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Garage Project’s Hāpi Festival and Symposium was held earlier this year in
the lead-up to New Zealand’s hop harvest.
The symposium and festival form the public-facing side of a hop-breeding
initiative Garage Project has undertaken with New Zealand’s Freestyle
Farms, and with backing from the country’s Ministry for Primary Industries.
Over the course of a day in Wellington’s famous Museum of New Zealand Te
Papa Tongarewa, speakers such as Alexandra Nowell from Three Weavers
Brewing Company, Matt Brynildson from Firestone Walker Brewing Company, and
Paul Jones from Cloudwater Brew Co. gave talks with a focus on hops. Good
Beer Hunting was there to capture a slice of the discussion.
Afterwards, the invited breweries poured for a small festival of 1,000
people. It was a surreal situation: seeing world-renowned breweries like
Trillium, Other Half, Hill Farmstead. Tired Hands and Cellarmaker serving
beer in New Zealand’s national museum.
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I was happy to talk to J.C. Hill from Alvarado Street Brewery, based in
Monterey, California, as part of our Hāpi Festival and Symposium podcast
series. I’d heard exciting things about his beers and loved the artwork on
the labels. In our conversation, and in the following interviews, I really
wanted to get an understanding of how the experience of visiting New
Zealand hop fields would influence brewers when they got back into the
brewhouse.
We also talk a bit about Cryo Hops, Italian Pilsners, and how good New
Zealand tomatoes taste. Listen in. |