{"id":983,"date":"2010-10-29T00:01:34","date_gmt":"2010-10-28T11:01:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/?p=983"},"modified":"2011-03-02T15:19:16","modified_gmt":"2011-03-02T02:19:16","slug":"house-on-hood-and-house-croucher-mighty-golden-ale","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2010\/10\/29\/house-on-hood-and-house-croucher-mighty-golden-ale\/","title":{"rendered":"House on Hood, and House \/ Croucher ‘Mighty’ Golden Ale"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Beer<\/a>
Beer taps at House on Hood<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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.<\/p>\n

But there were increasing rumours of Good Pub To Be Had in the City, and so I seized the chance for a roadtrip up to visit a friend and conduct some “research”. Kirsten and I had a nice little wander through town, stopping at several suprisingly-civilised (but non-amazing) places on our way here<\/em>, to the reputedly-lovely House on Hood<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It’s a charming little place, really; the decor is comfortably cute and quirky but not overdone, and the atmosphere seems pretty relaxed. The beer selection is pretty damn good — I really want to say especially for Hamilton<\/em>, but that would just seem like lingering bigotry, after this opinion-changing night out — and the list has helpful notes, some of which are summarised and repeated on a handy Big Board for the tap selection. I got the distinct feeling that Nerds would be welcome and wanna-be Nerds would be well helped. I met the owner, and he definitely seemed to have his head screwed-on right; beer is a thing for civilised enjoyment, not for wankery.<\/p>\n

\"House<\/a>
House \/ Croucher 'Mighty' Golden Ale<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

And<\/em>… the Croucher brewery made them a golden. I do loves my golden ale<\/a>, I do, so that felt particularly welcoming. House fell into the easy and often-done trap of describing it as a lager-ale hybrid, which is a strange combination of kinda<\/em> getting across the right idea and kinda<\/em> missing the point entirely — but you get used to that, as a fan of the style, and I suppose it would work to pique the curiosity. Anyway, descriptions aside, it’s lovely. Light and quaffable and refreshing and different enough to be interesting, and fairly sessionable too, at 4.1%. All in all, a damn good idea for an own-brand offering from a place like this — “house beers” are utterly bleh all too often, even when you find them at otherwise-genuinely-lovely places like Betty’s here in Wellington.<\/p>\n

Verbatim:<\/strong> House \/ Croucher ‘Mighty’ Golden Ale 29\/10\/10 4.1% $8.30 @ House on Hood. Had a few decent little pubs here in the Tron before making our way here — just nice, nothing special. This place looks lovely. Nicely shambling slightly-kitsch interior. Quite a diverse crowd. And Croucher made them a golden! Tasting notes on the wall are a bit limp (“cross between lager + ale”…) but still. It’s proper Golden — light + pretty lovely. When the notebook + camera came out, Kirsten pretended not to know me. Understandable. I borrowed the beer list + met Nathan, the owner; all the right ideas about enthusiasm for good beer while avoiding over-done wankery.<\/p>\n

\n
\"House<\/a>
House on Hood, exterior<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\"House<\/a>
House on Hood, interior<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\"House<\/a>
Diary II entry #30, House \/ Croucher 'Mighty' Golden Ale<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 Pub To Be Had in … Continue reading House on Hood, and House \/ Croucher ‘Mighty’ Golden 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":[3,5],"tags":[6,14,28],"class_list":["post-983","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-diary","category-locations","tag-pages","tag-nz","tag-golden-ale"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1003,"url":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2010\/10\/29\/gouden-carolus-hopsinjoor\/","url_meta":{"origin":983,"position":0},"title":"Gouden Carolus ‘Hopsinjoor’","author":"Phil","date":"October 29, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"An evening of pub-hopping and beer-having had made Kirsten and I rather peckish, so we backtracked a little up Hood Street to a place called Gothenburg, which had caught our eye on our way to House. She picked the food, and I took about ten times as long to pick\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Actual Diary entries"","block_context":{"text":"Actual Diary entries","link":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/category\/diary\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Gouden Carolus 'Hopsinjoor'","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Gouden-Carolus-Hopsinjoor-225x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":906,"url":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2010\/10\/10\/beer-101-tasting-session\/","url_meta":{"origin":983,"position":1},"title":"Beer 101 Tasting Session","author":"Phil","date":"October 10, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"George (the gifter of the original Diary) organised a little tasting session at his house for a few friends of ours, with me playing the Informative Nerd. I'll be the first to admit that I made them all run a bit of a marathon, but we hit most of the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Actual Diary entries"","block_context":{"text":"Actual Diary entries","link":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/category\/diary\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Beer 101 tasting session empties","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Beer-101-1-300x225.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":600,"url":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2008\/11\/25\/three-boys-golden-ale\/","url_meta":{"origin":983,"position":2},"title":"Three Boys Golden Ale","author":"Phil","date":"November 25, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Pure summer gorgeousness. A very pale straw, and slightly hazy here since the small amount of sediment was a wee bit agitated-in. As Scott (the Bar Manager) puts it \"it's fruity, it's flirty, it's fantastic\". Absurdly refreshing, and apparently a \"single malt\" beer (which is fairly cute), it's got an\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Actual Diary entries"","block_context":{"text":"Actual Diary entries","link":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/category\/diary\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Three Boys Golden Ale","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Three-Boys-Golden-Ale-300x225.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":897,"url":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2010\/10\/05\/three-boys-golden-ale-on-handpull\/","url_meta":{"origin":983,"position":3},"title":"Three Boys Golden Ale (on handpull)","author":"Phil","date":"October 5, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Three Boys Golden is an absolute favourite of mine. So after the heartbreak that was the Hopinated version of\u00a0 Twisted Hop's 'Sauvin' Pils -- another beer whose deliciousness is closely-tied to its simplicity -- I was a little nervous to try this. Especially after Martin had some and found it\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Actual Diary entries"","block_context":{"text":"Actual Diary entries","link":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/category\/diary\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Three Boys Golden Ale, handpulled","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Diary-2021-Three-Boys-Golden-Ale-handpulled-300x166.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":227,"url":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2005\/05\/04\/badger-golden-champion\/","url_meta":{"origin":983,"position":4},"title":"Badger ‘Golden Champion’","author":"Phil","date":"May 4, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Verbatim: Badger Golden Champion. 500ml, $5, 5%, 4\/5\/05, with sausages + Firefly. I'm visiting these guys and shaking the hand of the man what makes their beer. Gold, indeed. Really tasty. Warm fruitiness. Peaches, quite a bit. It's really good. [Brewed w\/ elderflower!] Afterthoughts, October 2010: A nice early example\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Actual Diary entries"","block_context":{"text":"Actual Diary entries","link":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/category\/diary\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Badger 'Golden Champion'","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Diary-1025-Badger-Golden-Champion-300x174.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":654,"url":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2009\/01\/10\/invercargill-wasp-golden-ale-incarnation\/","url_meta":{"origin":983,"position":5},"title":"Invercargill ‘Wasp’ (Golden Ale incarnation)","author":"Phil","date":"January 10, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm increasingly certain that my nomination for Under-rated Beer Style is golden ale. I've got a few more sitting on my bookcase ready to try soon, but I'd also never gotten around to trying this one that we've had at work for ages. And it's pretty bloody lovely, really. Compared\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Actual Diary entries"","block_context":{"text":"Actual Diary entries","link":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/category\/diary\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Invercargill 'Wasp'","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Invercargill-Wasp-225x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/983","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=983"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/983\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1683,"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/983\/revisions\/1683"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}