"He introduced me to a whole new world of flavour, history and how complex beer can be. I'm a lucky girl."
She has now produced her first beer label - the start of what Jones calls, respectfully, a range of "girly" beers.
Beltane Maiden is a 5%-strength unfiltered wheat beer (made from about 60% wheat instead of the usual 100% barley) and is the creation of Jones and Christchurch-based Harringtons brewer Mark White.
Purple wanted a wheat beer similar to the Belgian Hoegaarden, but with a manuka and honey character.
They, instead, produced a small batch (850 litres) with a sweet lemon character, which appealed to her.
It has a lemon zest with just a hint of citric hop bitterness: "A lot of women don't like hop," Jones says.
Beltane was the pagan Gaelic festival which marked the start of summer (May 1) and a goddess of the innocent maiden, fruitful or wise woman, Purple says, depending on the phase of moon.
Maiden is the first in a range to be followed by a more full-bodied beer and a lager.
Maiden can be found at Cableways Tavern, Castle Macadam, Rhubarb, Nectar, Circadian Rhythm in Dunedin and the Star and Garter in Oamaru for about $4.50 a 330ml bottle.
Record entries
New Zealand now has more than 50 breweries, and most have entered the BrewNZ beer awards which will be judged towards the end of the month.
Most of the breweries are small and, while beer consumption declined last year by about 5%, their sales increased by about 11%.
Spring brew
Monteith's has three seasons of the year covered with its Summer Ale, First Harvest Autumn Ale and Doppelbock Winter Ale.
It has now added Spring Brew to its range of limited releases to cover the year.
Spring Brew is a 5% lager with a subtle aroma and flavour of coriander and orange with a dry hop aftertaste.
It is on tap only at Monteith's bars (Craft in Dunedin, Montys in Queenstown, Monteith's Brewery Bar in Alexandra and The Kiln in Invercargill) until the end of next month.
Wild recipe
A Manawatu woman has beaten nearly 100 other entrants in the Monteith's home wild-food recipe competition.
Her dish, smoky eel, mussel and gurnard risotto, will be cooked when the national finalists in the wild-food challenge for eateries present theirs in a fortnight.
The winning and runner-up recipes (including hot mushroom sandwich by Daniel Marsden, of Invercargill, and creamy rabbit pie by Helen Turner, of Oamaru) are on www.monteiths.co.nz
Email: lojo.rico@xtra.co.nz
