If the craft beer world isn’t careful, people are going to start suspecting that the famed Aussie – Kiwi rivalry is nothing but a sham. We’ve had Kiwi brewers heading for home post Good Beer Week with messages of love for their Aussie brethren trailing in their jet streams, Aussie drinkers heaping praise on the beers coming the other way; Christ, Soren from 8 Wired declared he was still dreaming about Josie Bones two weeks on from dining there just the other day. And now an Aussie brewery has gone and brewed a Kiwi’s beer. When will the madness end?
The last of these will be unveiled to the public tomorrow. It’s the Three Golden Goats and is Mountain Goat’s recreation of the Three Boys Golden Ale and has been created as a fundraiser for the Christchurch Earthquake relief fund. It’s a kind of collaboration without any hands-on collaborating and is merely the latest show of support from the Australian brewing community for those affected by the quake, following on from multiple donations and whip rounds, such as those at The Local Taphouses that raised $8,067 for the NZ Brewers Guild’s Christchurch Quake Affected Breweries Appeal.
“Jayne [the soon-to-be former head brewer at Goat] met Ralph from the Three Boys when judging at Beer NZ last year. When the earthquake happened we called them and asked how they were,” says Goat co-founder Dave Bonighton. “They’re right in downtown Christchurch and were quite heavily impacted so we asked if there was anything we could do.
“Craig Bowen [from Beer NZ] said why don’t you make one of their beers in Australia and sell it then give them the profits. Ralph said they were OK and didn’t need it but we decided to do go ahead anyway.
“We’ve made their Golden Ale to their recipe exactly – except it’s completely different… We couldn’t get the same malt and have used a different yeast but it does have the same Kiwi hops.”
The first kegs of the 4.9% beer will be tapped at Mountain Goat at 5pm on Friday with a number likely to crop up in venues around Melbourne soon. All profits will go to New Zealand, in much the same way that the money raised from the sale of the Abbey Collabbey beer made by Goat, CUB and Moon Dog is going to the Collingwood Children’s Farm. The beer made specially for Good Beer Week raised just over $5,000.
Photo taken from The Twisted Hop website showing Three Boys after the earthquake.
