CSB - Michael Donaldson - Beer

Chatting Beer with the editor of New Zealand’s only dedicated craft beer magazine.

https://hoppiness.co.nz/ 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
From the sports field to the shearing shed.

Speaker 2 (00:03):
It's the Country Sport Breakfast with Brian Kelly on gold Sport.

Speaker 1 (00:11):
A long time ago, way back at this well, they
want to drink nothing but custante Anne the name honey
and we did the wonderful to be lead.

Speaker 3 (00:27):
Well, time to chat be now and we're going to
today talk about another long standing brewery out of the
Auckland region. Michael Donaldson joins this morning.

Speaker 2 (00:36):
Michael, Brian, how are we today?

Speaker 3 (00:38):
Very well? Thank you? A number of breweries and we
spoke about one last weekend at a Matakanna turning close
to twenty years old, and you've got another one in
that New Aukland region that's about to celebrate a twentieth Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:50):
Well next year, so we're closing in on it. They
started in two thousand and five and it's a brewery
called Hallatowel. That's h A L L E. Pau And
I think Hallatel certainly it's the name of a hop
in Germany, but I think it's also a region, maybe
a hot growing region in Germany. So they've taken that

(01:12):
very German name and transplanted it's northwest Auckland where they're
in the Riverhead region if some people know Auckland, it's
sort of near Huapai and Kumu and a couple of
years ago they opened a second venue in Cleveden in
the southeast, so sort of diagonally went across the city

(01:33):
and out the other side. So there Hallatower kind of
renowned for just they're great on premise offering, like the
one in Riverhead. If anyone's sort of in the Auckland
area and they want a great day out, it's a
fabulous spot, like it's so well done. The food's amazing,

(01:54):
the beer, you know, you talk to I talked to
some beer people and we're always talking about who's really
reliably good all the time, and halis Ol beers are
really good all the time. And I think it's they
have a really high turnover, especially at the Eve News,
so it's always fresh, always tastes great. They're one of

(02:15):
my favorite breweries. It was almost the first craft bear
I had when I came back to New Zealand. Wow,
from Sydney and we're right back in early two thousand
and five and they just opened and I went to
a venue and they had one of their beers there
and it was called number one. That was what they

(02:36):
have this cute thing where all their beers had numbers,
so when they started out they had like one, two, three, four.
It was just an easy way for people to remember them.

Speaker 3 (02:46):
Yeah, and they're all a little different though, so if
you're going to have a number two, it's a wee
bit different to the number three or whatever.

Speaker 2 (02:52):
It might be absolutely yeah, So I mean, just quickly,
the number one was it's a light it's a coolsh style,
which is a German style, but it's like a larger
but it's very light, slightly fruity. The number two is
a pale ale. The number three was a dark beer,

(03:12):
or is a dark beer. The number four was a
red ale. I think some of them. You know, they're
up to about number ten now, like they do occasional
seasonal releases. And an interesting one is they're very near
an orchard up there in that region and it's called

(03:32):
Borick and it's very well known in the region. And
they've just done a beer using tangellos from the orchard,
which is nice, yeah, lovely citrusy, orangey flavored beer. But
the one I wanted to talk to you about, Brian,
was the number two and it's easily their best seller.

(03:55):
So it's a pale ale very you know, it's those
people who might be a little afraid of craft beer.
It's what we call very approachable, but if you're a
little bit into craft beer, it's also very tasty. And
it's the second name after the number is Statesman, so
it's the Statesman pale Ale and the number two. It's

(04:18):
a black can with big yellow number two on it.
You can't miss it when you're in the shop.

Speaker 3 (04:24):
So these these beers are available to at supermarkets.

Speaker 2 (04:27):
Yeah, yep. Yeah, they probably don't have the spread that
a lot of others do because they're so focused on
their venues. They you know, they really are traditional sort
of brew pub and one of the probably the outside
gald Braids in Auckland, like one of the long standing
and original ones where the brewery and the restaurant and

(04:51):
the bar are all in one, you know. So yeah,
and they've got people. Steve Plowman is the guy who
runs it with his wife Hailey, and yeah, they just
do they do great things and they have great venue,
some hugely popular on Sunday afternoon. They have to say, yeah,
if you're thinking of booking getting early, so especially for summer.

Speaker 3 (05:15):
All right, there we go. I'm looking forward to tasting
that number two. Actually it sounds like a bit of meat.

Speaker 2 (05:20):
Yeah, I think you'd go all right with it, Bruce,
to be honest, Yeah yeah, And I mean the funny
thing is just they have just done a zero alcohol beer,
like a lot of people are doing it now, and
it's got zero on the front. So after going one, two,
three for us and they went back to the start
and put zero on it. So that was quite clever,

(05:41):
you know.

Speaker 3 (05:42):
It's excellent.

Speaker 2 (05:43):
Yeah, a good idea. But the and the other one
I was talking about was the Tangello whip beer that
doesn't have a number on it. But if people see
that and they like something very summery and fruity, that's
a lovely one as well.

Speaker 3 (05:57):
All Right, nice to chat Michael. We'll look forward to
that one and look forward to catching up again next week.

Speaker 1 (06:02):
All right, thanks Bro, I love him, Charlie muster Man
when the beer beer beer.

Speaker 3 (06:11):
Here we go, Yeah, Michael Donaldson, I'll be a chats
once week here on gold Sport. This is the Country
Sport Brick