Last week was Choice Beer Week, a new seven day celebration of craft beer held in Wellington. People from around New Zealand and Australia – and a fair smattering from further afield – descended on the Craft Beer Capital of New Zealand to enjoy tastings, dinners, exhibitions, tap takeovers, meet the brewer events, degustations, photography exhibitions, the New Zealand Beer Awards and Beervana – the nation’s premiere beer festival.

It has been almost a whole week since IPA Day [1] and many of the nation’s hop heads are becoming restless and thirsty.

It’s always great to be a craft beer drinker in Wellington but this is a particularly spectacular week. Choice Beer Week, a new celebration of craft beer around the Capital, has kicked off and culminates

When it comes to things which are fashionable and/or cool, it is fair to say that I generally discover them very late in the piece, if I hear about them at all.

Undoubtedly the dominant story in Wellington this last week has been the so-called “swarm” of earthquakes hitting the Capital. By far the biggest and most dramatic quake (so far – fingers crossed) was the 6.5 magnitude jolt which hit at 5:09pm on Sunday.[1]

To suggest that the 6th Annual Malthouse West Coast IPA Challenge was “popular” is akin to describing Sharknado as “silly” – both are accurate as far as they go but each hardly reflects the magnitude of events.