Nelson

6.03

The reason why I wanted to come back this way and stop here is that Nelson is the craft brew capital of New Zealand. I really wanted to try more of the local beer and I'm happy I did it :)

It was raining like crazy when I woke up, almost all of the people that were camping at my hostel got flooded, fun time. But it was a good excuse to go drinking, not much else to do.
I wanted to go on a beer tour, but it was fully booked :(. So I decided that I could go visit one brewery around Nelson, come back to park the car and walk to the brewery pub in Nelson (trying to be smart and not driving drunk...)

I went to McCashin, there brand are Stoke and Rochdale, the second being cider. They brew for other small breweries, a good way to keep there employees working 5 days a week.
They do tour and tasting for 10NZ$, good deal. I liked the tour better the the other one I did because for the first time I could clearly understand what the tour guide was explaining.
We had a really good explanation about how you should taste the beer and the difference from a cask beer and a normal one.
For those who don't know, a cask beer is a beer server a room temperature, with only natural fermentation, unfiltered and unpasteurised.
We tried an Amber ale made in both form, and I have to say the cask one was tastier than the other one.

My next stop (after I dropped off the car) was Sprig and Fern. Good beer and food, and it stopped raining, sunny and warm afternoon.
After this I went for a walk around the city and ended up at the Free House Tavern, nice place and good craft beer.

McCashin

regular and cask beer

Sprig and Fern