Raising Your Glass

Wellington beer expert, Neil Miller, right with David Wild. Photo by Tanja Dove Photography.

“Getting plonked on Fiji bitter on an outer Fijian island” was about Jennifer Looman’s lot until she met Wellington beer expert, Neil Miller (pictured above right), who is now the key to Wild About Wellington’s hugely successful Boutique Beer Tours. “I’m now slightly snobby about drinking something with a clean finish and with a decent amount of hops,” she says. “Tuatara is my all-time favourite brewery – I love the whole range.” With big breweries stitching up so much of the industry there is sometimes little scope for small New Zealand breweries “to provide their nectar on tap in big cities” but in Wellington The Malthouse is a beer drinker’s Mecca with over 150 beers to choose from, and around 30 of those on tap. You can take the 3-hour walking beer tour yourself – day or night - to explore some of Wellington’s other brewery/beer highlights – “ like Sassy Red from Macs, or Mayhem by Epic in Auckland. I’ll go out in a southerly to have that,” says Jennifer. www.wildaboutwellington.co.nz