CROUCHER BREWING: Delightful aroma's made famous in Rotorua are now emanating permanently from within Galbraith's Alehouse, Mt Eden

Here is a press release going out today outlining the fantastic news that as of tomorrow (Friday) Croucher Brewing has a permanent tap at the Mecca of New Zealand pubs, Galbraith's Alehouse in Mt Eden, Auckland. And the good news doesn't stop there for Auckland beer drinkers as we are joined by Yeastie Boys as permanent new additions at Galbraith's.

Delightful aroma's made famous in Rotorua are now emanating permanently from within Galbraith's Alehouse, Mt Eden

Galbraith's Alehouse, located in a historic library building at 2 Mt Eden Road), has long been the bastion of real beer in Auckland (if not New Zealand). As well as serving its own legendary ales produced on-site, Galbraith's has been building relationships with other New Zealand craft breweries. The latest addition to their tap line-up is a permanent Croucher Brewing tap, along with a permanent Yeastie Boys tap.

Croucher Brewing is a craft brewery based in Rotorua, the aromatic capital of New Zealand (if not the world). Croucher Brewing recently had its New Zealand Pilsner named 'Champion International Lager' at the BrewNZ Awards. Galbraith's Alehouse will be rotating the Croucher line up, including the Champion Pilsner, it's highly regarded Pale Ale, and the regular seasonal and experimental beers coming out of its Rotorua brew-house.

First up on the Croucher tap is October Ale - a very traditional English India Pale Ale (IPA), based on a recipe from the mid 1800's. These hop-laden IPA's were brewed strong (October Ale is a hefty 7.5% alc/vol) to survive a long sea voyage from England to India. Other seasonal beers in the pipeline are a Christmas Ale (think hearty Christmas cake in a glass), a Belgian Singel, and just possibly a return of Croucher Patriot – an American Black Ale.

Croucher Brewing (www.croucherbrewing.co.nz) was set up in 2005 by Paul Croucher and Nigel Gregory. Their goal was to produce hand crafted beer full of flavour that showcases New Zealand hops. While they produce the odd seasonal beer using hops from the USA or England, they remain keen advocates of the characters of locally grown hops – going as far to suggest that some of these New Zealand hop variants could do for beer what Sauvignon Blanc grapes have done for New Zealand wine.

Galbraith’s Alehouse (www.alehouse.co.nz) opened in 1995 as New Zealand’s first real ale brew-pub. Since then they have developed a loyal following for their classic real ales and European inspired lagers. Head brewer Keith Galbraith and brewer Ian Ramsay source all their ingredients from the UK and EU as they believe to brew authentic (and fresh) old world style beers you need the raw materials from those regions. 


ENDS

Contact:

Nigel Gregory or Paul Croucher

The Croucher Brewing Company

(07) 348 5888

http://croucherbrewing.co.nz

Croucher Brewing Sells Its Soul...

We are in Auckland today bottling the first Croucher beers coming off the line at Steam Brewing. While we continue to brew furiously in Rotorua, we have taken advantage of Steam's expertise to help us produce some serious volume.

Don't worry, we haven't sold out! Rather, we are taking advantage of an opportunity to help us grow our sales and distribution. Over the past year we have been really up against it trying to produce enough beer to meet demand and also provide enough stock to actively grow our distribution around NZ, and God forbid having enough stock to even consider exporting.

A few months back things changed at the brewery, providing us the perfect opportunity to have a thorough look at what we are trying to do and specifically the best way of doing it. Our main issue was that we never had enough beer! We decided to investigate contract brewing/bottling some of our bottled beer. After some analysis, we decided to work with Steam Brewing (winners of multiple trophies at BrewNZ this year, and also the team that work with Epic Brewing). We went up a month or so back and brewed some big batches of Pilsner and Pale Ale.

In the meantime, our Rotorua-brewed Pilsner won CHAMPION INTERNATIONAL LAGER at BrewNZ, thus setting a very high bar for Shane and the team at Steam to emulate. Well, today we bottled the Pilsner brewed at Steam, and it would be fair to say that we are EXTREMELY happy with it! So if you haven't tried it in a while, make sure you get out there and track it down - it would easily be one of the hoppiest lagers in NZ, and is a fantastic showcase of New Zealand hops - to the point where we are re-badging it as a New Zealand Pilsner. Tomorrow we bottle the Pale Ale. Then we are back home to brew, bottle and keg beer there too - and somehow finding time to sell the beers we have just packaged! Anyone looking for a job??

Another exciting change is that, as of this week, we are introducing 500ml bottles to our range. So we will have 330ml bottles primarily targetted at on-premise, 500ml bottles primarily targetted at off-licence and keg beer for these outlets who enjoy fresh draught craft beer. The 500ml bottles have a lovely new label design, which will roll out to the 330's soon too.

The other thing you'll already be aware of is our regular seasonal brews. The latest release is Croucher PATRIOT, our American Black Ale. It has been sent out around the country. The first keg went on at Hashigo Zake in Wellington, with a fantastic review of PATRIOT having already been blogged by a visiting American. On Thursday evening PATRIOT is the guest beer at House On Hood's beer club in Hamilton.

Our next seasonal is called October Ale, and funnily enough will be released in October. It is a recipe based on the early India Pale Ale's from the mid-18th Century. It has been brewed with English malts and English hops, and is shaping up nicely as the perfect foil for all those hoppy American IPA's that are de rigueur. Keep an eye out in mid-October for Croucher OCTOBER ALE.

We hope you are enjoying our blog/facebook/twitter posts, letting you peek behind the curtain at the goings-on at our craft brewery.

Nigel & Paul

Brew Day:

Today it's our next seasonal beer, Croucher OCTOBER Ale. The October Ale style harks back to mid-18th Century and the father of IPA's, George Hodgson. It is a pale well-hopped brew using English malts and hops. Once brewed it was intended to be cellared for up to two years, but we don't think we can wait that long! We hope to have this available by the end of October, failing that we may have to rename it 'November Ale' ;-)