Wanaka Beerworks

 

The Wanaka Beerworks is located in Wanaka, a resort town 45 minutes north of Queenstown. Situated near the airport it is basically a small brewery with a tiny tasting bar attached. The brewhouse is like nothing I've seen before with a really neat, compact layout. They also have a cute little bottling and labelling line.

The tasting room is sparse but I'm here for the beer not the atmosphere. My tasting paddle features 150ml samples of Wanaka Beerwork's three regular beers. Brewski, a new world pilsner, is decent with light floral aromatics and a mild pils malt and a lemon, lime and passionfruit hop character. Cardrona Gold is an amber lager which is overly sweet but features some nice nuttiness in the finish. There is a light floral hop character too but the sweetness dominates. Tall Black is a black ale with a heavy sweetness and more toffee and fruit than roast, chocolate and coffee.

Unfortunately, the girl manning the bar is new and doesn't know anything about the beers which is disappointing.

Well its a cozy little space near the Wanaka Airport. It is the front room of the brewery. When I was there it was for the 2pm Brew Tour. Yes its a little sacrilegious, but I had only one shot. The owner/head brewer was the only soul there aside from me and two other NZ guys. He was very friendly, but quickly left to go prepare for the next day's bottling. Me alone with three kegs:>, but karma and common sense kept me on the other side of the bar. There were a few posters and awards on the walls and of course the three lagers on tap. It was rather quiet and a nice change from the gift shop appeal of other brewery tours. Its really only worth it if your driving by, but not quite worth going out of your way. They offer $6NZ samples of ~3oz of all three lagers, so it was reasonable before I bought a pint in town.