[Go to Part #2]

Part 3: Debauchery at the Awards Dinner

THURSDAY

Thursday was in my mind, to be the peak of my Beervana Week. I awoke at 6am and smashed my way through a busy but manageable day shift, and then donned a jacket and tie for the annual Brewer’s Guild Awards Dinner. 

The Awards Dinner is meant to be a dignified, formal occasion; the only black-tie event many beer-people will ever attend. However, getting Brewers and Beer Geeks to play dress-up is no mean feat. Rumours that a dress code would be rigorously enforced were laughed out the door immediately. My close friend, Bardecki, turned up in lederhosen and an oriental smoking jacket, with sandals and painted toenails. I myself tried to toe the line and dress nicely, but I could see the pointlessness of it all. 

Why feign dignity, when there’s an open bar? 

The Awards Dinner is like a giant birthday party for brewers, where everybody gets a goody-bag of candy to take home. Except in this case, the bag is full of gold, silver and bronze medals (and if you’re very lucky, a trophy or two. This year, I was pretty happy with the results. Beer awards can be a mixed bag, and like all kinds of industry accolades, need to be taken with a grain or two of salt. Having said that, when a friend, colleague or loved one has their brewery’s name displayed on screen, or better yet goes up for a trophy, it’s an incredible high. 

***

To go through the whole ceremony would be pointless. The results can be found here. Breweries you’d expect to do well did exactly that: Emersons, ParrotDog, and even Garage Project (who deviate from style guidelines so frequently, they’re often penalised in competitions). Unexpectedly, Aotearoa Breweries AKA Mata, a brewery close to my heart for a number of reasons, took nine medals and were grievously robbed of at least one trophy in my books. 

Other highlights included Te Radar as host. He’s not only a good beer enthusiast, but he also knows how to tease without mocking. I also greatly enjoyed John Holl’s presentation about engaging with your customers through brand and technology. He spoke a lot of home truths that night and I sincerely hope New Zealand’s brewers were taking notes. 

Once all this was done and dusted, all eyes and ears were keenly waiting to find out who would win the genuinely almost prestigious award for champion brewer. 

***

We had sat through two hours of medals and trophies before we got to Champion Brewer. Most of us were all too drunk to have been keeping scores at that point, so from our point of view, the winner was wide open.

We all hoped a shit brewery hadn’t won. 

You see, this is the thing with beer awards: beers are judged according to rigorous, even restrictive style guidelines. As such, completely inane beers from mega-brewers can take out dozens of medals and trophies in categories like ‘Other European Lager’ and waltz off with Champion Brewer. I remember four years ago, when DB won, there was more than a few people booing over the polite applause. A year later when 8 Wired won, there was a standing ovation. 

There was a rising paranoia that DB (or Lion) would take out the prize again, but personally I was just as concerned that some little shit-house brewery that I have no regard for would win. You see the grim meathook reality is that there is a big difference between making the kind beer that’s faultless and fits style criteria; and making beer that people will beat each other with sticks or crawl over broken glass to get their hands on. And there are plenty of small breweries that make the former, not the later. 

What really galled me though, is the knowledge that many of these half-arsed brewers would be beating a path to my door within the next few weeks, flashing medals about the place and trying to sell me beer that neither I nor my customers want. The worst case of this happened a few years ago, when as a humble bartender at Hashigo, a drunken brewer I had never met before accosted me after the awards dinner.

‘Why don’t you bastards buy our beer? Look at all these medals we’ve won,’ he slurred, waving a fistfull of medals in my face. How the drunk fucker had gotten past security, I don’t know.
‘You’ll have to take that up with Dave our Manager,’ I deflected.
‘Bastards’ he said. ‘Bastards,’ before he staggered away.

Later, after I had security escort him out, I learned which brewery he represented. The most of the medals he’d brandished were for cider. 

‘Bastards.’ 

We waited with bated breath for the winner to be read out. The new award for ‘Best Production Brewery’ had just been announced. This was for the best brewery that produces other people’s beer under contract. It had been won by Townshend, by all means a dark horse in that particular race. We were all very happy with that result. Martin Townshend is a good human by all accounts, and great brewer, much deserving of recognition. 

‘And, Champion Brewer for 2014 is… Townshend Brewery’. 

We lost our shit. Standing ovation, cheering, shouting, glasses banged on tables. All the noise that one hundred frenzied Beer Geeks and Brewers could make. Martin is a friend to all of us and we were all ecstatic that he’d won. The self-effacing bastard wasn’t even there to collect the award, having convinced himself he wouldn’t win a god-damn thing. It didn’t matter. We could mark this down as another year when the small guy, the craftsman, the barely recognised and grossly undercapitalised guy from nowhere had proved themselves better than the soulless, accountant-run-sausage-factory-mega-brewers. 

The ceremony was neatly wrapped up soon after but knots of revellers hung out, trying to ride the free beer and afterglow. Eventually we were asked to leave by event staff before they set the dogs on us, but not before Steve loaded his pockets with as many bottles as he could for the short walk back to town. 

We would be carrying this party long into the night.

 ***

[Go To Part #4]

[Go to Part #1]

Part 2: Angst and Anxiety in Thorndon

Wednesday

Wednesday was to start with the Media Briefing session. I didn’t know what to expect from this. It started early: 11:30am (that’s early for bartenders). Fortunately I awoke at 6am, and had plenty of time to get to the Rydges Hotel in Thorndon.

I walked into reception and took off my expensive named-brand raincoat. With a background in the film industry, I appreciate the value of good rain gear. Underneath my raincoat, I was wearing a hoodie from a bar I got drunk in in San Francisco, a denim jacket with the sleeves torn off, and my trademark red doc martens with yellow laces. In short, I was in a respectable establishment, in not at all respectable attire. You wouldn’t think this thing matters anymore, but it does. I immediately garnered bad glances from the people in the vicinity, and a staff member came out from behind the desk and approached me. 

‘Can I help you… Sir? He asked, glancing up and down. The pause was too long to be polite, but not long enough to be insulting.
‘I’m looking for the Beervana Media Briefing,’ I said. As an experienced bartender, you learn not to take guff from swines in suits as a matter of principle.
‘Upstairs, Room 3 on the left.’
‘Thanks.’ He was after all, just doing his job.

When I got to Room 3 it was worse than I had imagined: about ten people in smart casual clothing, scattered around a large conference table. They held notebooks and nice pens. The one sitting nearest me had his notebook open already. The indecipherable squiggles of journalistic shorthand crawled all over the page. I felt like fraud: a scribbler from the internet who had wandered out of his cave to where grownup journalists roam. 

I wanted to run. Get out now, before they turn on you! They’ll jump you any second now and stomp you for impertinence! Get away son, get away.

***

The Media Briefing featured presentations from Cryer about Beervana, Rob Simic (an expert from ANZ) about the finances of the ‘Craft’ beer industry and Jon Holl from All About Beer, regarding the state of the American beer scene. Very little was added to my sum knowledge by these talks, as they were more designed for journalists with deadlines than an industry insider like myself. Although the report put together by ANZ will be a useful document for anyone who wants to cite some concrete figures on growth rates and market share of ‘Craft’ Beer.

One quote that did stick in my head though was that “Investors seem willing to pay above market rates to buy into the story of New Zealand craft beer.” There seemed to be a tone of confusion about this statement, as if bankers couldn’t understand why someone would sink a lot of money into an industry that promises next to no return.

From where I sit, it makes perfect sense: I’d invest in a brewery because I believe in drinking good beer, and I want to ensure I can get a good pint for years to come. Expecting a return on buying into a ‘Craft’ brewery is to me like expecting a return on buying a pint at the pub. Passion and enjoyment are why we get into this industry, not striking it rich.

Mind you, another reason people might pay ‘above market rates’ for shares in a brewery is because of IPO’s that promise investors they’ll be drinking with Odin in the Halls of Valhalla, but somehow fall short of that, but I digress.

The other good occurrence was that I became better acquainted with the Portland contingent. The tall, attractive, bearded man who sat next to me turned out to be Ben Love from Gigantic Brewing, a thoroughly nice guy. Chatting with him, I discovered that besides being the first bartender to pour his beer in New Zealand, I’d already had some of his IPA at Mikkeller Bar in Copenhagen a few weeks earlier and listened to his business partner on a podcast series I follow. Sometimes the beer world is a really small place.

At this stage I also met Sean Burke from Commons Brewery, and Denise Ratfield of the Pink Boots Society, the first person ever to address me by my Twitter handle before we’d even been introduced. I found conversations with Denise to be a little difficult at first, owing to the fact there was a smartphone almost permanently in her hand.

***

I sat amongst the respectable journalists listening to the speakers and pretending to take notes. I felt as a little more relaxed. I had established that enough people in the room knew me to justify my presence there. For the most part I listened with little interest.

I was however, very taken by the trousers of the geek from ANZ. They were plain, slightly textured black business trousers, discretely emblazoned with the bank’s logo on the corner of the pocket. 

It was strange. Was this? A uniform? Is this how they dressed their bankers up to do battle? I suddenly envisioned battalions of people in company ties and tastefully-discrete pinstripe, waging brutal warfare, rank-and-file marching down conquered streets. When the our financial system finally collapses, and we’re all so poor and crippled with debt that our society turns on itself; it will be people in trousers like these that lead the execution squads. 

Jesus, did I just think that? Was my brain already breaking down to some atavistic level? 

***

The briefing session was followed The Portlander’s Longest Lunch. This was a truly decadent experience: four courses, consisting of two dishes and a beer to match each dish. The thing was, each dish could well have constituted an entire course in their own right. The experience amounted to smashing your way through eight courses with matched half pints over about four hours.

I won’t bore you with descriptions of food you’ll never eat. Suffice to say I highly recommend the Longest Lunch as an event. The food was exquisite, the beers top-notch, and the matches sublime. I particularly fell in love with Gigantic’s Pipewrench IPA, which was a new experience for me: a gin-barrel-aged IPA. Strong, subtle and interesting.

I was sharing the table with Denise, whom I got know quite a bit more (in between bouts of tweeting) and found good company. My other luncheon companions consisted of two big chaps from the company that provided AV support to Beervana. They were remarkably entertaining, even though one of them didn’t like beer (so I stole his Pipewrench) and the other only liked the pale lager, but was really thrilled to be here trying all these new brews he’d never heard of.

***

AV Guy: You wouldn’t believe how much it’s changed. Back before all this new brewing business.
Dylan P. Jauslin: What do you mean?
AVG: We didn’t go out. We didn’t have restaurants and bars and whatnot. That’s all happened in the last 20, maybe 30 years. Town was dead back then. You didn’t just go out for a meal. There were no restaurants in Wellington. Not like there is today.
DPJ: So what did you do? on a Saturday or whatever?
AVG: Well, we’d go around to somewhere. Maybe someone’s house. Then you’d get pissed. You’d drink a shit-ton of piss. And it didn’t taste good. Not like these fancy brews. [Long pause]… Then we’d, dunno, drive home completely munted. Crash the car on the way. Maybe kill someone. You young fullas really have no idea.  

***

To cut a long lunch short, four hours, three kgs and two litres of beer later, I waddled back to Golding’s to smash out a few dozen emails and catch up on a little of paperwork before the second event of the day began: The Brewer’s Guild Mashing In.

This is the after-function for the Brewer’s Guild AGM. It’s an industry event, meant for insiders only. An occasion to socialise and and network away from fanboys and drunks. It was held upstairs at San Fran and not open to the public (and neither should it be). It’s supposed to be a dignified and professional occasion, but when you put a hundred people in a room and give them a free bar, a debauched piss-up is a very real risk.

***

My first challenge at The Mashing In was to get inside. It was a ticketed event for Brewer’s Guild members only. Both my employer and my partner are Guild Members, so my name should have been on the list, but it rarely works out like that. As I approached the door, I mentally prepared to make enough bad noises until I got in. However one glance at my Hashigo Zake cap, and they let me in without question. 

I spent a lovely few hours catching up with all manner of brewers, brewery staff, bar owners, distributors and other associated industry folk. We had come here to network, and for the most part, it was a wildly successful evening all around. Even so, pockets of drunkenness kept breaking out. Our particular group was continually harassed by a man who worked for a filter company who was quite drunk and on some sort quest to prove how much he loved the Wellington beer scene; a task he set about with almost preternatural energy. 

I’m not sure who it was that brought up the fact that over half the brewing talent of the country was currently in the room. What would happen if there was a fire in this god-forsaken box at the top of a narrow flight of stairs? How long before one of these drunken smokers sets fire to his own beard? If this particular roomful of people were to all die in a horrific blaze, how many years hard work in the ‘Craft’ beer industry would be undone in on hideous moment? Five years? Ten? 

It doesn’t bear thinking about…

***

[Go To Part #3]