All right almost up to speed with these posts now…
I was a little disappointed this past week, when I heard that Renaissance Brewing was staging a Tap Takeover up at O’Carrols, in Auckland, for the release of their new batch of the Craftsman Chocolate Oatmeal Stout. Their sales rep invited me along, but I had some work commitments that I just couldn’t seem to get out of *sigh*
But it just so happened that we were having a bit of an event at work in the weekend, something I had been pushing for, for about six months now…
Fill Your Own Taps for Craft Beer! Yes! Here in Hamilton!
It took a bit of organising, but I finally got the boss to agree to it! They were installed earlier in the week, and Saturday (yesterday) was the day of our big launch!
So when I found out that I wouldn’t be able to make it to the launch of the Craftsman, I rang Renaissance, begging and pleading for a keg that we could have by the weekend.
Being the awesome guys they are, they turned around and said: “Yeah, Sure”
And so it was, we got to tap a keg of the Renaissance Craftsman Chocolate Oatmeal Stout at our little Tapstravaganza!
…not to brag, but I think I managed to get a pretty good line up organised for the launch, we had 4 taps on which we had:
- Emerson’s Brewers Reserve: Oreti red
- 8 Wired Hopwired IPA
- Renaissance Craftsman Chocolate Oatmeal Stout
- Moa Reserve St. Josephs Tripel
The steady flow of people coming through from when we kicked of at 2pm right through to about 5 when it finally began to slow, seemed to solidify a little that this was a good way to go.
The crowd favourite was split between the 8 Wired Hop Wired and the Emerson’s Brewers Reserve, a lot of people were commenting on the fact that they loved the Craftsman, but they thought it was a little sweet to get through a full bottle …I wasn’t so sure…
When Everything wound down I took home a flagon of each to tide me through the long weekend. On the back of a cold winters night, I figured I’d start with the Craftsman I had been looking forward to since Wednesday.
…and what a good choice! It poured a deep dark brown, almost black, with about a finger of mocha coloured head. The nose was a big hit of bittersweet chocolate, with notes of chocolate and just a hint of (you guessed it) chocolate.
I hadn’t even put the glass to my lips and I was already pretty impressed.
When I did finally get it up to my mouth it was just an explosion of more dark bittersweet chocolate! Maybe some nutty characters in the background… It had a dry, bitter finish that lingered on the palate for quite a while, really good for a chilly evening.
If I had any criticism, it would only be that I wanted it to be a little fuller on the palate, but don’t take that as a complaint! I loved every drop!
And to those who though that it was going to be too sweet to drink a flagon of it …wrong! Within the blink of an eye I had devoured the entire flagon of it, and was thirsty for more! …mmmm chocolate…