It’s been over 4 years now since I reviewed my last beer. And since I’m bouncing back big time health wise right now, let’s pop open an Amazing Wakachangi Lager and see what we missed.
Many beers, mostly appreciated in the backyard
While my dad was a professional reviewer of wine and spirits (and preferred his grapes and single malts over his malts and hops), I found over the years that I was really enjoying my brews. So much so that when we moved to Queensland for work, I got into my beer appreciation so much at home that I started a very amateur blog about it and soon enough started rolling my own (wait, brewing my own as in home brew.)
And amazingly even though I don’t have a proper beer education and was writing purely from my own head without knowing the full fundamentals of the brewing process, the blog did well for itself. Case in point: It’s been over four years since it’s last post and people still swing by on occasion and read it. Longevity was not something I ever considered when I started mashing fist to keyboard over at Beers In My Backyard (I even did the occasional YouTube about brewing which went sort of okay.)
But then it came to a crashing halt the day I pulled some hops out of the freezer and wondered why I suddenly couldn’t pick up a scent of anything from them, even though everyone in the house could. My sense of taste was still there albeit reduced without the nose helping out, but smelling notes of anything and everything?
Gone.
Over the next four years there were many doctor visits. Antibiotics, corticosteroid nasal sprays, tablets that would keep me up at night, constant running noses, sneezes, wheezes and everything in between. Long story short nothing short of surgery was going to fix this and thanks to my incredible helpful and generous mother, I finally had the necessary surgery a couple of months back.
Midway through the week just gone, I suddenly realised I could finally start smelling things again – the first tip off being able to pick up the notes of butterscotch from the wax melts my wife set to melt in my daughter’s room.
And since I can do that again and I’m at that level of life when a single boozy drink doesn’t seem to turn me into a sneezing wheezing zombie anymore, it was time to celebrate with a Friday night beer and see what this Amazing Wakachangi was all about!
Amazing Wakachangi
‘A no-nonsense easy drinking lager from over the ditch. Additional hop build gives it a more flavour and aroma, great for the warmer weather. The result is a refreshing, easy drinking brew with just the right amount of depth.’
Now coasters on the table here, I bought it for two reasons – it was cheap and it looked funky. After loading up on some Brick Lane Lagers and Asahi 500mls for a weekend camping trip, I looked for something inexpensive to enjoy with dinner and came across the Amazing Wakachangi looking pretty in the rear fridges of Dan Murphys.
I mean as labels go, this one is pretty awesome.
Now is that Uncle Kenny himself wooing the damsel in distress while batting away a feral pig with a BBQ scraper? Was this the freshest of BBQ’s suddenly gone wild? Will this beer make me as manly as Uncle K? Who in the world of hops and aromas really knows.
But in the vein of how I did things over at Beersinmybackyard:
The Amazing Wakachangi pours a gorgeous champagne colour with a head that lasts a minute or two and plenty of bubbles bouncing around like wrestlers in a Royal Rumble.
Amazing Wakachangi – what am I smelling here? I’m not picking up any noticeable hop notes of anything here but what I did get was that typical lager smell. As I got into it my wife remarked ‘It smells like a Carlton draft.’ Therefore if you don’t like too many notes of anything in your brews, this one could be your next go to.
Amazing Wakachangi – What am I tasting here? First thing you notice is the fizz on your tongue, like the makers went for a champagne and created a beer instead. The taste is lager fresh and clean with nothing overpowering and nothing that really lingers for any length of time. It’s light without hitting that light beer watery consistency and while nowhere near full on flavourful like the radlers they love in NZ, this truly does put the words ‘easy’ and ‘drinking’ in both bold and underline.
I’m drinking this in Autumn which is the completely wrong time (and probably explains why it was on special at Dans) for it’s obviously a glorious summer beer, but a few steps up from a typical lawnmower beer (which is a beer you go for for the sake of an easy drinking beer directly after cooking up a sweat mowing your lawns – home brew cerverza is a great example of this.)
Amazing Wakachangi – Overall. I’ve always rated my beers on not just the enjoyment levels of drinking it but also the repeatability. How soon after you finish it do you wish you had more than one? Or was it an interesting experience but one was all you needed before wanting to move on to something else? This is why I only buy one of each when tasting for this reason – if I wish I had a spare straight after the first, that’s a good beer in my mind. (Special shout out to Pirate Life Pale Ale that was one of the first beers that did this to me.)
While the Amazing Wakachangi didn’t give me instant regret as soon as the last drop was gone, I did thoroughly enjoy the easy drinking experience on a Friday, after a pretty busy week both physically and emotionally. And after a full episode of the Blacklist on Netflix, I found myself thinking I could easily polish off another. Next time you see this at Dan’s on special, grab – easy drinking and very pleasing. Quite nice beer like it says on the tin.
Er..label.
4/5
