Hallertau Restaurant and Brewbar have a reputation for some pretty damn good beer, if you keep an eye out you'll start noticing it stocked in all sorts of quirky bars, cafes and restaurants.
For Saturday's festival they teamed up with a crew of artisan chilli, food and drink stalls to create what ended up being a small but very fun festival.
We were pretty excited to see resident Ponsonby food truck The Lucky Taco there and all quickly grabbed a taco to kick off the day. The Lucky Taco are one of Auckland's best food trucks- they know their shit. Allie and I went for the steak tacos (I couldn't resist comparing them to my ones), while Sarah went with the chipotle prawn and Alice chose the slow cooked pork. They had a serious line up of some of my favourite hot sauces along with a few ones I hadn't met, but it was the bowl of Habanero pulp with a handwritten 'caution' label that caught my eye. Uh oh.
I'm not sure whether it was the couple of beers I'd had, or if I was trying to prove to Alice how much chilli I could handle, but either way I think it's fair to say I overshot the mark. I spent the next 10 minutes with watery eyes and a burning mouth wishing there was a yoghurt and icecream stall in place of one of the chilli stalls.
Unfortunately when I chose to take my first bite Alice had her hands on the camera and relished the opportunity to capture the pain. A true friend.
Sadly, I was too preoccupied with my head exploding to actually taste the taco, but the girls tell me they were delicious.
In need of some serious cooling off we decided to try the famous Hallertau beer tasting paddle to find our brew of choice. While the 'Luxe' Number 1 was a nice one to start off on, my favourite in the end was the 'Copper Tart' Number 3; a 'substantial, satisfying, malty, caramel, chocolate, rich' red ale. All of the beers were completely different, so if you fancy giving your taste buds a workout then I seriously recommend getting the paddle.
A few beers later I had finally recovered, and we met up with Allanah and Dane to watch some other people burn their taste buds off in the chilli eating finals. We didn't stick around to see the end, but by the time we left there were only a handful of red faced, watery eyed contestants left in the game. Respect.
The next festival isn't for another year, but I can only imagine it will get bigger and better so keep an ear out for it. In the meantime head out to Hallertau, grab a paddle and let me know what your favourite brew is.
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