THE "CLINK" OF GLASS
My flatmate's parents were up from Christchurch a few weeks back. In their carry on luggage was some local beer.

We finished what was left of the quite tasty Wigram Brewing Co. dark lager last night. One of the "tricks" of micro brewing seems to be coming up with a quirky label. I was checking it out and noticed (in addition to the flying theme) that if you take your empties back to the brewery (Sonter Rd, ChCh) you'll get 20c per bottle back. Nice!

As I've posted about before, glass recycling is a real problem in New Zealand. We should be drinking our beer from the crate or a tap, but if we can't, returning bottles to the brewery is still better than putting them out with the kerbside recycling. At least until expansion of that Auckland glass plant happens.

As it turns out the Three Boys Brewery of Christchurch also runs the same refund deal. If you're living down in the flatland it's worth stockpiling and pooling resources with your mates. You'll get a better deal than Sth Australia's 5c refund program.

Although it seems that environmental consideration was not important, Three Boys also won the "Packaging Award" at the recent BrewNZ event. Wigram won the dark beer and specialty beer categories. Only two bronze and two silver for my much loved Tuatara Brewery.

If you're like me and over summer red wine consumption tends to drop off in favour of beer, you'll end up using more glass. Think about where it goes when you're done. Buy a swappa-crate. The more of us that do, the sooner the gawd-awful range will improve. Cheers!