United Nations of Beer

Tui IPA

by Fez Broadbent
(Beer Delegate, New Zealand)

Tui IPA
Tui Brewery, New Zealand

Our esteemed editors were actually incorrect in assuming that Monteiths Radler was my favourite beer, since the day I first tried alcohol, Tui IPA has and always will be my favourite beer.

Why? I could come up with a hundred and one witty answers, but in the end it all comes down to the fact that it's easy to drink.

Historically the brew came about when a travelling entrepreneur named Henry Wagstaff stopped near a meandering stream in Mangatainoka, lower west North Island. He decided the stream's water produced the best-tasting tea he had ever had and so decided to build a brewery there.

The brew, originally called The Wagstaff, became popular in the area with the locals and later was adopted by the very hard-case students of Massey University Palmerston North campus. The beer doesn't have a lot in common with the native bird it is named after, except maybe that it is hard to ignore.

However, its taste is smooth, rich and just a little sweet. It's a beer you cannot have too little of, or too much of as many students can tell you after a long night of binge drinking.

Due to a strong marketing campaign, it emerged as the New Zealand student's drop of choice and could be found at a lot of student bars across the country during the late 90s to early 2000s. But more recently, a push by Speights has led to Tui losing ground in that department (much to my dismay).

It describes itself as an IPA, but this is a shaky claim at best, as it doesn't have quite the same hop bitterness common amongst such pale ales. If I could compare it to any international beer it would be Tiger, which is funny because Tiger describes itself as a pale lager.

Tui IPA has come under scrutiny for claiming to be a pale ale when it is in fact a lager, so I guess my taste buds served me correctly on this occasion. It may not be as flashy as the high-market boutique beers, but it tastes good, goes down well cold or (god forbid) warm and most important to its student target market, is affordable.

If someone ever asks me "What is a true New Zealand beer?", I will always answer "Tui IPA" every time.