I think it can confidently be stated that this beer is like a cock, and I will elaborate: 
As well as serving an official function, it also gives pleasure from its appearance. It is something I want near my mouth. It is fulsome, enticing, warming and compelling. You see it and you just want more. Have I overstretched the analogy? It looks almost coppery amber in colour with a bright white head and had excellent clarity and carbonation. It smells heavenly: pink grapefruit, lemon zest, pine, of green grassy herbs and redwood bark. The flavours are similar in the context of a silky, almost oily body that carried a blast of bitterness. It also has lush ripe stonefruit flavours of peaches and stewed apricots. It is sumptuous and carries a lengthy finish. In the same sitting I tried the winner of the West Coast IPA challenge and while it had its merits, it wasn’t nearly as remarkable as this beer. I want more. I will have more, but like cock, too much is never enough.
Sexism is something that really gets on my tits (my own tits, no one else’s). Everywhere in life, but particularly in the beer scene. I myself (and others even more so) have watched the New Zealand beer scene grow from next to nothing to a world-acclaimed industry. And I’ve played a very, very small part in helping it grow. So it makes me grumpy when I see people being excluded or demeaned. That’s not our schtick. That’s the big marketing people’s schtick. That’s Tui’s shtick. I’ve flagged other instances of sexism for various reasons. This one I’ve flagged because we can learn a very simple, concrete lesson from it:
If you’re not comfortable saying it about a man’s body, don’t say it about a woman’s, because it’s probably demeaning.
The Bottleneck 
Studious researchers of this epistolary saga will observe that after the writer of this blog left his column in the Twitter feed that this was discussed in, I took ownership of my comments and invited anyone who was offended to email me directly. This was an opportunity that Dylan did not take, instead choosing to write this post some weeks after the fact.
Boo hoo hoo.
Dylan has issued a challenge saying that if I’m not comfortable comparing things with a man’s body, I shouldn’t do it. Therefore I am happy to say that I am completely comfortable and being gender inclusive to compare Dylan’s overly sensitive blog post in this instance to either male or female genitalia filled with sand: unnecessarily irritated. See? Not sexist at all. Just crass. Like my comparison of Epic Lupuligus was to breasts.
My wife, who was actually more upset with Dylan’s riposte than what I wrote, who studied Gender Studies at UC Berkeley, who is a force of nature and wants a word with Dylan, agrees that I am not sexist by nature, just a bit crass.
While you think you are charging like a knight to the aid of some minority or cause, make sure you’ve got your perspective sorted before you start spouting off about ‘concrete lessons’.
Again, I invite further discussion via email to me at jonocorfe@gmail.com.
You post sexist, derogatory rubbish on the internet, and demand people who call you on your sexist derogatory rubbish take it offline? So you can explain why they’re wrong to think your sexist derogatory rubbish was, indeed, sexist derogatory rubbish?
At no point did I demand this to be taken offline.
My original and maintained intent is to debate whether the rubbish I write is sexist and derogatory or just rubbish, as I contend.
Hi Jonathan
Thanks for your lengthy comment.
I’m going to start by saying you must be feeling fairly put-upon. I know you’ve received a lot of flak for that one review. I want you to know that for my part, I am not making a personal attack against you. Rather I’m using your work to take a shot at trends in the larger industry as I see them.
Now I’m not going to respond to any of the points you raise, either publically or privately. This is because I do not believe that you will be responsive to anything I have to say. I know that others have already tried to discuss these matters with you on social media and via email. Frankly, they’ve said everything I can say already and you haven’t seemed to take it on board.
I’m also not going to take this further because I have no interest in swapping abuse with you on line. Everyone’s a loser in an internet argument.
Your wife is of course more than welcome to contribute to the discussion herself. I’m sure she has some valuable points to make. I’m not in the habit of giving my contact details out over the internet, but I am contactable through this comment feed or via Twitter, which you have found already.
Thank you again, and thanks to everyone who has contributed constructively below.
Best wishes.
D.
Dylan, thank you for your candour and for being reasonable.
You’re right of course that the internet is a forum that has a tendency for participants to allow themselves to be reduced to the level of abuse and this is best avoided. I apologise that my response was inflammatory.
Between you and I, I propose we accept our differences of opinion and accept the pint glass of peace. There are other things that we are trying to achieve in the beer world that won’t be helped by an unnecessary flame war.
Sounds fair enough to me, Jonathan.
Argh, I think the internet just ate my post, in the process of verifying who I was. Apologies if you get two messages that say effectively the same thing.
I am one of the people to whom you said “I hope you’ll email me your argument and we can discuss this thoroughly.” To be perfectly honest, after years on the internet, being both a woman and (somewhat) outspoken, the invitation to email you (and therefore give you my email address) AND to make the conversation private rather than public, didn’t feel particularly like a genuine offer of discussion and / or safe.
If you want to discuss my thoughts here, I’m more than happy to have a chat – I certainly DO appreciate the fact that the 140 char limit on Twitter makes it pretty hard to discuss subtleties of the English language.
Jonathan, ever thought about the relation between being sexist and saying/writing sexist things? One clue: you don’t get to decide what other people perceive as sexist.
Today, Jono, you earned an honorary doctorate in Missing The Fucking Point. Do see if there’s room for it in the trophy cabinet at home.
“…. it also gives pleasure from its appearance. It is something I want near my mouth. It is fulsome, enticing, warming and compelling. You see it and you just want more.”
Have you considered a side-line in erotic beer fic? Cos whoah 😉
Hi Jonathan,
Thanks for agreeing to have this conversation in public, and thanks to Dylan for agreeing to play host.
Here’s the thing. How do you define ‘crass’ and ‘sexist’? Sure, you were crass. In my opinion, you were pretty grossly crass, if I may be blunt.
“I think it can confidently be stated that this beer is like a pair of breasts, and I will elaborate: As well as serving an official function, it also gives pleasure from its appearance. It is something I want near my mouth. … I will have more, but like breasts, too much is never enough.”
This is a spectacular piece of objectification, in my opinion. The breasts barely belong to human, being apparently just random objects floating in space (they may have an ‘official function’ but first and foremost they are apparently there for your pleasure) and frankly, without the connection to a person it sounds oddly non-consensual — imagine if you ACTUALLY described the boobs of a stranger this way — “well, those might have an official function, but I get a lot of pleasure out of them, I want them near my mouth, and I’ll have more”… I mean, REALLY? It actually genuinely leaves me feeling vaguely creeped out.
I get that from your perspective, this was just a bit of a cheap chuckle — but what’s more important to you — you getting your admittedly crass (by which I’m assuming you mean ‘in poor taste’) joke in, or helping to make half the population of the world feel included & welcome?
Cheers,
–amy.
Thank you Amy and thanks Dylan for allowing this discussion to be posted on your blog page.
Overnight I received a number of emails on this issue that compared me to range of known misanthropes from Caligula to Bobby Riggs. One or two were borderline threatening and also mentioned my wife. This is not acceptable.
While I would have liked to engage in reasoned discussion in this forum I feel that this has gone too far.
I will be making a statement on my website and leaving the matter there.
Amy, I hope we can meet for a pint in Wellington, served by Dylan, so that between us we can come to a resolution.
That is all.
Hi Jono, I’m sorry to hear that. That’s utterly unacceptable behaviour. If it’s coming from craft beer lovers I hope they’re ashamed of themselves as it’s not at all what I have come to expect from this usually lovely little community. It’s one thing to write a dodgy article about beer and breasts, and it’s quite another to be a bully disagreeing about it. No one deserves that. Hope the trolls leave you alone soon.
Cheers,
–amy.