Armakeggon 2012

The local boutique beer bar runs a craft beer festival called Armakeggon every year, which features a number of exotic beers served over the day. This year it included 40 different beers which were available in three 2 hour intervals. To fit every beer in this meant the festival opened at 10am, although we got down there at just after 11. Time enough to try a couple of the early brews, although Liz was a little startled sampling an 7.4% IPA at a time when she's normally finishing breakfast.

 It was enough to make my hair stand on end

When we arrived we were given a menu to plan our drinking journey, and it was heavily referred to over the next few hours

This year it turns out that Imperial Stouts, Porters & Black IPAs are in vogue. I thought they were a little over-represented and sometimes everything just got a little too roasty but apart from that it was a fine afternoon. Looking back over the list we sampled -

• Harringtons Hop Tremor IPA (7.4%) - nice, very hoppy, a classic IPA
• Bacchus Gose (4.4%) - this was a 'salt and sour spiced ale' that I was very keen to try, but it tasted more like a pale wheat beer with only a hint of lactic sourness
• Kuichi Hitachino Sake aged Belgian Strong (8%) - had a very rich spirit taste to it which overwhelmed most of the flavour 
• Invercargill Red Hot Chocolate Chilli Stout (5%) - I liked this, smooth and with a mild chilli burn
• Mike's Heavy Petal IPA (6.7%) - an IPA with an infused rose petal flavour. I couldn't pick it though
• Yeastie Boys Gunnamatta IPA (6.5%) - an earl grey infused IPA that Liz enjoyed. I'm more of a coffee man. 
• Hopdog Children of Darkness Indian Black Ale (6.6%) - a bit too hoppy for the roastiness, or should that be too roast for the hoppiness?
• Murray's Wild Thing Imperial Stout (10%) - this was tasty but scarily strong
• Amasia Mash Rumweizen (7%) - didn't expect to like this sweet fruity toffee beer but it was surprisingly tasty
• Raspberry Schwartzbier (4.6%) - a refreshingly tart dark beer, one of the standouts for me as I didn't expect to like it 
• Little Creatures Quiet American Brett infused Belgian Strong (8.8%)  - I liked this, the lactic taste complimented the wheatiness well
• Murray's The Abyss Farmhouse Imperial Stout (11.3%) - not sure what made this 'Farmhouse', it tasted like the other Imperials of the day
• Bacchus War'n'Peat Imperial Stout aged in whiskey barrels (12.4%) - very nice, and more than a little scary

It was fun afternoon, and each glass was only 200ml so we were drinking responsibly :)