The Beers
8 Wired Barrelworks:
Wild Feijoa 2022
Style: Barrel Aged Sour Ale with Feijoas
ABV: 6.3%
CHAMPION NZ BEER - NZ BEER AWARDS 2023
A pale sour beer, aged for up to 2 years in wine barrels and then another year on fresh, local and organic feijoas from Helen and Peter at Quinta Feijoas who have supplied the fruit for the last 7 years.
This is the latest release from our Barrelworks site in Matakana, and our favourite yearly release. We have been brewing this beer every year since 2013, when we were based in Blenheim.
This is a big beer birthday, so to toast this special occasion, we also created a small batch of Feijoa Grappa you should get your hands on, cheers to 10 Wild years!
Brood Fermentation:
Pip
Style: Mixed Culture Saison with Grapes
ABV: 5.5%
Mixed culture farmhouse saison fermented on riesling lees in large format oak. Aged for 18 months then reconditioned on 2023 gewurztraminer skins.
Deep Creek:
Roselare
Style: Flanders Red
ABV: 6.9%
This Flanders Red has distinct notes of black cherry and redcurrant with hints of mild vanilla. Full body, lightly tannic with a dry finish. Deep reddish brown from the blend of malts, this beer has additional layers of complexity from the barrels in which it's been aged.
Duncan’s Brewery:
Black Cherry Brett
Style: Wild Sour with Black Cherries
ABV: 8.2%
In the 21/22 summer, a harvest of deliciously juicy black cherries arrived from the southern reaches of Cromwell. We aged them with two funk brothers named Pediococcus and Brettanomyces & the result is perfectly funky, lightly soured, earthy, fruity, rich, and with a deep burgundy hue. It's a wild ride.
Only one keg of this beer was filled - just for Funk on the Water!
Garage Project:
Chance, Luck & Magic 2022
Style: Gueuze-Style
ABV: 8.0%
The ultimate expression of Wild Workshop’s inner city terroir.
An artful blend of four years’ worth of 100% spontaneously fermented beer, aged in a mix of oak and acacia, creating a complex and beautifully balanced beer with tart fruit notes and a superbly dry finish.
The result of four years’ hard work, and a little chance, luck and magic.
Debuting at FotW 2023!
Maiden:
heliosB - Long Maturation
Style: Blended Grape Ale
ABV: 6.7%
A spontaneous wild ale aged on Pinot Gris grapeskins and stems for 18 months. then matured for 3 years... Named after the Helios spacecraft which are a pair of probes launched into orbit around the sun to study solar processes.
Panhead Custom Ales:
Rat Rod with BretT
Style: Brett IPA
ABV: 6.6%
Everything you would normally expect from Rat Rod, with a thick mousse-like head from keg-conditioning, an extra hit of tropical notes and some background leather/funk.
Shining Peak:
Rustic VernissAGE
Style: Blended B.A. Sour
ABV: 5% | pH: 3.25
A pre-release blend of 1 year old Wine Barrel Aged and 2 year old Bourbon Barrel Aged mixed ferment Ales.
Wilderness/Cell Division:
Wildfire
Style: Spontaneously fermented Sour Ale
ABV: 5.5% | pH: 3.3
A connection brew with Cell Division. The concept was to brew a beer without gas or electricity. We crushed 60kg of grain by hand, heated 400L of water over a wood fire, lautered the wort through a bed of Hay and cooled overnight in our coolship. Following that it was barrel aged for 18 months and fermented out with a mix of microbes from the coolship along with a sourdough culture (Percy).
Two Thumb:
Boom! Boom!!
Style: Strawberry & Basil Saison
ABV: 5.5% | pH: 4.1
Our strawberry - Boom! - and basil - Boom! - saison is a modern take on a farmhouse saison. A vibrant saison base, doused with health lashings of strawberry purée and pure basil extract. Expect a spicy, fruity beer with a sharp strawberry background, fresh basil aroma and a beautiful pink hue.
Ninebarnyardowls:
NV#10 Merlot whole bunch
Style: Spontaneously Fermented Sour
ABV: 6.5%
A blend of no less than three different vintages of coolshipped and spontaneously fermented beer, finished for a further year on whole bunch Merlot grapes. Keg conditioned.
Cell Division:
Cherry Kvass
Style: Kvass inspired Sour Ale with cherries
ABV: 4.7% | pH: 3.2
A raw sour ale inspired by the traditional Slavic and Baltic fermented beverage called Kvass, made from fermenting rye bread. Brewed with loaves of rye bread and fermented with a sourdough culture and aged on dried sour cherries. This sour ale is a balanced blend of fruit and acid with unique wine-like and marzipan notes imparted by the dried sour cherries.
Emporium:
Obscurity
Style: Wild Fermented Raspberry Stout
ABV: 6.0%
Our core range smooth stout, Obsidian, aged in Pinot noir barrels with a mix of wild yeasts and the addition of raspberries. Sour, with a fruity middle.
Karamu Barrelworks:
Gin Barrel Saison
Style: Barrel Aged Saison
ABV: 6.5%
This is a traditional Belgian saison aged with brettanomyces in a used gin barrel. The fruity, spicy and very dry saison blends beautifully with the piney juniper and cardamom notes from the gin.
McLeod’s:
Cherimoya & Sage Sour
Style: Blended Sour Ale
ABV: 6.1%
Occasionally we can get our hands on some of this magical fruit. Grown in Northland: cherimoya. Also known as the custard apple, it has a soft, sweet aroma and delicious creamy pear like texture.
We added them to a mixed-culture saison base for six months then removed the fruit and added fresh sage leaves for a few more months. This was then blended with a barrel-aged Hefeweizen for a truly unique and special brew. Aromas of sage and clove with notes of lemon and fruit-driven funk dominate with a palate both clean and bright over tart lemon zest-laden sourness and a dry finish.
Sunshine Brewing:
Bad Muthafunker
Style: Sour Imperial Stout
ABV: 10%
Sour Russian Imperial Stout aged in port barrel, then transferred to tank, brett was pitched and left to do its thing back in 2021.
Wild & Woolly:
Tauhou
Style: Saison
ABV: 3.2%
Table Saison with Brett, Rosemary and Lemon. Light and refreshing, but still seriously complex with some beautiful funk. Secondary fermented with a wild Brett strain sourced from Wairarapa apples.
Boneface:
Mind Transferal
Style: Barrel Aged Sour Golden Ale
ABV: 6.5% | pH: 3.35
Primary fermentation with a Belgian strain, followed by 19 months in ex-white wine barrels with a combination of four Brettanomyces strains and Pediococcus. Oak forward, balanced yeast funk and soft acid structure... Think just ripe pineapple and mild acidity.
Craftwork:
Terroir blend 2021
Style: Gueuze
ABV: 6.5%
A Gueuze-style blend of one, two and three year old spontaneously-fermented coolship beer with Ninebarnyardowls.
Field Below:
Brett Saison
Style: Bretted Saison
ABV: 6.3%
A funky farmhouse ale, aged on two strains of brettanomyces yeast, and then dry hopped with Pacifica and Lemondrop hops
Karamu Barrelworks:
Plums
Style: Fruit Lambic-Style
ABV: 6.6%
This is a spontaneously fermented ale aged one year in oak and then refermented with Black Doris plums before keg conditioning.
North End:
Baby Grand
Style: Flanders Red Ale
ABV: 6.0% | pH: 3.4
The 2023 vintage of our Flanders Red Baby Grand is a blend of a 2 year old puncheon and a 3 year old barrique. It’s bursting with barrel fruit, lean malt weight and an edge of balsamic.
Te Aro/Lord Alighty/Liquid Genius:
Flair
Style: Barrel Aged Saison
ABV: 8% | pH: 3.84
Pinot Noir Barrel aged sour cherry saison
Wild & Woolly:
Kuaka
Style: Sahti
ABV: 6.5%
Inspired by Finnish Sahti and named for the Eastern Bar Tailed Godwit, which lives in both Aotearoa and Finland and is known for its marathon migration (though the NZ population actually migrates to/from Alaska not Finland). The wort was filtered through Manuka boughs foraged from Wellington's Waimapihi reserve (traditional Sahti uses Juniper boughs). As in a traditional Sahti, the wort was not boiled. Un-traditionally, it was fermented with 100% Brettanomyces Bruxellensis. Earthy, floral, lightly medicinal with a chewy mouthfeel.
Kereru:
Tarwood Red Sour
Style: Sour Red Ale
ABV: 8.0%
Pours a deep red to brown colour with an off-white head. The nose has stewed strawberries and clotted cream with underlying hints of rhubarb, coffee and red capsicum. Flavours of sprouted wheat bread, strawberries and hints of coffee, single malt whisky and port.
The Ciders
Peckham’s:
Roasted Apple
Style: Fire Cider (Med)
ABV: 5.7%
Crafted by blending a smoky fire cider with one of our traditional barrel-aged ciders.Medium in style. Rich, caramelised apple and orange notes, maple, baked apricot and hints of ripe peach with a smoky finish make this cider simply irresistible.
Heritage apples: Yarlington Mill, Knotted Kernel, Dabinett and Tremlett's Bitter.
Peckham’s:
Knotted Kernel
Style: Dry, Single Varietal Cider
ABV: 7.2%
This seriously tasty limited edition single varietal vintage cider has been crafted by wild-fermenting Knotted Kernel heritage apples and then barrel-ageing for 10 months.
Peckham’s:
Major
(Replaces Stoke Red)
Style: Dry, Single Varietal Cider
ABV: 6.7%
This delicious limited edition cider is made from Major apples harvested from our orchard in 2022.
Wild fermented and aged in barrel for 13 months for extra complexity and depth of flavour.
Dry in style with rich cooked apple, honey and earthy notes. Medium bodied and beautifully golden in the glass, it's bursting with refreshing cider apple flavour.
The Earl’s Drop
2016 Vintage
Style: Dry Cider
ABV: 6.8% | pH: 3.8
Made by method traditional, cold fermented in barrel for 6 months with wild yeast from organic cider apples. It is refermented in bottle for 2 years to achieve the fine mousse. The 2016 vintage has a crisp dry apple fruit nose lifted by the mousse, a refined body and a clean finish. A cider to sip and savour.
Remutaka Cidery
Kingston Black
Style: Dry Cider
ABV: 7.0%
Crafted from Kingston Black apples grown in the Wairarapa.
Non-Funky Beverages
Choice Bros:
Little Dark Age
Style: Dark Mild
ABV: 3.8%
Dark Mild, Made from the second runnings of a partigyle mash for our imperial stout, The Heaviest Matter In The Universe. Whilst lower in sugar it retains the flavour complexity of the massive grain bill. Light and toasty, with a little caramel and chocolate.
Pacific Coast:
Cross Step
(Replaces Springwood Pilsner)
Style: Lager
ABV: 4.0%
You came for beer, your mission was successful. Brewed with a pinch of Southern Cross hops and fermented with an unorthodox kveik strain of yeast. Cross-Step is a crisp modern lager brewed with technical innovation that just tastes great. The 4% ABV means that Cross-Step goes down smooth and moreish.
Theif Brewing:
Frog Wallop IPA
Style: Cold IPA
ABV: 6.6%
A Nelson Sauvin hopped Cold IPA, showcasing New Zealand's most popular hop. Tropical fruit bowl aroma, finishing crispy.
Rough Hands Distilling:
Elsewhen Tepache Coconut Spritz
Style: Tap Cocktail
ABV: 8.8%
This ELSEWHEN Spritz with tepache and coconut is a light, bright riff on a pina colada - featuring ELSEWHEN Applejack.
Southward Distilling:
Gin & Tonic
Style: Gin and Tonic
ABV: TBC%
There’s nothing better than a G&T to cleanse the palate and Southward makes some of the best in NZ! We’ve worked with Southward to have a blend of their house gin and tonic on tap at Funk on the Water. Your G&T will come poured over ice, garnished with lemon - crisp and refreshing.