lots of time to explain the beers to me... and did so proudly.
Even though their ales are the main attraction, they still had 4 guest taps and, I guess, 35 bottled beers.

Sorry I could not stay for lunch. If you are in Auckland, check out Galbraith's.

MJ's 1999 "Guide" said Galbraith's has "Very hoppy ales in the southern English style" and then reviewed the three I Had... and 4 more that I did not have.

 

 

 

Traditional English style pub located in the Mt Eden area of Auckland. The staff there is friendly and very knowledgeable about the beers they brew. There are 7-8 house beers and 3-4 guest beers on tap. There are also about 40 bottles of craft beer to choose from.The food served is great and compliments the beers very well. When the weather is nice there is a beer garden to relax in. The best bet to to get a rack of beers to sample all of the cask ales they serve. This turned out to be the ideal place to be on a rainy afternoon. This place is well worth checking out when you are in Auckland.

There're lots of British style breweriana around on oak colored solid wainscott. Brew house is visible off side room. Carpet is dark blue with fleur de lis. Fantastic broad based menu reflecting the region. I had: "MAHY FARM BLACK ANGUS EYE FILLET ~ Pan roasted to order (med rare for me, although it was slightly underdone) with buttered calvo nero, bomba chorizo potato & mojo picon, manchego stuffed crispy queen olive, brava sauce. Damn, it was good! Fab sounding desserts too, such as Gooseberry Creme Brulee. Baartenders knew their stuff, were friendly, and helpful. Prices were reasonable for the area. Neat old building with high ceilings. Great back bar which was full service. You do place your order at the bar tho. Plenty of wood tables and chairs to sit at. Love to return some day.

Nice little cask ale house. Walk in and are greeted by the brew house on the right. I bellied up to the bar and ordered the rotational they had... velvet stout. Nice cask stout. Nice British give alehouse going on. About 11 casks, and 6 guest taps, including a hop rod rye, which I thought was pretty cool. Service was good, and I asked about a lot of the beers, and settled on the velvet first, only half way into it did I come to realize I could get a sampler of 4 of anything on tap. Wish he would have told me, as I asked about half pints, etc. Bottle selection was quite good as well. Not as much as brew on quay, but excellent quality brews.

Located in an inner city suburb of Auckland, Galbraith's Alehouse is the most British of the Kiwi breweries focussing on classic styles and using nearly all imported ingredients to get an authentic flavour.

Galbraith's is one of only 2 breweries in New Zealand packaging their ales is casks and serving them at proper ale temperatures (others use plastic bags to package their hand-pumped beers).

The bar itself is basically an old-school English pub atmosphere and the service is fairly friendly if slow as they get very busy. The prices are okay as well but the food prices are a bit high for the quality. The bottle list is also quite impressive.

Very definately a must-see if you are in Auckland. A great English style pub with around 8 different brews created on the premises available every day, with 5 on hand pump.

You can get a sampler tray for $20 NZD with four half pints. We had two of these to cover all the different beers. Every single one of them was in excellent order, ranging from a czech style pils to an English Porter (which was my favourite) and a trappist style beer.

The also have a very intriguing selection of bottled beers, including some well known english beers such as Theakston's Old Peculaiar and Fuller's London Pride, as well as some rather rarer ones such as Timmermans Peche Lambic.

My company on this day was three non-beer drinkers, and the samplers helped me to educate them in the fantastic range of flavours, and managed to convert two of them, at least temporarily, from wine to beer. (Alas, my wife will never be a beer drinker...)

Great atmosphere, and food okay too.

(Visited December 2007)

Galbraith's is farely close to Mt. Eden Park where the Auckland Blues play, that's rugby for anyone outside the southern hemisphere. great place to have a bite and a brew before a game.

the building i believe was once an old library, correct me if i'm wrong. i might call it a wooden neoclassical-esque facade...i might. interior is quite nice with large communal type tables. a great back patio covered in hops, variety unknown. the brewery itself is right in the building when you walk in. Keith Galbraith, oh to be blessed with such a 'pub-like' name, brews all the beer there, all are cask-conditioned and hand-pumped.

Along with their own four or five beers they carry a few guests on tap and have a farely decent selection in bottle as well. i started with the Grafton Porter which i found to be excellent. since it was about a month ago i will not attempt to give a review of it other than to say that it was delicious with a great dark malt/coffee flavour. My girlfriend had a Hoegarden 'Forbidden Fruit' which she likes to describe as ' rich, full of flavour and boozy'. i couldn't have said it better myself.a very nice beer but maybe 5pm before a rugby match isn't the time to drink one. Our friends both had a bohemian pilsner that i thought was great and i ain't much for pils. To finish it up i had a abbey-style brewed by galbraith that i felt needed a little work. but as i had it a month ago, i can offer little else. it just wasn't finished

as for food, we all shared the ploughman's platter. small tossed salad, nice chunk of bread, sharp cheddar, pickled onions, boiled egg, shaved ham, grainy mustard, gherkins, chutney. perfect, exactly what i want to eat with fine beer

a note on service in NZ: it's relaxed. there's no tipping in NZ and i find that the service staff is far less inclined to trip over themselves to wait on you. this is often a nice thing as you don't have servers pushing you and aggressively working for their tips, but on the other side it can mean slow service.
however on the plus side, the barman i was chatting with had a good grasp on all the beers they offered and it seemed the others did as well.

all in all Galbraith's is one of the best brewpubs i've seen around. a true dedication to cask-conditioned ales and a great environment in which to imbibe them.

Galbraith's Alehouse is as far as I know the best brewrpub in auckland. They brew a range of delicious real ale's: Bob Hudson's Bitter, Bellringers Bitter, Grafton Porter, Bitter and Twisted, Bohemian Pilsner and have seasonal brews as well like the India Pale Ale and their trappist style beer of which the name has temporarily slipped my mind.

From other New Zealand brewers there is among others, Limburg Wit and the fabulous Limburg Hopsmacker. The assortment of beers is probably the best you'll encounter in Auckland and maybe even in New Zealand (the list on their website is not complete). They even put the small local chain of Belgian pubs in Auckland to shame with their range of Belgian beers! Where else can you drink a Cantion Geuze and Kriek for example?

Coming to live in Auckland I found Galbraiths was a very pleasant surprise indeed! Galbraith's simply is a must for the real beer lover!