Verbatim: Dux de Lux ‘Sou’wester’ Stout. The Dux was nominated in the “Best Pub” category this year at the bar awards, and so was a certain little pub in which this photograph was taken. But the Dux won. And they brew. Fairly well. The Stout isn’t nearly as smooth as the Emerson’s or the Pitch Black; it’s a lot ‘livelier’ where the other two (especially the Emerson’s) go silky. This may well be Your Thing. It’s not quite mine.

And Three Boys Pils. A not-well-enough-known microbrewery from Christchurch (and so a fellow survivor of that Blight on the Universe, with Dux de Lux), and home to a similar range of uniformly better beers, I say. The Pils is a solid lager offering, with a good deal more presence and punch — and altogether more Interestingness than Dux Lager (just for instance). Closer to the lagers most people are used to than the Emerson’s would be, but conspicuously head, shoulders, and Big Tall Green Bottle above the Heinekens and Steinlagers of the fridge.