Wellington will be awash with beer, fans and hop experts over the next few days as the city hosts the increasingly popular Beervana festival and the New Zealand Beer Awards.
The national awards will be held on Thursday night, followed by Beervana, where up to 7500 people are expected at Westpac Stadium over Friday and Saturday sampling 273 beers, most of them from New Zealand but also a few from Australia.
Beervana attendance would be about 50 per cent up on last year, festival director David Cryer told NZ Newswire.
It has been held in various guises since 2001 and was showcasing New Zealand's highly-regarded beer and brewers.
"It's going hand in hand with the whole craft beer industry that's growing rapidly despite the rest of the world struggling," he said.
Home brewing classes, brewery tours, beer science, women in beer, and beer and food matching seminars are all part of the line-up.
There will be 17 festival beers on tap, which will only be available at Beervana and it also offers beer lovers a chance to meet their favourite brewers, Mr Cryer said.
"It's a good chance to try beer and to meet the people that make them."
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