Wellington's own Yeastie Boys stunned the masses at last week’s Great Australian Beer SpecTAPular festival in Melbourne.

Known as GABS for short it is the Southern Hemisphere’s biggest beer festival and  unlike most other beer festivals every beer on offer is brewed for the event and makes its debut at the festival. 

During the festival the public votes for their favourite beer and this year Yeastie Boys came out on top for their Gunnamatta, a hoppy India Pale Ale brewed with an infusion of Earl Grey tea. 

The name Gunnamatta comes from a Paul Kelly track and despite the Kiwi urge to pronounce the name like Whangamata it is pronounced the Aborigine way “Gun-a-mater’.  

The beer itself is a dazzling and seamless integration of exotic tea flavours with fruity New Zealand hop character. Gunnamatta offers up a startling aroma of floral scent, fresh citrus, exotic fruit, and a hint of muscatel raisins before finely balancing floral spicy fruit, malt sweetness and tannic dryness on the palate. 

Gunnamatta will match well with South East Asian cuisine. I successfully matched some with a green Thai fish curry. 

The beer will appear on taps around town now that GABS is over and a second batch has been brewed for bottling. 

Cheers!