{"id":18422,"date":"2016-09-19T11:25:50","date_gmt":"2016-09-18T23:25:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/?p=18422"},"modified":"2016-09-19T11:25:50","modified_gmt":"2016-09-18T23:25:50","slug":"niue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2016\/09\/19\/niue\/","title":{"rendered":"Niue \u2014 sixteen Steinlagers, a comparable number of dolphins, and a humpback whale"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Steinlager<\/a>
Steinlager #12 \u2014\u00a0celebrating a successful circumnavigation of the island<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

You know the usual Holiday Beer story \u2014 go to warm\u00a0and\/or\u00a0sunny location; mooch around; enjoy the local pale lager; (re)discover the fun\u00a0of blandness-as-a-virtue and enjoy a forceful reminder of the power of context<\/span>1<\/sup><\/a><\/span> \u2014 but mine’s a little different. After the frantic<\/a> Festival Season subsided<\/a>, Beer Diary HQ relocated for a week to Niue, which\u00a0isn’t big enough to\u00a0have its own brewery. So I drank Steinlager, instead.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

With twelve-hundred residents \u2014 that’s 25% less people than attended the high school I went to \u2014 and a landmass just three times the size of Wellington Harbor,<\/span>2<\/sup><\/a><\/span> Niue is small<\/em>. But it’s “small” like Earth is,\u00a0relative to\u00a0Solar System: it\u00a0depends on\u00a0how easy it is to get around, and how much there is to do while you’re there. Slightly-dodgy roads make the former slower-going than you’d think, by bike or by car, but there’s plenty<\/em> of the latter to compensate.<\/p>\n

\"Niue<\/a>
Steinlager #10 \u2014\u00a0at the southern boat ramp<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Our most dramatic outing was a morning cruising around the coast, swimming with a pod of dolphins \u2014 including some weapons-grade-adorable foot-long infants \u2014 and just metres from a stonking great big humpback whale as it lazily surfaced for breath and relaxed on the ocean floor, still visible through absurdly clear water that made it feel like we were levitating in a weird blue universe.<\/span>3<\/sup><\/a><\/span>\u00a0We also had an equally-unmissable (but way more low-key) trip inland for a guided tour of the island’s history and ecology with local legend Misa \u2014 including the near-infinite uses of coconut palms, ebony-spear warfare, and a tree-climbing uga crab as big as my head.<\/span>4<\/sup><\/a><\/span> Otherwise, we mostly meandered about, finding swimming spots or stunning limestone cave formations down just about every blue-signposted sea track.<\/span>5<\/sup><\/a><\/span> And we ate in that unsustainably-indulgent way that holidays basically require: there were a few excellent little spots,<\/span>6<\/sup><\/a><\/span> the fresh fish was\u00a0always<\/em> a good idea\u00a0\u2014\u00a0and the Steinlagers were four or five dollars.<\/span>7<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

\"Steinlager<\/a>
Steinlager #3 \u2014 at the bar not-quite a hundred metres from bed<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

For me, Steinlager is one of those guilty pleasures so enjoyable that it’s not really even\u00a0guilty<\/em> anymore. It’s\u00a0probably my ‘mainstream’ beer of\u00a0choice in New Zealand (depending, inevitably, on precisely\u00a0how you define the\u00a0m<\/em>-word). That seems to shock some (fellow geeks and non)<\/span>8<\/sup><\/a><\/span> but it it’s a lovely and flavourful little lager-pilsner thing \u2014 just as dependable and even more widely-available than the same conglomerate’s Mac’s Hop Rocker or Emerson’s Pilsner. It seems to’ve fallen from grace and prestige<\/a>, but I’d encourage people to give it another go. I certainly hated it when I first tried it as a teenager, but that’s no better a guide to anything than, say, grace or prestige. It’s got punch and presence and I don’t only enjoy it in the tropics.<\/p>\n

\"Steinlager<\/a>
Steinlager #5 \u2014 standing in front of\u00a0the ruins of #4 (and one of Em’s)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Its distinctive flavour comes from the Green Bullet hop<\/a>, which is a criminally-overlooked thing, locally. You can find it name-checked frequently\u00a0in beers around the world<\/span>9<\/sup><\/a><\/span> but neglected here at home; I can’t think of another brewer\u00a0featuring it proudly and prominently, and I have no idea\u00a0why<\/em>. Its taste might have become bound-up in the mythical “Steinlager headache” \u2014 a bit of persistent old-school nonsense almost certainly accounted-for by the beer being a\u00a0percentage point stronger than most New Zealand Draughts and other mainstream standbys<\/span>10<\/sup><\/a><\/span> \u2014 but overlooking it\u00a0now<\/em> is missing out: Green Bullet was\u00a0dank<\/em> before dankness was cool.<\/span>11<\/sup><\/a><\/span> Its delicious and unmistakable grassiness \u2014 in both the\u00a0legal \/\u00a0lawnmowing and<\/em> the prohibited \/\u00a0potsmoking senses<\/span>12<\/sup><\/a><\/span> \u2014\u00a0should be right up there with the passionfruit-burnout of Nelson Sauvin in terms of hop celebrity in the local scene, but you’re more likely to stumble upon it on holiday \u2014 in Steinlager or otherwise \u2014 and that’s a shame.<\/p>\n

Your homework, then, is to try it (again) and see if you like it \u2014 as a drinker or brewer or both, whoever you are. Me, I’ll get back to idly pondering whether Niue really\u00a0is<\/em> big enough for a brewery, and whether I’d like to open it. I wasn’t\u00a0only<\/em> taking photos of Steinlagers while I was there; the place is pretty damn gorgeous:<\/p>\n