LUKE NICHOLAS on "Has New Zealand reached 'peak beer'?" Read full Stuff article here. Starting out as an assistant brewing for a new brewpub in Auckland in 1997, the challenge was to get people to drink a beer from other than one of the two big breweries. In 2007, when launching Epic, the challenge was to get a newly bottled craft beer stock on the shelves of supermarkets and liquor stores. In just 10 years, it has gone from desperately trying to convince a retailer that they should stock a craft beer, to all the shelf space being competed for and...

Over the last few days, a lot of people have asked Luke why we haven't got a stand at the Beervana festival this year. Here's Luke's response: This is the first year ever that Epic doesn't have a stand at Beervana. I love Beervana. I've been involved since 2002 when the first seed of Beervana was planted. This was even before Epic existed when I was brewing at Steam Brewing Company for the Cock & Bull pubs and also establishing realbeer.co.nz. Back then some of us in the fledgeling NZ craft brew industry came together to create the first competition...

PRECISION OF THE EQUINOXES Was there a lost civilisation before a cataclysmic event that resulted in the great deluge? Did the surviving few transfer their knowledge in plain sight to the geometry of the megalithic structures positioned around the planet? Are we a species with collective amnesia? Have we always had the answer? About the beer: ABV: 8.9% IBU: 70 FIND ON UNTAPPD About the beer: When making a big beer like this, it takes some pretty big ideas that challenge the mind as well as the tongue. Luke has been reading a lot of work by author Graham Hancock,...

THE HARDEST METAL Chromium as an element is present in brewer's yeast, cereals such as barley, hard water, and foods prepared in stainless steel vessels. Therefore one could assume that beer is a potential source for your daily intake of Chromium. This isn't a health or medical endorsement for this beverage. What it is, is a really cool name for a beer right? Something new and shiny for the spring and summer seasons. About the beer We thought about what would be a great beer taste for Spring since it is right around the corner. The idea started as an...

You love hops. We love hops. You love IPA's. We love IPA's. The Hysteria project continues with our latest remix of the Armageddon IPA recipe. This time pushing the edge of how many hops we can add to the whirlpool. Haha, maybe a little too many. Fanatical. Mysterial. Hysterical. Hysteria is our 2017 entrant to the 10th Annual West Coast IPA Challenge in Wellington. It will be launching into the wild on Tuesday 1 August 2017. About the beer:  ABV: 6.9%  FIND ON UPTAPPD This is the third release in the IPA Hysteria series and follows on from Gods of War and...