Brewery reaches higher altitudes
Despite a slow start, it’s been a big year over at Altitude Brewery and 2023 is shaping up to be even bigger. In addition to winning the Lager than Life competition, they also picked up 19 medals at the Brewers Guild of New Zealand Beer Awards, have hosted a lot of events. Their taproom has come back to life and their wholesale business is going once again.
The wholesale side of Altitude is something they’ve worked on over the years, so once people started coming back into Aotearoa it was nice for them to see the love and development they’ve put into that side of the business help it come back to life. Co-Head Brewer, Eliott Menzies, credits the busyness of the taproom to the manager and team.
“The taproom is a thing itself and I have to credit Claire and her team for the vibe, and what she’s built here in terms of for the locals wanting to come down and keep coming down, and not just them but the tourists as well. So you get this real mix of people coming, and what she’s created has kept us really strong for Covid, too,” says Eliott.
The brewery recently won the fourth Lager than Life competition with their Fest Bier. The competition is an invite-only event organised by Wellington bar The Hudson. Lagers are some of Eliott’s favourite beers to brew so it made the win that wee bit cooler for him. He says that lagers are a “pretty traditional style and we stayed true to the traditional style.” By winning, it means that the team is creating their lager in a technically correct way.
“It’s unusual for us to use all imported ingredients, but I think to make authentic German lager you have to use authentic ingredients. So it’s all German malts, 100%, and all German hops. The yeast was our house-lager strain – that’s yeast that we propagate here. The malt and the hops, the drivers behind the flavour, they were important. Couple that with the fact that I personally love lagers – I feel like they get a bit lost these days.
“A lot of people feel like lager is not something that a craft brewery makes, whereas often it’s absolutely wrong because lagers are difficult beers to make. You have to get everything correct to brew a good lager, or the flaws show up much easier. The enthusiasm and love behind actually making a lager style, for us, is pretty up there,” he says.
In addition to brewing delicious beers and harbouring a great atmosphere at the taproom, Altitude also support the community by working to move all of their malt to a local grower and supplier, contracting all their New Zealand hops with Garston, and giving 1% of their gross revenue back to the Whakatipu. The 1% for the Whakatipu programme supports local charities and in the past they’ve supported programmes such as the Routeburn Trust, Wildlife Trust, individual athletes, the Mountain Bike Club and Disc Golf Club.
So what can we expect to see in 2023 for Altitude? They’re always coming up with new and exciting beers, so you’ll see more of the good stuff – they’d like to give a nod to low-carb options and lighter AVB thirst-quenching. Printed cans in boxed six-packs are on their way too. They’ll be keeping the atmosphere in the taproom ticking over and continuing to support the local community. You can find out more about what’s going on at Altitude by stopping by the taproom at 827 Frankton Arm Walk, Wednesday to Sunday, or head to their website altitudebrewing.co.nz
