{"id":1008,"date":"2010-10-30T00:01:25","date_gmt":"2010-10-29T11:01:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/?p=1008"},"modified":"2011-03-02T15:19:33","modified_gmt":"2011-03-02T02:19:33","slug":"croucher-pale-ale-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2010\/10\/30\/croucher-pale-ale-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Croucher Pale Ale"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Croucher<\/a>
Croucher Pale Ale<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Saturday brought an end to my Hamilton Expedition, but did compensate me with a lovely drive home down State Highway 4 — I decided I’d done SH1 too often, so thought I’d go around the other side of the Lake. And when I got home, I had a house full of people getting ready for a day-early dose of Hallowe’en craziness.<\/p>\n

Peter and I were relatively-lazy with our Hallowe’ening (though him much<\/em> moreso than me), so we had a bit of time to kill and therefore a beer. We’re both big fans of Croucher’s Pale<\/a> and I found the new bigger 500ml bottles up the road at Regional. They’re now also brewing at Steam<\/a> in Auckland, which gives them some extra capacity with which to meet their (deservedly) increasing demand and have a crack at some export markets. These bottles are labelled up ready for the U.S., and I was chuffed to see that Paul’s original (and accurate) tasting note of “delicious burps” has been left intact.<\/p>\n

And the beer is just as good as it ever was. Possibly a tad better, if anything. If I had to pin down a difference, I think the fresh, fruity (Cascadey) hops are even more present in the aroma than they were last time I had one. It’s a delicious beer, and was just what I needed.<\/p>\n

It deserves to do well overseas, and I think it (and the Pilsner) are a good bet. Exporting to places like the U.S. from little old New Zealand is a tricky proposition. Tuatara took a crack at it a little while ago with their IPA, which I thought was vaguely mad — would the Americans really go for such a relatively-sedate take on the style, given their hop-mad craft beer sensibilities? And Tuatara had their U.S.-labeled beers around a time when they were already stretched to capacity and seemed to be sacrificing conditioning time to meet local demand. Don’t get me wrong, I like<\/em> their IPA, but it just didn’t seem like the right beer or the right time. Croucher’s more-individual<\/em> Pale and Pils could well be a better fit.<\/p>\n

Verbatim:<\/strong> Croucher Pale Ale 30\/10\/10 500ml\u00a0\u00f7 2 w\/ Peter $6 from Regional 5% At my house after a long drive back down SH4, and while the girls are upstairs getting all Hallowe’en’ed. Apparently production has shifted to Steam, possibly after Kaimai re-took their kit. They’re bottling for the US market now, too. And more power to them. The awesome original “delicious burps!” tasting note has survived, and the beer hasn’t changed much — if at all, for the better. Lush, fruity, yum. Bigger fresh-Cascadey nose, perhaps.<\/p>\n

\n
\"Croucher<\/a>
Diary II entry #32.1, Croucher Pale Ale<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\"Croucher<\/a>
Diary II entry #32.2, Croucher Pale Ale<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Saturday brought an end to my Hamilton Expedition, but did compensate me with a lovely drive home down State Highway 4 — I decided I’d done SH1 too often, so thought I’d go around the other side of the Lake. And when I got home, I had a house full of people getting ready for … Continue reading Croucher Pale Ale<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[6,14,12],"class_list":["post-1008","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-diary","tag-pages","tag-nz","tag-pale-ale"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":403,"url":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2008\/08\/28\/croucher-pale-ale\/","url_meta":{"origin":1008,"position":0},"title":"Croucher Pale Ale","author":"Phil","date":"August 28, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Verbatim: Croucher Pale Ale, from Rotorua, but with none of that city's usual aromatic downsides. An after-work drink, and a pretty damn good one. It's a little bit Little-Creatures-esque, what with being a pale ale, but not being a thwack in the head with a fistful of hops. More just\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Actual Diary entries"","block_context":{"text":"Actual Diary entries","link":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/category\/diary\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Croucher Pale Ale","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Croucher-Pale-Ale-300x225.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2115,"url":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2011\/03\/19\/croucher-patriot\/","url_meta":{"origin":1008,"position":1},"title":"Croucher ‘Patriot’","author":"Phil","date":"March 19, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"So here we are again with the 'Black IPA', which I'll just go with calling it for now (the brewery themselves went with 'American Black Ale') and which it seems is cementing itself as quite the trend -- though to take a stab at for how long would be patently\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Actual Diary entries"","block_context":{"text":"Actual Diary entries","link":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/category\/diary\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Croucher 'Patriot', my first proper pint of","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Croucher-Patriot-first-proper-pint-300x225.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4844,"url":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2012\/07\/23\/croucher-raindogs\/","url_meta":{"origin":1008,"position":2},"title":"Croucher ‘Double D’ and Raindogs ‘Apothecary’","author":"Phil","date":"July 23, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"It is, for some reason, traditional that here in Wellington trans-Tasman flights arrive Eastward around midnight and depart Westward just before sunrise. I suppose it makes its own kind of sense, but it does mandate some bleary-eyed mornings and lead to the occasional un-bookable blank evening if you're excitably waiting\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Actual Diary entries"","block_context":{"text":"Actual Diary entries","link":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/category\/diary\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Croucher 'Double D', tap badge","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Croucher-Double-D-tap-badge-225x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":983,"url":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2010\/10\/29\/house-on-hood-and-house-croucher-mighty-golden-ale\/","url_meta":{"origin":1008,"position":3},"title":"House on Hood, and House \/ Croucher ‘Mighty’ Golden Ale","author":"Phil","date":"October 29, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Hamilton really does get a bad rap. Frequently from me, I'll freely admit. It just has this big, flat, sprawling bland black hole kind of a feel to it -- especially when you're trying to get through it on your way somewhere else. But there were increasing rumours of Good\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Actual Diary entries"","block_context":{"text":"Actual Diary entries","link":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/category\/diary\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Beer taps at House on Hood","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/House-on-Hood-taps-225x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1118,"url":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2010\/12\/04\/croucher-october-ipa\/","url_meta":{"origin":1008,"position":4},"title":"Croucher ‘October’ IPA","author":"Phil","date":"December 4, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"This totally managed to stump a few people and cause a minor nerd-riot, it did. We had two kegs of it at work, and the first went on through a Hopinator crammed full of mandarins1 -- \u00e0 la the rather-successful batch of fruited-up Twisted Hop IPA we'd previously done. When\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Actual Diary entries"","block_context":{"text":"Actual Diary entries","link":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/category\/diary\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Croucher 'October' IPA","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Diary-2039-Croucher-October-300x285.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1021,"url":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2010\/11\/01\/west-coast-brewing-pale-ale\/","url_meta":{"origin":1008,"position":5},"title":"West Coast Brewing Pale Ale","author":"Phil","date":"November 1, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"My friends and I became very fond of the West Coast beers when we stopped for a night in the tiny town of Blackball, and had more than a few at the \u2018Hilton\u2019. Their lager and dark are certainly nothing socks-knocking in craft beer terms, but they're well made, tasty,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Actual Diary entries"","block_context":{"text":"Actual Diary entries","link":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/category\/diary\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"West Coast Pale Ale","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/West-Coast-Pale-Ale-225x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1008","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1008"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1008\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1685,"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1008\/revisions\/1685"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}