Dunedin, a city in the southeast of the South Island is home to the University of Otago, Cadburys World and Speight's Brewery. Needless to say, after short tour of the city, its history and sights, I prompty signed up for a tour of the brewery and waiting in anticipation for what I dreamed would be the Willy Wonker experience of beer... I was not let down.
Speight's beer, the true New Zealand beer is the southern man's choice. If you have a look at any of the hundreds of adverts (all variations on the same theme), you will quickly learn than only real men drink Speights and that is simply oozes testosterone. See below for link:
With that in mind, I headed to the brewery and was greeted by a Kiwi tour guide with the driest sense of humour I've yet to experience - and if you've met any Kiwis, you'll realise that's a fairly bold statement. The tour consisted a sixety minute tour of the milling process, the factory layout and the history of beer itself - concluding of course with an all you can drink bar with all Speight's brews on tap.
So, here's what I learnt...The factory brews 330,000 litres of beer per week, producing 21 different blends and runs 24 hours per day 6 days a week. The milling equipment they use was British produced (nice), and has been in operation for over 70 years - and considering the amount of beer they make every day, that's pretty good going.
If you were interested to know, Captain James Cook, that explorer bloke, was the first man (or woman for that matter) to brew beer in New Zealand, using a blend of coastal plants to help cure his crew of scurvy. Also, if you every wondered where the word 'booze' came from, look no further, I shall tell. Amongst many different rooms of beer history, we came across a copy of an Ancient Egyptian brewer's tomb and the hieroglyphics found therin. It depicted how the Egyptians discovered beer by allowing bread to ferment for a few weeks in water and a description of the drink's side effects. And as is written, the drink was called 'booza' or 'booze' - so... yeah, there you go.
After an hour of multiple displays and a whole heap of brewing information from coopers to hoppers we were invited into our own private bar and the eight of us on the tour were kindly asked to 'taste' (not drink) all the different blends which Speight's so carefully brews. Thirty minutes later, and a lot more 'drinking' than 'tasting', I can definitely say, the tour is worth the money, is hugely insightful and is also horrifically endulgent.
Good on ya mate.
Hi Matt Dad here, great to be able to hear from you. If I close my eyes and read the words it could be Bill Bryson (but if I close my eyes I can't read the words of course but you know what I mean). You must imminently be off to Oz now, wow! We are off to Florida (again) tomorrow, we were blessed(!) with a minor snowfall this morning which brought back recollections of the BA victimisation last year. Katie and George are coming out for week 1 and Andy for week 2. Managed to lose 7 kilos in the last few weeks in anticipation of putting on 10 in the next 3. By the way, there was a phone call this afternoon from the Tourist Office of Westport..........
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