Verbatim: Holgate Brewhouse White Ale. 5.0%, 330ml, $16/6pk, at home. Bottle conditioned, but the tiniest amount of sediment. Wheat beer, very mild taste. Refreshing on a 40° day. Not gold, light, cloudy. Like flat L&P or some random chemistry set piece. Matches our couch. Bubbles don’t stay.

Afterthoughts, October 2010: I do remember finding this almost ridiculously mild, especially as I was a bit of a wheat beer drinker at the time. Then again, in weather like that, it still did the trick. How on earth did I survive those kinds of temperatures, you may ask, if you’ve seen me in even a relatively-mild Wellington summer — just goddamn barely, I can assure you. (And yes, we really did have a couch that was roughly the same colour as L&P.)