Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
From the sports field to the shearing shed. It's the
Country Sport Breakfast with Brian Kelly on gold Sport.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
A long time ago, way back into Well they.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
Was to drink a can by the name.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Wonderful with that jaunty we ballied from the Clancy Brothers.
It is time to talk beer with Michael Donaldson. The
Pursuit of Happiness is one of the magazines is be
a specialist magazine that he writes for. Michael.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
Good morning morning, Brian.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Today we've been up north. Actually I think we were
up north last week. We were going to stay up
north and look at a very special brewery today.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
Yeah, look at some a brewery called eight Wired and
so the name's taken from you know, the number eight
wire mentality. They've got a great logo which is a
piece of barbed wire tangled up around the words eight wired.
And it's their fifteenth birthday. So wow. Yeah, so fifteen
(01:09):
years is pretty good in New Zealand. Yeah, And the
interesting thing about them was was many actually So it
started by a guy called Soren Ericksson and he's Danish
but he's lived in New Zealand for quite a while now,
like coming up twenty years, I say, and bizarre. He
(01:31):
used to be a professional poker player of all things.
Really yeah, yeah, to be honest, he was trained. I
think he was a marine biologist. That's what he trained
to do. His wife bought him a home brewquet while
they were living and working over in Perth. His wife's Monique,
(01:53):
she's a Kiwi, and he sort of got into homebrewing.
But he did this professional poker plane on this and
it was money he won at the New Zealand Poker
Champs that allowed him to set up this brewery. So
it's quite a cool we backstory.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
Ye love it it. It's been around fifteen years.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
Yeah, and they started at Blenham. So originally Soeign worked
for the Renaissance Brewing Company, which is based in Blenham,
and he started doing eight Wired from the same brewery
as a sort of a side project for himself. So
he kind of rented space in his time off and
started bull in there and then they moved up to
(02:36):
walk With I want to say aboutteen years ago, but
it's a while back. And so they have the brewery
and walk With but they have what they call it
a barrel room, and it's a mattacana O. The Auckland
is especially, it's easy to get to and that's they
(02:56):
store all they make a lot of beer and barrels
agent barrels and so it's all stored in this room.
You can go in there and sit amongst the barrels
and have a beer, and there's usually a food truck.
But they have a really good online service and there
are most of the supermarkets as well. So yeah, you know,
they're one of New Zealand's sort of more established breweries.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
What and are they celebrating with a special brew for
this birthday?
Speaker 1 (03:23):
Yeah, they are. I almost forgot about that. Bright. So
one of the things eight Wide are famous for is
they brewed a beer not long after they started, and
it's called Hop Wired and it was one of the
first brews in New Zealand, an I p A brewed
(03:43):
entirely with New Zealand hops and put in package format
because sort of until then everyone thought if you made
an I p A you had to have American hops
because that was where the I guess the lineage came from.
And so they made a beer that was New Zealand hops.
And now you'll get a long of IPAs that are
hopped with New Zealand varieties and people even talk about
(04:06):
New Zealand ipa. It's a very specific thing. So Hot
Wide was the pioneer in that regard. But for their
birthday they've released one. It's called Southland hop Wide and
it's a tribute to the little hot farm down in
Southland called Garston Hops. So they've sourced the hops from
(04:27):
Garston to make this beer. And for anyone who knows
Southland rugby, the can is in Southland colors like it's
got that kind of maroon purply right. It was a
bit of green hops dancing all around it. They've done
very well to get the color color combo right on
(04:47):
the can, so.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
It'll be a big seller down in Southland and not amaze,
I hope.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
So they should celebrate this because it's you know, they're
hops into an iconic New Zealand beer. It's definitely worth celebrating,
that's for sure.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
Well here we go, so happy birthday to eight Wide
and there's a beer to try. Fantastic Michael good to
catch up?
Speaker 1 (05:07):
Yeah, lovely, Brian, thank you, you can be sure of
it's Charlie's been a tell It's come on me.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
Lucky like eleven of touches up five trot seconds.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
Remember Charlie mocks one