Harrington’s celebrate 25 years of good times

Harrington’s celebrate 25 years of good times

This July Harrington’s Brewery celebrates a marvellous 25 years of making great beer, telling funny stories & bad jokes, while everyday sharing cheese toasties with all their great staff.

Over the last quarter century Harrington’s has been around the clock and back, with John, Val, and their son Carl Harrington at the helm for the best parts of the nineties and naughties. Lately the controls have been more in Carls hands to drive the future of the brewery. But the blood lines don’t stop there, with Carls son’s Mason & Bo on the brewery floor while Carls wife Trudy runs HR and helps point the wheel in the right direction.

The word ‘family’ at Harrington’s extends further than family ties, take the 23 year stint of Mark White the former head brewer turned Production Manager since last year; or Matt Thomson the now head brewer who has done a decade in the family creating brews. You get the feeling there is a friendly brew mafia vibe to the whole operation.

Harrington’s has seen and been a part of a lot of trends in the ever evolving NZ beer industry. To celebrate their exciting adventures this year they are restyling, updating, remixing, collaborating, and releasing limited brews to keep the parting going for another 25 years and beyond.

In 1991, when the brewery opened, it felt like the beer industry was happy doing the mainstream Macarena, but the Harrington’s had a want for some beer with a bit more soul and grunge. So they got together a few mates in a garage, picked up some brewing instruments and released a non-stop list of greatest beer hits over the following 25 years. One favourite often on repeat has long been the Rogue Hop, naturally for them it was a an easy decision to create a remixed Rogue Hop Deluxe for the birthday celebrations.

They have taken the popular Rogue Hop NZ Pilsner and pumped it up by 25%. An abundance of 25% extra hops really bring those gooseberry flavours to party in a (you guessed it) 25 percent stronger beer. This is a special limited release, available as a 6.3% Alc/Vol in 500ml singles, 6x330ml baskets, 1.25ltr flagons. Enjoy it before the candles go out and the stock runs dry.

The brew team were also let loose to create another special brew called the Galactic Empire, an Imperial Pilsner that will be floating around the shelves as soon as it comes back down to earth from it’s recent gold medal award winning journey to the Australian international Beer Awards.

With the happy growth of the Brewery, awards stacking up, and recent production expansion to their Wigram plant you might think this would be enough to keep the team occupied for the rest of the year. However, the very successful re-invention of the Classy Red, as a new sessionable Red IPA, has the warehouse stacking up with shiny red cans of the stuff to send out nation wide and to our Aussie mates.

Filling out the Harrington’s new can range is the ‘Traveller’ NZ Pale Ale canned for Aussie demand and kiwi exploration. It’s a brew to celebrate the wave of great Kiwi hop flavours matched to local malts. The team wanted to chuck a can or three in the backpack then take a hike (or bike) out the back of nowhere to sit down and crack open a good honest kiwi beer.

It’s a good start to a year of celebrating an historic journey in New Zealand’s brewing industry, but the Harrington’s team have all kinds of other prezzies to unwrap and show off over the up coming months.

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