Even Kiwis might struggle to locate the small township of Mangatainoka on a map of their country’s North Island. It is a mere blip of a place, roughly 30 minutes drive from Palmerston North and, yet, some 45,000 New Zealanders head there each year to visit the Tui Brewery.

Perhaps it is the striking, tower-like brewery building which draws them in, but this 1931-built edifice is a mere hollow shell, superceded by a more modern facility dating from the 1970s, when the large Dominion Breweries group acquired the regional, independent Tui brewery.

It remains the only major brewery in the lower North Island and, though operating at less than optimum capacity these days, has re-invented itself as a beer tourism destination. The Tui brand has always enjoyed a solid blokey following, popular with shearers and students alike, and it has been glamourised somewhat in more recent times. It is now also available on these shores.

Whoever first named Tui East India Pale Ale seemed to have confused an existing beer style – India Pale Ale – with the British-owned East India Company, which first made commercial inroads into the subcontinent. Perhaps the beer was once a hoppy English-style ale but somewhere along the way it morphed into a bland, thirst-quenching Kiwi draught, designed to be drunk by the jugful or from long-neck “quart” bottles.

In his book The Complete Guide to New Zealand Beer local beer scribe Keith Stewart rated more than 240 local brews out of 10 points. He gave Tui East India Pale Ale 3/10 while noting that it was “an easy drinking charmer”. It carried off the trophy in the New Zealand Draught category at this year’s BrewNZ awards.

The tui is a native songbird whose white, ruffled throat feathers were once prized decorations for the cloaks of Maori cheftains. Tui beer has evolved into a decidedly macho brand and the brewery’s visitors’ centre sells all manner of kitschy accessories ranging from Tui-mato sauce – tomato sauce made with a dash of Tui beer – to Tui girls calendars, featuring scantily-clad females pretending to be brewers.

As well as the iconic Tui East India Pale Ale, the visitors’ centre bar serves two slightly more challenging brews on tap in the hoppy Henry Wagstaff Pilsner – named after the man who founded the original Tui Brewery in 1889 – and the flavoursome Mangatainoka Dark Ale. Apparently, these two beers aren’t available anywhere else and are perhaps designed to show that the brewery can make more serious brews.

Tui beer is produced by a process of “continuous fermentation” which was invented by Morton Coutts, one of the founding fathers of Dominion Breweries. The technique involves pumping fresh wort into one end of a vessel while extracting finished beer from another; the production process allows beer to be manufactured 24/7, apart from a week-long annual hiatus to clean the equipment.

Of course, continuous fermentation is all about maximizing production, not improving the beer’s flavour, and dates from New Zealand’s era of six o’clock closing when draught beer was trucked around pubs in large tankers.

Still, Morton Coutts is remembered as a brewing industry innovator and a trophy bearing his name is awarded annually at BrewNZ for “innovation”. This year’s award went to Scotts Brewing Company for developing a gluten-free beer.

The stereo-typical Tui drinker was easy to spot on a particular news item I caught on New Zealand television. A couple of young chaps had somehow turned their van into an amphibious affair and “driven” across the Cook Strait in nine hours or so. As a TV news crew drew alongside in a boat, the lads unfurled a bright orange Tui flag and were seen sucking on cans of the sponsor’s product while chatting to the interviewer.

Unreconstructed blokes, maybe, but, undeniably, innovators of some description.

TASTING NOTES

TUI EAST INDIA PALE ALE (4%)

Colour: copper-amber. Aroma: faint caramel notes, otherwise clean. Palate: softly malty initially, light-bodied; sweet notes emerge mid-palate and linger through the short finish with little discernable hop bitterness. Overall: the quintessential “Kiwi draught” beer style, rather than anything resembling its highly misleading name. Inquiries: www.drinkworks.com.au

Willie Simpson