The GB's Club

For the past few years, during October, Atlas has hosted a fundraising event for the Queenstown Mountain Bike Club called 'Pints for Wynyard'. Last year alone we raised a whopping $6,794.50!

This year a ton of other good bastards have jumped on board to sponsor the event. We decided to change the title so we could truly capture the new awesome supports we have this year. So welcome to THE GB's CLUB (The Good Bastards Club).

From October 16 until November 20 Atlas is going to donate heaps of $$$ from all our GB's products – beer, food, coffees, drinks etc! The more you eat and drink, the more money we raise! All you need to do it get down to Atlas and treat yourself over the five weeks and a ton of cash will be donated to the mountain bike club. The money raised is going to epic new trails, jumps and track maintenance in the Wynyard/Fernhill area!

This fundraiser is not possible without the help from all these Good Bastards:

Steamer Wharf, Altitude Brewing Studio, Octane Coffee, Ivy & Lola’s, Emerson’s Brewery, Coopers Brewery, Thatcher's Cider, Bidvest, QT Laundry, Tuatara Brewing, Zeffer Cider, Terraces, Garage Project Brewery, European Bakery, Southern Hospitality, Liquor King, Alpine Milk, Farelli's.

Don't be shy this month, come on down to Atlas and help us, and the GB's, support the Queenstown Mountain Bike Club. Happy eating and drinking!

Raise a glass to Queenstown's Altitude Brewing

Eliott Menzies from Altitude Brewing Studios
with one of his award winning beers on tap at Atlas

We only serve the best here at Atlas so it comes as no surprise that two of Queenstown’s Altitude Brewing Studios’ beers have won silver medals at the 2015 Brewers’ Guild of New Zealand Beer Awards. The Atlas team would like to congratulate Eliott Menzies of Altitude Brewing on this achievement – especially as his range has only been in retail circulation for just over two years.

The Mischievous Kea, winning silver in the Strong Pale Ale category, is made using all Kiwi ingredients – a carefully chosen blend of hops from Marlborough and malts from the Canterbury Plains. It’s a cheeky beer, with a cheeky attitude, which matches the cheeky parrot it’s named after! (5.5% abv)

The Posturing Professional, winning a silver in the Pale Ale category, is your typical Kiwi alpine ale. Eliott has used old school New Zealand hops to keep NZ’s brewing heritage and ancestry in mind. Best served after a hard day’s work! (5% abv)

“It is definitely a humbling feeling to win anything – as apparently this year’s awards were judged very harshly – and to be judged ahead of beers, that I considered international benchmarks, is a bit surreal. To win with two beers, you kind of have to smack yourself to see if it’s real. As of now, three, of the five beers in our range have medalled – so it must mean something being done is right. When you’re working 80 hours a week it’s a nice reward for sure!” – Eliott Menzies

Congratulations Altitude Brewing – you guys deserve it – and our customers love it!

The Mischievous Kea, along with two others in the Altitude Brewing range, can be found on tap at Atlas just now. The Posturing Professional will be returning to our line-up in coming weeks, along with three new Altitude beers.

Altitude Brewing | Moonlight Track Stout

Our good friends at Altitude Brewing have managed to tear themselves away from all that pow to brew their moreish new stout, Moonlight Track. As far as brews go you just can't fault a drop of stout when it comes to winter drinking. 

Moonlight goes on the lines at Atlas from this Friday (14th August). Elliott and the Altitude team will be in the bar from 7pm to answer any questions you may have about their new beer. So come on down to give it a whirl. Oh and there'll be a prize or two to win too!

Altitude Brewing Moonlight Track Stout | 6.8% | $9.50

End of Summer Party 2015 - April 26th!

Folks enjoying last year's party

It's sad to say goodbye to the summer season... in our books though, that's a good reason for a knees up. Our end of summer party will be on the April 26th. Not the last day of the gondola this year, but we bought it forward to coincide with the long weekend. Before the Atlas party kicks off the Wynyard World Champs downhill race, the last in the Queenstown series, is taking place. People normally wear their country colours to this race so feel free to do the same at Atlas on the night - to keep the global theme going!

The party starts at 5pm with the prize raffle from 8pm and we'll be expanding into neighbouring Farelli's Trattoria so that there's plenty of room for everyone to come down and enjoy themselves. The more the merrier! And, as usual, we will be holding a mega raffle to raise some coin for the good folks at QMTBC. Many local businesses have generously donated to the raffle, the prizes so far include:

• 2 x full van hires with QUEENSTOWN BIKE TAXI 
• 15/16 Mountain bike Season Pass: SKYLINE
• Gear from QUEST
• Surprise gift from OUTSIDE SPORTS
• Trees from ROYAL TREE (This prize is literally a tree and Jimmy with either plant it for the winner in their garden OR go with the winner for a bike on their favourite track and plant it so this person can see it every time they ride!)
• Merchandise from QUEENSTOWN MOUNTAIN BIKE CLUB
• 2 x scenic heli ride with HELI LINE TOTAL TOURISM
• 2 x adult day passes up CARDRONA
• Prizes from GIBBSTON VALLEY WINE 
• $80 voucher from Queenstown Laundry Service
• Prizes from Altitude Brewing

Also many thanks to Southern Hospitality for helping out with the additional glassware!

Raffle tickets are now sale at Atlas: 2 for $5, 5 for $10, 12 for $20.

Check out the snaps of last year's event below by Callum Wood to get you in the mood! 

Getting ready for the downhill train to Atlas at last year's party

A happy winner! 

Gorge Road Rock Jam

We are excited to be involved in this extra addition to the Queenstown Bike Fest Event Calendar... put Sunday 22nd in your diaries as from 5 - 10pm the Gorge Road Rock Jam will be on! It's a fundraising event so pop along for some high jinks and to help raise a little cash for the Gorge Road Jump Park.

Atlas are providing the refreshments in the form of delicious Emerson's, Coopers and Altitude beers along with some pulled pork and gravy buns. There will be three bands playing, lights so the riding can continue into the night and some amazing spot prizes up for grabs from sponsors of the event.

See you there!

Gorge Road Rock Jam | 22nd March 2015 | 5pm-10pm

Pints for Wynyard Grand Total

October saw our 2nd Pints for Wynyard campaign where we joined forces with our friends at Emerson's, Coopers, Zeffer, Altitude Brewing Studioes, Invercargill Breweries, Tuatara and Betty's to donate $1 from every pint sold to the Wynyard Freeride Terrain Park. We managed this year to raise a whopping $6794.50! Woo hoo! We've got no doubt that the money will be put to excellent use by the club once again. Thanks to our brewing friends for helping use make a great contribution to the Queenstown community that we know will most definitely be appreciated.

And don't forget if you want to support QMTBC club some more... become a member. You'll be helping the club continue with their stellar work and you also get a ton of very nifty discounts at with many businesses around town, it's a win, win, win, win situation!

Thanks again to everyone who supported 2014's Pints for Wynyard, we hope you'll be pulling up a bar stool and sedately sipping on a craft brew next year too.

With thanks,

The Atlas Team :-)

Altitude Brewing Studios: Collarbone Cure

Not just for crook collarbones...

If you've tasted Altitude's Collarbone Cure you may find you already recognise the flavour . . . That's because it's the former Goldpanner's Profit Golden Ale, now in a new MTB-friendly guise. We regularly serve Altitude Brewing Studio beers at Atlas and you've not heard of them before, they are a locally-owned business who brew their beers with all New Zealand ingredients.

If you haven't tried it yet Collarbone Cure is a refreshing, session-able ale that's perfect for Summer drinking. We guarantee it will go to go down a treat after a day of dusty laps on the bike trails. Or perhaps the ideal choice for a few relaxing, lake-side quiets on a hot day.

You can expect a fruity nose thanks to the Riwaka and Nelson Sauvin hops, and a palate that delivers hints of caramel and biscuit due to the combined profile of pilsner, wheat, toffee, biscuit and chocolate malts. The finish is refreshing and lingeringly dry.

Now, who's for a pint of Collarbone Cure and a bowl of fries by the lake?

Altitude Brewing Studios Collarbone Cure | 4.4% | $9.5 pint

As always, please enjoy responsibly.

Pints for Wynyard is On!

Tomorrow sees the start of our October promotion. We’ve teamed up with Emerson’s, Coopers, Altitude Brewing Studios, Zeffer, Invercargill Brewery and Beaver Liquor/Betty's to donate one dollar from every pint of draught sold at Atlas to the Wynyard Freeride Terrain Park. We raised a substantial amount of money for Wynyard last year so we are aiming to do the same this October. Last year’s dollars contributed towards various works at the terrain park including:

- Two new pro line jumps on the Dream Track
- A new safer walk-up track for Mini Dream
- Rebuilding the beginner lines for better progression
- Re-routing a section of the downhill track to stop an erosion problem
- Maintenance of the downhill track and jumps area.

Currently QMTBC, who maintain Wynyard with local contractor Phatlines, are in the process of getting many of the older wooden features inspected by an engineer. It’s likely that some will need replacing so we're sure any money raised at Atlas this October will yet again put to good use.

So, if you happen to be strolling into town for a quiet pint why not drop in and enjoy one at Atlas? Not only will you be sipping on a quality beer but you’ll be helping out with a great community cause - without even moving from your chair!

As always, please enjoy your pints responsibly

Voucher giveaways and assassinations - there's a whole lot happening at Atlas.

We've got lots going on at Atlas at the moment. To coincide with our website refresh this week we're giving away $250 of Atlas vouchers along with some steak vouchers. Want to be in to win? We'll be posting some Atlas-related questions on our Facebook page over the course of the next week. All you have to do is:

1. make sure you like our giveaway posts and Facebook page
2. wait until you have all five answers to our Atlas questions
3. direct message us the answers and if they are all correct you're in the draw! 

The winners will be announced Friday 26th Sept. Check out our Facebook page for more details.


Wes, our general manager, is also running a game of Assassins with sign up ending on the 21st Sept. It's $5 to join the game and is open to anyone in Queenstown over 18 who wants to enter.  A member of the Atlas Alumni, Eoin, ran a game a few years ago and it was a total hit (no pun intended). Again, you can find out more on our Facebook page, so give it a like or pop into Atlas for more information. It'll be loads of fun, just watch your back! 


Next month see the start of our Wynyard promotion. For the month of October Atlas will donate $1 from every pint sold to the Wynyard bike park. We raised a stack of dollars last year for QMTBC, who mantain Wynyard, so hopefully we can do the same this year. This is also being supported by the good folks at Emerson's, Coopers and Altitude so big thanks to them.


And finally once November rolls around and the MTB season is in full flow, it'll be high time for an Atlas style knees-up to celebrate - dates and more details follow. We'll also be welcoming Amy back to the helm of Atlas after her enviable winter of global gallivanting. There's loads going on so call in and see us soon.

'Til next time!

Altitude Brewing Studios: The Long White Cloud On Tap

If you like your wheat beer you'll be pleased to know that we have Altitude's new hefeweizen, Long White Cloud, on tap at Atlas Beer Cafe.

Long White Cloud is a tradtional, German style hefeweizen with a little bit of an Altitude twist as it's hopped with Wakatu (NZ Hallertau) hops. 

Banana and cloves are dominant flavours, as you'd expect with a good hefe, however there are also subtle bready and floral aromas coming through. The mouth feel is rich and palate has banana cake and zest flavours.

A Long White Cloud will make for perfect apres ski drinking - super refreshing after a hard day on the slopes. Or if you're in for lunch we're reckon those famous hefe banana and clove flavours will make for a perfect match with a couple of our new lunch menu items (coming soon).  We recommend:

Mexican spiced chicken in tomato with cheese, sour cream, avocado and lettuce in a tortilla wrap |16.50

Or

Grilled pork with chilli glaze, yoghurt and pickled vegetables on toasted ciabatta |$16.50

Altitude's beers have had a great reception at Atlas so we're excited to be serving this latest release from them. We're sure it won't disappoint!

Altitude Brewing Studios | Long White Cloud | 4.8% | $9.50 pint

Altitude's Live Brew Demo at Pie and Pint

Eliott Menzies with his brew kit

Whilst enjoying pints and pies at Arrowtown Autumn Festival's fantastic Pie and Pint afternoon, we bumped into Elliot Menzies. Elliott is the founder of Altitude Brewing Studios and was in the midst of brewing a special festival beer with a pretty impressive piece of kit. 

Like Eliott's other beers, which are inspired by the Wakatipu, this festival offering was fittingly inspired by Arrowtown. He experimented with some smoked malt to impart a little smokiness into the brew – pretty reminiscent of the lovely wood smoke you can smell at this time of year. The brew is called Autumn-n-ale and will be ready at the end of the month. 

Eliott gave us a talk through the brew process.

The mash

So a little brewing context first for the uninitiated: when brewing the idea is to first to turn a starch source (the malts) into a sugary liquid called wort, then convert the wort into beer via a fermentation process with yeast.

The image (left) shows what's know as the mash tun. First the malt - that's the grain in the picture - goes into the mash tun and hot water is added. This soaks the malt and converts the starches to sugars, some of which (depending on the temperature of the mash and the type of malt) will be fermentable. 

In this recipe Eliott used Carapils, Light Crystal and Smoked malts.

The temperature in the mash tun is around 67c; it's not heated but ideally is kept warm and insulated. The malt is soaked for around an hour and once that hour is up more water is run through it to rinse off all the sugars and colour. This part of the process is know as the sparge. The initial one hour soaking results in a mixture with an almost porridge-like consistency. So the malt is sparged to create more volume so in the end there's more beer but also to dilute the sugars to what is required for abv standards. The resulting sugary liquid is called the wort.

The kettle

From the mash tun the wort travels down a tube into what's know as the kettle.

Inside the kettle: this smelt amazing!!

At this stage in the process the liquid wort is boiled for around an hour. Boiling evaporates the mixture a little and also kills off any enzymes left over from the mash. Hops are also added at this stage and can be added at various points during the boiling. The longer hops are boiled the more bitterness they will impart but less aroma.

Eliott added different hops at the various stages. He added 20g of Nelson Sauvin for 60 minutes to get a nice bitterness into the wort and to balance the natural sweetness. Another 20g of Nelson Sauvin at 50 minutes and finally a combination of Nelson Sauvin and Cascade to give the beer good aromas and mouthfeel. 

Cool it: the heat exchanger

After boiling the hoppy wort is cooled in preparation for adding the yeast. It's passed through a heat exchanger to aid with the cooling process. This is really important as yeast is susceptible to high temperatures and would die if added to a hot wort. No active yeast would result in no fermentation - which would mean no beer!

Autumn-n-ale: ready to ferment

And finally, the mixture flows into the fermenter the yeast is added to the wort and then left to do it's magic for around a week. During the process the gravity of the brew is checked to see if the sugars are turning into alcohol.

Once most of the alcohol has been produced in this primary fermentation it can be transferred into bottles or casks to continue fermenting a little more.

Eliott's festival brew, Autumn-n-ale should be ready at the end of May and we hope we get to try some.

If you would like to try Eliott's beers check out the Altitude Brewing Studios Facebook page or call into Atlas as we often have some Altitude brews on tap.

Some pics from Pie and Pint

Mmmmm pies

Some pictures from the brilliant Pie and Pint at last weekend's Autumn Festival. Craft beer and pies on the village green in Arrowtown - what an awesome way to spend a Sunday afternoon!

Love Arrowtown in the Autumn

Enjoying some tastings

Altitude's Eliott Menzies' brew demo

Mr Emerson pouring some Porter

Altitude's Mischievous Kea on Hand Pump

Craft beer under the canopy

Atlas Featured on Marco Beero's Video

We recently welcomed Marco Beero, craft beer enthusiast and one half of the Carpe Diem Couple to Atlas. During his visit Marco caught up with our manager, Amy; sampled some some brews; some Atlas food; marvelled at our view and made this awesome little video about Atlas! Thanks for coming to visit us, Marco it was great to meet you. 

If you'd like to hear what Marco had to say about us, click on the link below.

Atlas Beer of the Week: The Goldpanner's Profit

Goldrush

We've got some more of Altitude Brewing Studios Goldpanner's Profit back on the lines at Atlas as our beer of the week.

The Goldpanner's Profit is a crisp and refreshing ale named after the hardworking prospectors of Queenstown's iconic goldrush. Below are the tasting notes:

Brewed from all NZ ingredients, The Goldpanner's Profit is designed around a malt profile that gives a refreshing and characterful flavour with a very dry finish. It's rich and golden in the glass and had been subtly hopped to give a light bitterness on the palate and a pleasing nose of summer fruits. 

Colour: Rich gold
Nose: Tropical Summer fruits
Palate: Clean malts with a hint of toffee and biscuit. Mild bitterness with a dry wheat finish.
Hops: Riwaka, Nelson Sauvin
Malts: Pilsener, Wheat, Toffee, Biscuit, Chocolate
ABV: 4.9%

We recently caught up with the brewer behind the Goldpanner's Altitude's Eliott Menzies. If you missed the post click here to check it out. 

Altitude Brewing Studios The Goldpanner's Profit | 4.9% | $9 pint

Please enoy responsibly

Altitude Brewing Studios - The Posturing Professional Pale Ale

We're stoked to have the latest offering from Altitude Brewing Studios now tapped at Atlas. The Posturing Professional is a pale ale and is names after "the posturing mountain professionals the world over that are certain they are the pinnacle of human evolution".

Created as a session beer, The Posturing Professional is flavoursome and ideally enjoyed after a hard day on the slopes or on the trails. 

With a nod to New Zealand's brewing heritage The Posturing Professional is made with classic NZ Hops that haven't been cross-bred. The resulting beer has a dry palate with a sweet hop balance and clean spiciness on the finish plus sweet lemon and cut grass on the nose.

Altitude Brewing Studios The Posturing Professional | 5% |
$9 per pint

Please enjoy responsibly! 

Catching up with Altitude Brewing's Eliott Menzies

Sweet as: Altitude's Eliott Menzies checks out
 the sugar content of a brew

Based in Queenstown, Altitude Brewing Studios is a truly local brewery. As we've had a few of their beers on the lines at Atlas of late we thought we would have a catch up with head brewer and founder, Eliott Menzies, to find out a little bit more about what inspired him to start brewing and what we can expect next from Altitude.


Hi Eliott. Tell us a bit about yourself. Are you from Queenstown originally? If not, what brought you here?

I call Queenstown home. I moved here in 1997 and went through the school system. After that I lived overseas for several years, studied architecture in Wellington and then moved back. I really love being in Queenstown and enjoy the lifestyle that Queenstown provides. In recent years the town has changed beyond recognition and become a lot busier but it's still an awesome place to live. You just have to be patient sometimes!

Have you always been interested in brewing?

Not always, but at least for the last ten years. When I was 18 I was living in Scotland and I visited a brewery called Atlas in Kinlochleven which is in the Scottish Highlands. It fascinated me and I started appreciating a good beer. I still have their T-Shirt!

Can explain a bit about the inspiration behind Altitude Brewing Studios - what made you decide to get started?

The idea of Altitude started about two years ago. I was working for Peregrine Wines and brewing regularly from home and was consistently told that my beers were better than anything being sold in Queenstown. The time was right when both our breweries moved out of town. I knew I could have the market as Queenstown's only local brewery, as that means a lot to the locals here. I started to do some research into setting up a brewery and started to save up some money.

We've had the Mischievous Kea IPA on tap at Atlas and it's proved to be really popular. Is IPA a personal favourite of yours? What inspired you to start with an IPA as a first release?

An IPA is a very expressive beer and also one that really showcase a brewer's style. It is a personal favourite of mince as these are so many styles of it and you can really mess around with recipes creating some unique, interesting and awesome beers. A true all NZ IPA was always going to be the place to start for me and the recipe went through a two year development process to get it where it is now. Needless to say there will be many more versions of IPA in Altitude's future.

The beers you make have names that reflect the Queenstown locality. In terms of taste, is there anything you do to represent the Southern Lakes, flavour-wise, when thinking up recipes?

The most important thing to me when experimenting with a recipe, is to give the finished beer a defined backbone - to create a beer that has obviously been thought about and not mass produced. I designed the Goldpanner's Profit golden ale with a hot, Central Otago summer evening in mind - making it dry and refreshing. Then with The Posturing Professional pale ale, I wanted it to be flavourful and sessionable, so it can be enjoyed after a day on the slopes.

What other styles of beer do you like?

I really enjoy the way the English do their beer. An English special bitter or a Scotch ale are both special to me. The combination of cellar temperature and low carbonation means you can actually taste the beer. Some breweries shouldn't hide their questionable products by serving them fizzy and cold. I'm also a sucker for a girl holding a pint of double IPA.

What other releases are on the horizon for Altitude Brewing Studios? Can you give us a preview?

As I mentioned before there will definitely be more IPAs in the future. Next however, I think will be a double IPA which is a supercharged version of it's parent style. Even more hops and an alcohol level of around 9%. A party in your mouth , as they say. After that? Well, a Baltic Porter for Winter and then a low alcohol beer perhaps. There's so many things I want to do! I think though I want to concentrate on getting the current range the best it can be before expanding to much.

Taking a look at the Atlas menu, what dish would you match with a Mischievous Kea IPA and why?

A Mischievous Kea and an Atlas steak cook rare please. Not many things in Queenstown could beat that for an evening meal. In fact nothing, I reckon. Strong flavours need strong flavours. An epic combo.

And finally, describe your perfect Queenstown day.

A bit of a sleep in; ski pow all morning; a couple of rounds of disc golf in the afternoon; go for a run with the dog and then one of those steak and Kea combos. I guess I should fit some brewing in there somewhere also!




Altitude Brewing Studios | Mischievous Kea IPA | 5.5% | $9 per pint