Recycling Bin Bingo

Posted on 03/03/2014 by Dylan J

My last photo-based bloooooog post was a roaring success. So much so that I’ve begun collecting more bottle shots for a follow up. I might even one day put together an exhibition…

It seems a lot of people get a weird sort of enjoyment seeing craft beer littering the street. It’s funny the shared experiences we have, but don’t necessarily talk about. It also seems something else we all do (and I suspect get a weird enjoyment out of) is check out other people’s recycling bins. I think the enjoyment comes from judging other people’s tastes. No doubt there is a Latin/Greek/German technical term for this.

Anyway, a lot of people suggested I write a post about recycling bins, and I thought: yeah, why not? It combines two of my guilty pleasures: rooting through people’s refuse and feeling smug and superior about it…

So basically, I wandered around my neighbourhood (Mount Victoria), snapping some photos of other people’s recycling and awarding scores as I saw fit. Now as it happened, it was the first recycling day after Sevens, which resulted in some interesting combinations.

OK here we go. Time to play the inaugural round of Craft Beer Recycling Bin Bingo!

THE RULES:

– There must be at least one ‘craft’ bottle or can in the bin to qualify.
– Points are awarded as I see fit. It’s completely arbitrary and unfair. Because that how I roll.
– Points are gained for having beers I perceive to be good in your bin.
– Points are deducted for having beers I perceive as bad in your bin.
– Bonuses and penalties are awarded for variety, rarity, quantity or as I see fit.
– Wine or spirits have no score, because I’m not qualified to make judgements on a lot of them.
– RTD’s are a big penalty.

Basically, a bin full of Mac’s or Monteith’s will score you zero, where as a bin full of Garage Project will score very highly. Conversely, a bin full of Budweiser will earn you a negative score. There is no upper or lower limit, but there is a theoretical perfect score: a bin full of Cantillon Gueuze and Lindemans Cuvée René, one of which is still full and appropriately chilled, with a beautiful crystal goblet glass, attached to a love letter from your estranged high school sweet-heart, being guarded by the cutest puppy in the world, who gives you cuddles whilst you drink it.

Yeah, that’s the perfect score.

Entry One: My Bin

For the sake of fairness, and as a calibration point, I thought I’d better include my own bin. I live with other people, so it has an interesting variety.

Click to Enlarge

1. My flatmate’s beer of choice, Emerson’s Pilsner +5 pts.
2. My favourite cooking beer, Wigram The Czar Imperial Stout +7 pts (obscurity value).
3. Hophugger Coasters Pale Ale +7 pts (obscurity).
4. Zeffer Dry Apple Cider +5 pts.
5. Monteith’s Gold 0 pts.
6. Dropped in our bin along with some wine bottles by a passer by, Cooper’s Sparkling +3 pts.
Bonus: Variety (5 breweries 1 cider) +20 pts.

TOTAL: 47 points.

A good starting score. Let’s see what my neighbours can do.

Entry Two: A Panhead Invasion

Click to Enlarge.

1. Moa Original +5 pts. I considered introducing a Moa penalty for being dicks, but you know, barrel-fish.
2. Panhead Port Road Pilsner +5 pts.
3. Mata Artesian +7 pts (obscurity).
4. Difficult to see, but that’s a Panhead Quickchange XPA +5pts.
Bonus: Variety (3 breweries) +10 pts.
Bonus: Quantity (6 of one beer, 7 from one brewery) +10 pts.

TOTAL: 42 points.

Entry two is a firm contender, but my bin edges them out narrowly. Can the next bin knock me off top spot?

Entry Three: The Duality of Man

Click to Embiggen

Hmm. I don’t think so somehow.

1. Tui Lager -3pts.
2. Moa Original +5 pts.
Bonus: Quantity (6 of one beer) +8 pts.
Penalty: Quantity of shit beer (a metric shit-ton of Tui) -5 pts.

TOTAL: 10 points.

Clearly there’s only one person of taste in this household, and they favour a six-pack of Moa Original.

Entry Four: Eclectia

Click to make big.

Now here’s an interesting one!

1. Green Flash West Coast IPA +8 pts. A little hard to see, but it’s there. Rare imports score highly.
2. Panhead Supercharger APA +8 pts. The brave young Panhead is showing well!
3. Mac’s Hop Rocker 0 pts.
4. Blow me down! If that’s not a Mike’s Imperial Porter hiding under there! +10 pts.
Bonus: Variety (3 breweries) +10 pts.

TOTAL: 36 points.

Another strong contender, and very much a drinker after my own heart.

Entry Five: Hidden Gem

I almost missed this entry, then I saw a neck label with the words “RISK, DREAM” poking out.

Click make thing size upwards.

1. I see you hiding there. Don’t play coy with me, you delicious, chocolaty-strumpet! Rogue Chocolate Stout! +10 pts. N.B. I’m not calling Debbie Buhler a chocolaty-strumpet; just the beer she’s featured on…
2. A shit-ton of Hagen Lager -3 pts.
Penalty: Quantity of shit -5 pts.

TOTAL: +3 points

I like this entry. It shows how just one bottle can make up for a mountain of crap beer. Clearly someone with decent taste came to visit.

Entries Five and Six: A Double Feature

Click to Shrink to Nothingness.

Wahey! Jackpot!

Left:
1. 8 Wired Semi Conductor +5 pts.
2. Epic Armageddon IPA +7 pts.
Bonus: Quantity (4 of the same beer) +5 pts.

TOTAL: 15 points

Right:
3. A little hard to see, tucked in there, but that’s an Epic Pale Ale +5 pts.
4. Moa Original (very popular choice) +5 pts.
5. Bugger me! Do my eyes deceive me, or is that an Emerson’s Southern Clam Stout? +15 pts (obscure, out of season vintage). Someone’s been dipping into their cellar!
6. Heineken -3 pts.
7. My finger got in the way of the lens. 0 pts.
Bonus: Variety (3 breweries) +10 pts.

TOTAL: 32 points

Unfortunately these bins had different address on them. If they’d come from the same house, they would have the combined bonuses would have knocked me off the top spot.

Entry Seven: A Contender

Big Size.

Oooh, lots going on here!

1. ParrotDog Flaxen Feather +5 pts.
2. Three Boys Golden +5pts.
3. Three Boys Pilsner +5pts
4. Samuel Adams Boston Lager +2 pts. I’m pretty indifferent about Sam Adam’s beers really.
5. Haha, almost missed you there! Cheeky Emerson’s Bookbinder hiding behind the grape juice. +5 pts.
Bonus: Quantity (5 of one beer) +6 pts.
Bonus: Variety (4 breweries) +12 pts.

TOTAL: 40 points

A bold showing, but just a little too safe to come out on top.

Entry Eight: Simplicity

Size increase for clicking.

I sense a determined lack of compromise in this drinker’s taste.

1. Three Boys Pilsner. +5 pts.
2. Emerson’s 1812 Pale Ale. +5 pts.
3. ParrotDog BitterBitch +5 pts.
4. ParrotDog PitBull +7 pts.
5. Garage Project Beyond The Pale +10 pts.
Bonus: Variety (5 Beers, 4 Breweries) + 15 pts.

TOTAL: 47 points

Oh so close, buts it’s a tie!

Entry Nine: WTF?

What is this shit? I don’t even know.

You don’t want to go any closer.

1. Tuatara Pilsner +5 pts.
2. Wildside ‘Cider’ -10 pts (RTD penalty).
3. Some shit from Foundary Road -5 pts.
4. Broken plate glass -20 pts.
5. Mac’s Great White 0 pts.
6. Rekorderlig -1,080,945 pts.

TOTAL: -1080975 Points.

Oh dear. I just don’t know what to say.

I like to think that you can get an insight into people from their drinking habits. Well, if by their recycling shall ye know them, then the owner of this bin should probably be arrested for being a public menace.

Whomever you are, I hope I never meet you, for my own safety, and yours.

Reflections:

So there you have it. It’s a tie between entry eight and myself. Now the only reason it’s a tie is because I had a greater spread of breweries in my bin; and this only happened because some random dropped a Cooper’s Sparkling Ale in there (along with some wine bottles) after it had been put out on the street. The fact is I do most of my drinking in bars after midnight, So it’s surprising my bin was so populated at the time.

In other regards, this was a really interesting exercise. I went into it with quite a few expectations that soon proved to be misplaced. For example, being so close to Regional, I expected to find a much greater mix of breweries, and a more eclectic mix of beers. For example, a few obscure Belgians. The only one I found however, was a single bottle of La Trappe Tripel, in a bin that didn’t make it into my final series.

In fact the interesting beers that I saw that didn’t make the final entries included:

– Yeastie Boys Gunnamata
– Hallertau Statesman and Luxe
– Renaissance Stonecutter
– Appletree Elderflower Cider
– Left Coast The Wedge
– Beer Here Ryefix
– Lakefront 25 Anniversary Brandy Barrel Aged Imperial Pumpkin Lager (that would have been a solid +25 Points).

Many notable breweries that you might expect to find in the recycling of a well-to-do suburb, such as Liberty or Croucher, were nowhere to be found.

I think there are a few factors to be taken into account here. First of all I suspect the Sevens significantly drove up the amount of crappy lager that was drunk in the neighbourhood. Second of all, the presence of Regional (and perhaps ParrotDog Brewery as well) would mean that a considerable proportion of beer being drunk at home would be in the form of riggers and flagons (certainly that’s my prefered way to drink at home). This probably meant that a good slice of the craft beer consumed in Mount Victoria wouldn’t leave traces in recycling bins, as people reuse their riggers. From an environmental standpoint, I approve of this.

Another interesting observation I made is the significant quantity of Moa Original being drunk. Moa seem to be making a push to move volumes locally (I’ve seen a lot of it for very cheap in supermarkets), perhaps due to the big short-fall of sales last year. I have no Idea if the approach will payoff, but adopting the strategy of selling quantity at a low margin makes me uneasy. After all, that is what the soulless corporate breweries do. As Lear said: Oh that way madness lies.

Finally, and perhaps most interestingly is the volume of Panhead being drunk. By in large, the most common small brewery I found was Tuatara by a considerable margin (followed by Moa), but following that very closely was Panhead. For a brewery less than a year old, that’s pretty damn remarkable. Well done, Mike, Anna and the rest of the Panhead crew.

A Beer Review, With Added Rant

Posted on 26/02/2014 by Dylan J

I stopped reviewing beers on this bLOLg a long time ago. The main reason was I was boring myself and if I’m bored it must be ten times as worse for my readers. I am however, returning to the old school beer review for a moment, and for a good reason: statistics.

You see WordPress provides you with some interesting statistical data on your site traffic: what pages have been visited, where viewers have been linked from, what countries the IP address comes from and interestingly, what search engine terms are used to find your site.

It’s fascinating to see how people stumble across a blog. Mostly it’s people actually trying to find my site, searching ‘the bottleneck blog’ or similar. But sometimes it can be a bit more unusual. Case in point, this gem popped up after my discussion of the San Francisco beer scene:

Click to enlarge.

Strangely though, the most common search term, accounting almost a quarter of all known searches, is a variation on one word: Hophugger.

Now I’m not sure if this is searches from consumers, wanting to know more about the beer or from the producers, Treehugger Organics (don’t bother clicking on that link, the site is still under construction, a year after I first visited it) wanting to know how their beer has been received. What I do know is that this has made my review of Hophugger Pilsner my most searched for post since I started writing. So if only for the sake of site traffic, I thought I might as well review the new Hophugger beer, Coasters Pale Ale, almost exactly a year after I gave the Pilsner a good dressing down.

Warning:
If you just came here to get my opinion on the actual beer, skip to the last paragraph, because I’m about to go wildly off topic. Likewise, if you’re one of those people who can’t stand to hear criticisms of anything small breweries do (I call these guys the Anti-Beer-Snob Mafia), you should probably do the same. And as always, caveat lector.

Now last time, I gave Hophugger Pilsner a lot of stick for having a terrible name, an ugly label and being way off style (although I did also say the beer was quite nice). Two out of three of those things subsequently changed. The beer became a lot lighter and more Pilsnery, which I liked, and the label got an update. The name however did not change.

Yeah, I know they’re stuck with Hophugger, unless they do a complete brand overhaul. So there is no point it banging on about it, but just try something for me. Say “Hophugger” repeatedly, really fast , and at the same time, try not to think about how much it sounds like “Oh Bugger!” See what I mean? Still I guess they’re stuck with it, so lets not flog the dead horse any longer.

What I really took exception to though, was the label. And I was rather pleased to see that subsequent batches went from having the hideous green-on-green-on-more-green label to this much less hideous black affair:

It’s not dynamic, but it’s least legible. Source

It’s not brilliant, but it gets the job done. So lets see the new Pale Ale bottle then:

Yeah, nah. Not loving it. The green on black at least popped a little and showed off the hop textures on the label. The white label looks completely flat and uninteresting. This beer looks as exciting as a can of Budget Brand Chopped Tomatoes. Yeah, I know it feels like I’m being unkind, but I gave Gisborne Gold a public flogging for less. Oh Gizzy, all is forgiven. You may look like you just attended a font-festival, but at least you look enticing on the shelf.

And that’s what this is all about: enticing people to drink your beer. The average punter (whose job doesn’t involve keeping up to date with every little thing that goes on the the New Zealand beer scene), will probably never have heard of Hophugger and will have nothing but the labels to go on. If the label doesn’t say “pick me, I look delicious!” then they’re most likely going to spend their money on something else. I’d love it if this wasn’t the case, but that’s not the way humans work.

Certainly I can say from anecdotal experience, this is true. When confronted with the labyrinthine fridges at Hashigo Zake, frequently the overwhelmed customer will jump on the nearest label that catches their eye. Now imagine you’re at Thorndon New World with 300+ lines of beer and no bartender to say “this one’s nice; label’s not much but the beer is really good.” See where I’m coming from?

Ok, sorry Hophugger. I’ll be honest: I’m using you to take a shot at the wider industry. I do feel bad that I’m railing against somebody’s labour of love here. But there is a serious point to make here and I’m going to use Hophugger to make it. A while back I took a subtle dig at the craft brewing sector for having terrible distribution, to the point of being unprofessional, and I suspect you could categorise this rant as a much similar bugbear.

Small breweries are competing for shelf space and customer attention against the likes of Crafty Beggars and Foundry Road, both of whom have dedicated brand managers. If small breweries are to flourish, they need to be able to compete with the big players, at least partly on their terms in the field of marketing and (I shudder to use this term) brand image, because that’s the first hurdle to reaching the customer. And once they’re past that first hurdle, they’re away laughing, because the quality of the product from small breweries is (99% of the time) far superior.

Whilst I’d like to believe that a superior product alone will speak for itself, that’s only true if it manages to get to the podium at all. Working ostensibly in retail, I can definitely vouch for the fact that appealing and dynamic brand image and product packaging (oh god! More marketing-speak!) is much more important that anyone in the industry is perhaps comfortable admitting.

In the craft/micro/whatever brewing industry, there are breweries that have an understanding of brand image and marketing: Garage Project, Yeastie Boys, Panhead, Epic, ParrotDog, Hallertau, Liberty and urg, Moa (although don’t follow their example) and those that miss the point entirely (I won’t name-names). And yes, it is frequently the smaller breweries and contractors that don’t want to pay a big, flash design company that struggle with this the most. But it’s not surprising that the breweries I listed above are what you might call the more (broadly speaking) ‘successful’ breweries.

And you know what, to your credit Hophugger, there are breweries that miss the mark by a much wider margin than you do.

Anywho, like a steampunk-paperweight, all I’m doing right now is making so much pointless hot air. A beer should stand or fall by what’s in the glass. So how does Hophugger Coasters Pale Ale taste?

Good. Really good in fact. Possibly great.

I said in my end of year roundup that breweries who make a ~5% pale hoppy thing with a solid malt body win at beer, and gave a list of examples I liked. Congratulations, add yourself to that list, because I really like this Pale Ale.

The malt character is caramelly, with a touch of biscuit. The hops are classic New Zealand hop green-fruit-salad, with just a hint of that aviation fuel burn that I like in small quantities. It’s a really, really good pale ale and I encourage anyone out there who sees it to give it a go.

So to finish, let me quickly summarise this post:

Blah, blah, terrible branding. Blah, blah, good beer.

If you take anything away from this review, let it be that.

Craft Beer on the Street

Posted on 12/02/2014 by Dylan J

If there is one thing we can agree on, it is that good beer is in. Not just right now though, but for the future too. Yes, it’s here to stay. We are heading to the mainstream. I’ve seen the signs.

What signs are these you ask? Is it often quoted statistics of dubious origin that point to growth in the ‘craft’ sector, even as the beer market is dropping? Nope. Is it the rise of dedicated beer venues in all the major population centres of New Zealand? Nope. Is it the fact that even mediocre bars, restaurants and cafes frequently stock at least one line of good beer in their fridge (in Wellington anyway)? Nope.

No, for me the sign that we were truly going to made it was when I saw a bottle of good beer smashed in a gutter. It was about four years ago. I can’t remember if it was a bottle of Epic Pale Ale or Emerson’s Pilsner, but when I saw it I though “Yeah, we’ve made it. We’re grownups now.” And I’m not the only one to think this.

So I present to you now; proof that we have made it. Craft Beer on the Street: A Photo-Essay.

These photos were all taken on my Nexus 4, unarranged and presented in chronological order. Enjoy.

Looks like this Kereru Moonless Stout fell in with the wrong crowd…
Taken on Hania Street.

"I woke up in a Soho doorway, a Policeman knew my name!" Outside Gryphon Theatre, Vivian Street

“I woke up in a Soho doorway, a Policeman knew my name!”
Outside Gryphon Theatre, Ghuznee Street.

Evidence of a crime. Found outside Golding's. We don't stock Garage bottles, so it didn't come from us.

Evidence of the Crime.
Found outside Golding’s. We don’t stock Garage bottles, so it didn’t come from us.

This Stoke Amber has seen better days.
Near the Basin Reserve.

A rough night with some sailors?
The Wellington Waterfront.

Honestly I don’t have a joke for this one. Garage cans are like hen’s teeth, and to see one crumpled on the street is surreal.
Khandalla.

Well Camouflaged
Spotted hiding in the bushes of a church carpark, Ellice Street.

‘The Aftermath’
Spotted in the wreckage of the Sevens on Vivian Street. I’m sure Ross would be proud.

On a more serious note, I find myself very conflicted by empty bottles from breweries I love, just thrown around the streets. On the one hand it means small breweries are reaching a wider audience as time goes by. On the other hand it shows a lack of respect for the product, that you would dispose of it so carelessly. More importantly, it shows a lack of respect for the environment, which bugs the living shit out of me. Still, this I guess is the price of success.

On a less serious note, the thing that most interested me was the mix of beers that I found. The only entrant from the larger, more well known breweries is Tuatara. I expected to find some Epic or at the very least some Emerson’s. I think this selection is very indicative of Wellington right now. Certainly I’d be interested in seeing what sort of a selection other cities might come up with.

Maybe this should be a regular feature? I’ll keep taking bottle shots on the street. Feel free to send me your own photos of discarded bottles too.

Cheers,
The Bottleneck

Lager Roundup

Posted on 27/01/2014 by Dylan J

I said a while back in my review of Gizzy Gold that the brewery had sold up and a new batch of rather nebulously defined owners were moving in. Since then I’ve heard rumours of changes at the brewery. Most notably new bottle labels and a new recipe. As we’ve been working through the backlog of bottles at Regional though, the change hasn’t come into effect until recently, when the new bottles arrived at Golding’s. So I decided I’d better see what shape the old girl is in.

Here’s the new bottle:

First of all, it’s in a brown bottle, which I approve of. However, my initial impression is that I don’t like it. This reaction is though I suspect just the knee-jerk everyone gets when someone moves their cheese, so I thought about it a little deeper. The new label is certainly slicker, but somehow it lacks the rustic charm of the old label.

Old Gizzy. Very rustic.

I wasn’t the only one who thought this. “It’s a bit of a font-circus,” said one of my colleagues. “It feels like some design student did it for a school project.” Fair point, it kind of does. There are lots of little do-dads on the label that a designer would think is ‘neat’, but as a consumer, I find them confusing and superfluous. And what’s with this neck label? Neck labels are a terrible idea. It’s hard to get them to line up, stick properly or stop them falling off. If you look closely, the one here is off-centre and has folded in on itself in the top right corner.

I do like that it still says “Natural All Malt Lager,” like that still means anything, but the bottle blurb feels like it was written by a marketing monkey:

Click to enlarge.

I have no idea if Geoff Logan or anyone else at Sunshine Brewery surfed at all, but somehow it just all seems less authentic than the old label.

[UPDATE] – According to Twitter and the comments at the end of this post, Geoff was indeed a keen surfer. Neato. I still think that “a lightly toasted maltiness” is an inaccurate description, and a “hop back-bone” that is simultaneously “solid” yet “hovers” is rather silly and a little nonsensical.

I know it seems like I’m ripping on it unnecessarily, but there genuinely is a reason: the old label made Gizzy look like a local Heineken knock-off, which well, it kinda was. The old label felt safe. Stella-Suits that come into Golding’s would frequently pick it out of the fridge because it looked familiar. In the weird and confusing world that is the modern beer bar, The old Gizzy label promised them something safe and familiar that they could hold onto. And it delivered on that promise with the mild and inoffensive beer inside the bottle. And I can’t help feeling like they’ve departed from that with their new packaging.

But all this is so much hot air, relative to how the beer tastes. So how does this new recipe (if it is one) shape up?

Pretty good actually. It’s still an inoffensive lagery thing, but new Gizzy seems to have a little more zip than the old one. It’s hard to tell if this is a new recipe and they’ve bumped up the hops a fraction, or if it’s just a matter of freshness. Alternatively it could also be a matter of that most nebulous of influences: context.

The last Gizzy I drank was at the start of a big evening, which may have muddied my memory. On the other hand, this one I drank at the end of a busy shift, a time when even a pint of plain old tap water can taste like distilled rainbows. Admittedly both are pretty good contexts, but new Gizzy may have the advantage.

Either way, it still delivers the same pleasantly inoffensive beer (without the whiff of corporate tait) that we’ve come to love and adore. So for all my petty label-gipes, Gizzy still deserves it’s place in Golding’s fridge. Moving on.

Now I know to my regular readers (apprently I actually have those) this is going to sound absolutely bananas coming from me, but has anyone tried Singha recently? It’s surprisingly good.

You see I have an obsession with noodle soups, and a little while ago I decided I needed some Pho Bo and a beer for lunch. My local Vietnamese joint had a rather sad beer-list, consisting of Mac Black and three different pale lagers (no Gizzy), so I chose Singha for reasons of authenticity. I was initially rather tickled that it turned up in a Magners glass.

I’m a big fan of glasphemy.

I did however, find myself really rather enjoying the beer. The body is thin, almost anorexically so, but still there, and it has a slight lemony character that I found rather pleasing. It doesn’t go fantastically with noodle soup, it being only slightly more beer-flavoured than the broth in my Pho, but I do find myself revisiting this combo every time I’m in Little Hanoi.

I suspect the reason I like it so much and why I’m recommending it here is a matter of mathematics:

Low Expectations X Unexpected Quality = Positive Review.

The fact that I supposed Singha to be bloody awful and it was in fact pretty ok, means that it gets a big thumbs up from me. And it totally has nothing to do with me using this blog post years down the line as insurance against accusations of beer snobbery. Regardless of this, I can say with utter confidence that Singha is the best shitty Asian Lager I’ve ever had and if you find yourself at your favourite noodle house, you could do a hell of a lot worse than ordering one of these.

Now that’s what I call consumer advice.

The Bottleneck Awards 2013

Posted on 17/01/2014 by Dylan J

So a new year is here, and a different anniversary is rapidly approaching: one year of this blog!

*Fweeeep!* (that’s the sound of those cheap party hooters they used to give us in the goodie bags at birthday parties when we were kids).

To mark whichever of those two occasions is more significant, I thought I’d look back on the last 365 attempted hangovers and see which ones I liked best. Now two warnings.

First of all, caveat lector: these are my opinions, and are meant for recreational use only. Don’t take them seriously. The second warning is this: I haven’t actually made any trophies for the recipients of these awards. If anyone feels strongly about this, they can feel free to craft their own ones. I suggest a tiny statuette of me, holding a pint. Or maybe I’ll just spray paint bottles gold and send them to the winners. If they ask really nicely.

Anywho, let’s get started.

The Green Bottle Piss Award for Best Lager

If I were ever to open a brewery, I’d make the most awesome Pilsner possible, then call it “Green Bottle Pils”, using a font where the L’s and S’s looked remarkably similar. I’d then probably serve it on tap exclusively, or in brown bottles just to be obtuse. But anyway, if I did make a Pilsner, it would probably be as close to the winner of this award as possible; and that is Panhead Port Road Pilsner (5.2%).

I’m not really much of a Pilsner drinker, but if I find myself making exceptions, it’s usually for this beer.

Feel Good Hit of the Summer Award for Best Light, Wheat or ‘Sessionable’ Thing

Eagle eyed readers will note that I already gave this award out months ago. That was back when I thought I’d give seasonal awards progressively over the year, rather than in one big orgy at the end. So once again, the winner is 8 Wired Haywired (4.6%).

Now, not all of my awards are going to beers. I think it’s also important to give awards to the people and places and things that make the beer community special. So in that regard:

The Special Award for Services to My Alcoholism (A.K.A. Best Beer Bar Award)

Now this is tricky. I’ve stated before that Hashigo Zake is in my opinion, the best beer bar in New Zealand. But something about my personality won’t allow me to give this award to a bar I’ve worked at. So that means Hashigo is out, and Golding’s is too. Seeing as I didn’t travel much in New Zealand this year, that leaves…

The Rogue and Vagabond

I sense this is a controversial choice, but one I’m sticking to. I’ve heard a lot of criticism towards the Rogue, and I think a lot of it is valid *cough* bathrooms *cough*. But still I spend a hell of a lot more time there than I do at pretty much any other bar. The reasons are multiple: first of all, the staff are always trying to get me drunk. But I also get a sense of Gemütlichkeit whenever I go there. It’s got more character in each of its slightly uncomfortable barstools than all the Residences, Brus on Cuba, The Georges, or Curry Clubs of Wellington put together.

The ‘Doing Bad Cornish Accent Whilst Drunk’ Award for Best Cider

The world of New Zealand cider is a dark and scary place, populated by people with unconvincing Swedish accents and a race of weird anthropomorphic animals, who appear cute, but I’m pretty sure if we turned our backs on them for even a moment, they’d pull off their faces to reveal a race of alien space-lizards that will devour us whole.

It’s with this in mind, that I thank all known deities for Peckham’s. They’re lovely people, who make lovely cider. My particular cider of the year is the Wild Fermented Kingston Black (5.8%). Thank you Peckham’s. If I ever develop Celiacs I’m going to move in next door to you.

The Emerson’s Special Award for Selling Out

Oh don’t look at me like that. That’s exactly what Emerson’s did: they SOLD THEIR OWNERSHIP to Lion. That is the literal definition of selling out. Anyway, I bring up the Lion connection because it’s pertinent. But I’m going to get to that in a moment, because I’m going to start with the runner up:

BrewDog

Yes, when I heard they had NZ distribution I went “Aww YES!” Then when I heard it was with Independent Liquor (Asahi’s bastard child), and saw BrewDog plastered all over some of the worst bars of Wellington, I said “Aww NO!” I would have been willing to forgive them for the sake of the beer, but it’s not even traveled well. The only ones that still taste good are Hardcore and Dogma, but even then it’s not worth it for how much you have to pay and how unsatisfying the whole experience is. Every time I walk past The Residence or Bru on Cuba, with their BrewDog logos plastered everywhere, I just can’t help thinking about John Lydon shilling butter.

Back to Emerson’s now. You might think I get angry when the big boys try and play in the craft sector, but I don’t. For the most part it just makes me laugh; watching Monteith’s pretend they’ve invented dry-hopping, or Pinot-aging beer or whatever.

And you know who else is laughing? Lion. Because they’ve shown us exactly how a corporate brewer should get involved in the craft sector: Purchase a beloved brewing company, and then busily set about doing pretty much nothing to it. What you shouldn’t do is buy up a brewery, replace all the beers with pretty much your own product and put them in bottles that are pretty much identical to your existing range.

That’s right, this award goes to Founders. Yet another thing Independent Liquor/Boundary Road/Asahi has buggered up this year. Taking out first AND second place. Well done you, Foundry Road.

I get the feeling that narrow, sans serif fonts are all this Boundary Road's Designer knows how to use.

I get the feeling that narrow, sans serif fonts are all Boundary Road’s Designer knows how to use.

The Stout, Porter or Other Dark Award for Beers The Same Colour As My Soul

I agonized a little over this one. It’s possibly a case of too many great contenders. I wanted to give it to a few of my old favourites: Renaissance Elemental, Cassel’s Milk Stout, or Three Boys Oyster Stout, Invercargill Pitch Black. But that felt like choosing which of my beloved children was my favourite. In the end I felt like I should give this award to a newcomer, and I chose Kereru For Great Justice Coconut Porter (4.5%). I think if there is one thing Kereru has nailed it’s the <5% dark beer. Both FGJ and it’s unflavoured brother, Moonless Stout, are pretty much as perfect as any dark beer can be.

I find this equal parts cute and perplexing.

Die Lederhosen-Freizone Preis für den besten Bierfest

The award for best beer festival I attended in 2013 pretty much has to go to Hashigo Zake’s Pacific Beer Expo, after the rave review I posted recently. And so it does. Well done PBE!

The Irish Suntan Award for Paleness

I agonised pretty hard over exactly which Pale Ale to give this coveted award to. So in the end I said ‘fuck it: I’m giving it to the entire style category.’ That’s right, if you’re a brewer who’s made a good beer that’s ~5%, hop driven, with a decent malt backbone, you win. Not just this award either, but at beer in general.

Seriously, Pale Ales are the in-thing, and not just right now, but (if America is anything to go by) for the foreseeable future. At Golding’s and Hashigo, they’re the only thing that consistently sells faster than Pilsner. They’re pretty much a licence to print money.

Recipients of this award include, but are not limited to:

– Tuarara APA (both versions)
– Panhead Supercharger
– ParrotDog DeadCanary
– Townshend APA
– Croucher Pale Ale
– Epic Pale Ale
– Funk Estate Oh Lordy!
– Liberty Oh Brother
– Behemoth Chur!
– Garage Project Trip Hop
– Brew Moon IPA
– Hallertau Statesman

Feel free to mentally add beer I’ve missed here.

The Tey-Tappers Special Award for Best Beer Writer

I don’t often read a lot of New Zealand beer writing. This is mostly because, working in the industry, I’ve already heard most of it before the print deadline hits. There are however, a couple of exceptions.

Runner up for this award goes to Jono Galuszka, for his rather pleasant From Drinker to Brewer series and for bringing a little beer enlightenment to the murkier sections of the North Island. Jono hits the right tone between geeky and accessible. Well done Jono.

Possibly most handsome Beer Writer award too. You decide…
Source.

And the winner is: Matt Rilkoff.

Yup, that right. The man who describes craft beer as ‘petulant’, ‘complex and haughty’ and ‘prohibitively expensive’. The guy who thinks Tiger is the be all and end all of beer. The one who fellates any company that sends him free beer. The chap who barely seem to like any kind of beer that’s not limp, boring lager. The fellow who doesn’t even seem to like drinking beer and writing about it. Yup. That’s my beer writer of the year.

Here’s my favourite Rilkoff quote:

“Professional beer tasting is often a lonely job. Far from having People flock to you for beer tips, they resent you for the beer you get to drink and castigate you if you show anything but absolute reverence for craft beer. It’s tough.”

Um… No mate, it’s not. You’re getting paid to drink beer and writing about it. If you’re not enjoying that, then as the actress said to the Bishop: You’re doing it wrong. You’re missing the point so hard, it’s surprising the Americans haven’t offered you a job as their Bomber Command.

Now having said that, Rilkoff is genuinely my beer writer of the year, because I seriously enjoy his writing. Sometimes I feel guilty about that, because I suspect it’s a mild form of Schadenfreude that I’m experiencing. But since he’s not actually suffering misfortunes here (in fact he’s being paid to write about beer… seriously mate, if you don’t like doing it, I’ll do it for you), then I feel I can laugh at his columns without being an asshole.

(Un)Fortunately, it seems that most of the Taranaki Daily News’ beer writing is now done by Warwick Foy; who is much more qualified (in that he enjoys, well, flavours). But don’t ever want Rilkoff to stop writing about beer. He’s just too enjoyable to read.

The IPA Award for Services to the Hop Shortage

This again, was a very tough award to give. The reason is just too many worthy candidates. After a little soul searching though, I came up with an answer. The award goes to not one beer, but a series of them: Twisted Hop Hopback Series (5.8%).

c/o The Twisted Hop Brewery.

This is an NZ Cascade-based beer, that uses different American hops in the different editions. The base beer is lovely, but the Citra, Simcoe, Centennial and Chinook editions each have their own unique charms. Then there’s the Double Hopback (8%) an imperialised version which reminds me of a super-juicy American Barleywine.

I will say that I would like to see some slightly dirtier, more bitter and angry, non-c-type hop versions of this beer (eg Sauvin). But over all, I award the Hopback series for it’s balance between being geeky as hell, yet still all excellent IPAs.

The Moa Special Award for Biggest Dick Move of 2013

In such a small industry, it would be nice if we could all be friends, but the reality is, that’s not always going to be the case. I’ve seen a fair amount of dickish behavior from industry people. Moa should probably be awarded this trophy indefinitely, having a virtual monopoly on being a dick in the craft beer industry. But that would also be like shooting fish in a barrel and as global fish populations are under threat right now, I’m not going to do that.

Anyway, I think the biggest dick moves are ones that undermine the ethos and integrity of the craft industry as whole. We are small companies fighting for market share against big corporations. We are supposed to help each other out, not dick each other over. As Soren Eriksen once explained it to me (in his sexy Danish accent):

“In the craft beer industry, it’s not about getting a bigger piece of the pie; it’s about growing the pie. As the pie gets bigger, each of our pieces gets bigger.”

This is the ‘rising tide lifts all boats’ attitude. In this regard, when a craft-beer company wants to expand, they should look for unexploited niches and opportunities, they should collaborate with others around them, or they should build upon and expand their current operations. What they shouldn’t do is look at someone else’s piece of the pie and say “I’ll have that!” and try to hack off a chunk before anyone notices.

Yeah I’m looking at you, Tuatara. Trying to steal Rogue distribution off of Beer Without Borders/Hashigo Zake. A local brewery trying to increase business by importing and distributing beer from overseas? That’s cool. Importing and distributing a brewery that’s already legitimately being brought into the country by another dedicated craft beer distributor? That’s not cool. That’s a dick move.

The Pucker-Up Award for Best Sour Beer

I’m going to start with the runner up here: Mussel Inn Lean Lamb (4%). It’s weird, dirty, bacterial, borderline disgusting and fucking sour. Love it.

The Winner: Liberty/Zeffer How do You Like Dem Apples (10%). I like tart cider, I like sour beer. Dem Apples is pretty much the best of both worlds.

The “Am I Drunk Yet?” Award for Best Strong/Imperial/Strong Belgian/Whatever Beer

This one goes to 8 Wired Grand Cru (10%). There’s nothing I can say about it that I haven’t already said here.

It’s laughing at me. I want to brush my teeth with it.

The Bastard Upstart Award for Best New Brewery.

To the uninitiated, it probably would seem like the winner of this award has appeared out of nowhere, making a varied range of excellent beers that can be found all over Wellington. Industry insiders on the other hand, have known the brewer for quite a few years.

Still it amazes me sometimes that six months ago I ever managed to fill a balanced tap lineup without Panhead Brewery. When they opened, I had suddenly at my disposal, a brewery with a slick image and branding, reliable delivery, instant popularity, and most importantly, great beer. If I was religious I’d forgive myself for thinking they’re the second coming of Christ.

Mike from Panhead is not Jesus, but he does have a nice beard.

Speaking of which:

The “Jesus-Rollerblading-Christ!” Award for Single Pint of Beer I Enjoyed The Most.

So named after the exclamation I made whilst drinking it. I wanted to give this award to the bottle of Lagunitas IPA I drank whilst sailing under the Golden Gate Bridge.

This was pretty fuckin’ sweet.

But there was one other beer I enjoyed more; that made me shout “Jesus-Rollerblading-Christ, that’s fucking good!”

It was a pint of Townshend Black Arrow Pilsner (5%). It was at Hashigo in the middle of Summer, I’d just come from an hours worth of strenuous Charlestoning, I was exhausted and sweaty and I think the whole pint only lasted thirty seconds.

The Green Bean Saison Award for Fruit/Spiced/Flavoured/Otherwise Meddled With Beer

Choosing a winner for this award was tricky, as we had two ~~gangs~~ breweries each with a gaggle of experimentally flavoured beers. On one side, there’s Yeastie Boys, with it’s posse of serious-faced tea-beers, led by the charismatic Gunnamatta (6.5%). Opposing them was Garage Project with their ethnic mob of chilli beers, fronted by their spicy leader, Day of the Dead (6%). And choosing a winner from this lot is like watching a gang knife-fight, in that no one’s the winner, or in our case, everyone’s the winner in the end.

Short of an actual knife-fight between brewers, which I’m sure we don’t want, I’m going to settle the matter by awarding thus:

Runner Up to Yeastie Boys Wendy (6.5%), the Belgian tea stout. The winner goes to Garage Project Venusian Pale Ale (7.5%). Those being the two beers from the lot I actually want to drink the most of.

Awesome poster, too.

The Old-Hand Award for Best Established Brewery

I like to think of the winner of this award as the (slightly) older chap in the corner, who very quietly does what he does and does it very well, whilst the young guns (usually contractors) are standing around making a hullabaloo about their big, outrageous beers. Then once in a while, when he feels like it, he gets up, takes them all outside and shows them all how it’s done.

I’m talking about Renaissance Brewing, that reliable (relatively) old workhorse who we don’t always pay enough attention to. They make a range of really great beers that we don’t see on tap as often as we should. then every now and again, they whip out something truly amazing, like their annual Tribute Barleywine (10%), their Age of Raisin (6.5%), or their Scotch on Rye (4.5%).

Renaissance won Champion Brewer at last years BrewNZ awards (which I totally called). And I honestly think they deserve it. I love those guys so much.

The Renaissance crew at the BrewNZ Awards. Yes, their Brewer Andy wears a kilt.

The Bottleneck’s Beer of the Year

The beer I enjoyed the most this year, is probably the same beer I enjoy the most every year. If I had a beer-soulmate, it would probably be this beer. It’s the only beer I drank three pints of in a row, something I never do when I had the option of drinking something else.

It’s 8 Wired ReWired Brown Ale (5.7%).

Not an exciting, obvious or even perhaps deserving choice. It’s just a beer I really, really like. Yeah I know that’s terrible consumer advice. Kind of illustrates the pointlessness of personal blog awards, really…

Oh well, too late. You’ve read it now.

The Tauranga Beer Scene

Posted on 05/01/2014 by Dylan J

Yeah, I know what you’re thinking: “This’ll be a short post”. But stick around, because you may, against your better judgement, find yourself in Tauranga and knowing where the beer is at can often turn a bad visit to a city into a good one.

Certainly I had low expectations when I went for my annual pilgrimage to my ancestral homelands (that is to say, my folk’s house) for Christmas. Tauranga has always had the meanest skerrick of a beer scene, in the form of one brewpub, Brewers Bar in Mount Maunganui, and one of those ubiquitous Belgian Cafés that charge you $14 for a Leffe Blonde. But this year, I had something new to look forward to: Croucher has recently opened a its second brewbar on The Strand, the ‘heart’ of Tauranga’s ‘nightlife’.

c/o Brew’s FB page.

So it was that on Christmas Eve-Eve, I rocked up to Brew Tauranga, and was immediately and immensely pleased to discover they had taken over the old Coyote bar. There used to be several Coyote bars around New Zealand, all of which (I’m reliably informed) were amongst the worst, most feral nightclubs in the country. I’ve only been ‘out on the town’ once in Tauranga, and did indeed visit Coyote’s and found it utterly awful. So with an enormous degree of satisfaction, I approached the bar, where I had previously drunk Jägerbombs and ordered a craft beer.

IMG_20131224_153408 Now I have a reservation about brewpubs: for the most part, you can pretty much only drink the beers of one brewery, and if that brewery doesn’t make a balanced range of beers, then barring guest taps, you’re a little screwed for tap selection. At Brew however this was not a problem. First of all, Croucher makes a pretty excellent and balanced range of interesting beers. Secondly, of the twelve taps they had, six were Croucher, six were guest. Doing it right. I also took a peak in the fridge and saw a good selection of local and international bottles. I even heard a rumour they’re getting an off licence.

IMG_20131224_153346 Mechanically, Brew does very well: They have a nice beer menu, which was concise and easy to read. I put a few questions to the staff and their beer knowledge was sufficiently sound. So in terms of the art of being a beer-bar, Brew does very well.

I am plagued however, with a need to criticise and in this regard, I do have to say that Brew’s environment is rather, shall we say, uninspiring. Not awfully much has been done to the interior, besides a new coat of paint and new partitions. The bones of Coyote show through rather starkly in places.

Some things, have in fact not changed at all…
This is the old Coyote logo stamped on the chairs. I actually found this kind of cute.

They’ve also done the standard Mac’s bar thing of having a brewery mural on the wall, but it’s a bit sort of, well, grey and depressing really.

I find this less 'Funky Fubist Brewery' and more 'Eastern-Bloc Soviet Factory'. How many Ukrainian peasants died for my beer?

I find this less ‘Funky Cubist Brewery’ and more ‘Eastern-Bloc Soviet Factory’. Makes me wonder how many Ukrainian peasants died for my beer?

A few beery themed pictures and some hop-vines provide a respectable beer bar veneer that doesn’t entirely cover it’s club heritage (speaking of which, I wouldn’t like to be there late of a Saturday night. Or anywhere on the Strand for that matter).

But having said that, I can wholeheartedly recommend Brew. It’s a matter of context: Sitting in what used to be one of the worst clubs I’ve ever been to, the smell of Tauranaga harbour (a mixture of salt and rotting sea cabbage) drifting past; good company in the form of an old school friend and most importantly a good beer in hand, I can’t help but feel sanguine. I’ll take it as a sign of the times, and of the future too. Good beer is heading for the mainstream. It’s not there yet, but Brew is as important to the progress of in industry as any of the beer bars of Wellington. And in that regard, I love it.

And that was I thought, the only beer spot worth visiting in Tauranga. That was until we went for our obligatory Boxing Day walk around The Mount, to make us feel less like fat sacks of crap for eating a kg of ham the day before. Cruising down Maunganui Road, we passed a place called Mount Brewing Company. I had to stop and go in. It was compulsory. IMG_20131226_132305

You’ll remember at the start of this screed, I mentioned The Mount had an obscure brew pub. It’s never really been on my radar though, for two reasons. First of all, it’s in a semi-industrial area inconveniently far away from anything of interest. Second of all, I went there once, about four years ago and it was, well, a bit shit. Half the beers weren’t pouring and the Pislner I had tasted mysteriously of cornchips.¹

My suspicion was that Brewers Bar had shifted, had a facelift or opened a second venue. This was confirmed almost immediately, when I recognised a number of beers on tap. That could have been grounds for buggering off right then and there, but my sixth sense (AKA my good bar-sense) was tingling, so I decided to give it a go and had a beer.

I ordered an APA. It was pale orange, super peachy (vaguely reminiscent of Sculpin IPA) and came in a mason jar with a handle. Win. IMG_20131226_125341

It was also had a slight touch of creaminess to it, which could have been diacetyl, or could have come from crystal/caramel malts. But that was by no means a deal breaker. It was a lovely beer. I also tried a little of the ‘Certified Shaggy’ Ale, which I took to be some sort of ESB-ish thing, but later turned out to be a Dunkle. Wait, wouldn’t that make it a lager? Who’s counting anyway?²

So the beer was good. The ambience was nice too. Like Brew it felt like it was taking cues from Mac’s bars, this time erring towards the more colourful and with a beachy-twist. The tap lineup was fairly mainstream but pleasantly varied and Good George even made an unexpected appearance on the guest taps.

I had a brief chat to the staff. They were friendly, and confirmed that the place is pretty new, and tied to the older Brewers Bar that I had been to previously. I also quizzed them a little on the beers and they seemed to know what they were talking about. In fact, the only thing they couldn’t tell me was why some of the bar’s logos said “Since 2006”, whilst others said “Since 1996”.

THIS IS NOT ADEQUATELY EXPLAINED!

Decade-long discrepancies in their history aside, I like Mount Brewing Co. a lot. Unfortunately I only had time that day for one beer, but I would very much like to go back. That was in fact the last of the beery adventures I had in Tauranga. I would have liked to have dropped in on Fitzpatrick’s Brewing, but time, effort, and a cold curtailed any further exploration. If I could summaries the Tauranga beer, I’d say it falls somewhere between ‘undiscovered gem’ and ‘diamond in the rough’ (undiscovered gem in the rough?).

Either way, it’s hugely promising for the future of the New Zealand beer scene outside of the established beer-centres.

1. Interestingly, no brewer has ever been able to explain what causes this. Is it a malt thing? An infection? A yeast byproduct? Dirty lines? I’d love to know. ↑

2. Actually, I am! ↑

My Alcoholic Kitchen: Gin and Tonic Chicken

Posted on 11/12/2013 by Dylan J

So I was making roast chicken the other day and I was about to shove a sliced lemon up the chicken’s bum, when two thoughts occured to me. The first was “why am I always shoving things up chickens’ bums?” And the second was “I should save some of this lemon and make a G&T.”

You know how sometime, great ideas come from combining two things together? Well that’s what happened in my brain: two thoughts collided and a new idea was created: “I should shove a G&T up a chicken’s bum.”

Inception.

Regular reader may notice a developing theme of culinary chicken sodomy. Now, the lesson I learned from the Chickenosaurus Rex was that canning chicken isn’t really that effective. So I figured this time, instead of a can, I’d use a roasting bag. It essentially does the same thing: trap the liquid in with the meat.

Now if I wanted to do this legit, I’d get all the ingredients of gin: juniper, cinnamon, cucumber, cloves, citrus peel and whatever else, along with some quinine and whatever the hell else is in tonic and stuff the chicken with them. Or, I could just stuff the chicken with lemon, pour in enough gin to get a sailor tipsy, and seal it off. So that’s what I did.

Take this lot.

Season your chicken with oil, salt and pepper. Stuff some lemon in.

Stuff it in your chicken chicken, seasoned with oil, salt and pepper.

Pour in your gin!

And a little more of each in the bag. That beastie is ready to roast!

As you can see, I used Lighthouse gin. Partly because I like to cook with really good ingredients, but also because that’s what I had on hand. I could have gone a got a bottle of cheap stuff, but then I’d have been stuck with a lot of gin I wasn’t too keen on drinking anyway. You may also notice that I didn’t bother with tonic. I didn’t really think that was going to add anything to the dish, and I’d rather drink it with ice, lemon and gin anyway.

Finished product:

Food photography isn’t really my thing.

So how’d it turn out? The chicken was falling-apart-tender and super zesty. I didn’t really get much gin flavour from it, but it was very nice none the less. I suspect I’d have needed to drown the bird in a sea of gin to get a proper result.¹ I also made gravy with the juice from inside the bag and a little more gin. It came out super light, and needed a fair amount of soy to give it richness. It was however, very pleasantly zesty and did have a little gin flavour to it.

Post-mortem: a moderate success. Roasting bags are good if you want to make a very succulent roast, but I think I prefer open roasting in general. You get more caramelisation on the outside of the meat and in the bottom of the pan. This makes better gravy and you can also roast the veggies in the meat juices. I would probably consider using a bag if I was going to roast a turkey, which can be quite dry.

Still, a worthy experiment.

1. Just like your mum on Friday night.↑

Pacific Beer Exposé

Posted on 25/11/2013 by Dylan J

I said long ago, that one of the (relatively) few benefits of leaving Hashigo is that I get to experience it as a punter. Now this isn’t entirely true, as every time I got in there, it still somehow feels like a workplace more than a bar to me. It’s like taking the back off a clock and watching the cogs move. The more familiar you are with the machine, the less you see it as a functional device for keeping time, and the more you see the individual pieces working independently.

Anywho, to move on from this rather laboured analogy, since I now no longer work at HZ, I now get to go to their beer festivals. Which isn’t so say I couldn’t go before. Infact I could get in for free when I worked at Hashigo. But you can never really enjoy a beer festival when you know you have to work an 8 hour shift afterwards.

So all this has been a very long-winded way of saying that Labour Weekend, I rocked up with a great deal of excitement, to the first beer festival I’ve attended without volunteering at/working at/working after, since Beervana 2010. And honestly, if I could only attend one festival a year, it would probably be Hashigo Zake’s Pacific Beer Expo.

PBE2013

I used to joke that PBE was has HZ’s Greatest Hit’s album: a collection of the favourite beers from the last year or so that have been squirreled away to be leased in one beer-fueled orgy. And in previous years this has pretty much been the case. But this year the line-up was a little more diverse, with a lot of imports I’d never seen before. Even more exciting, quite a few New Zealand breweries showed up with one-offs, new or special releases.

Beer highlights included:

8 Wired Wild Feijoa. It was light, funky, refreshing and 10%. I could drink a lot of it, very quickly and then be very drunk.
Funk Estate Pinky and the Grain 8.8%. A pink peppercorn Saison. It should not have worked, but totally did.
Garage Project Weasel Cah Phe Da. Oh, look at me, what a Garage Project fanboy. Yeah well, shut up. The beer was great. And yes, I know, Civet coffee is usually either dubiously authentic, and if it’s real, dubiously ethical. Garage acknowledged this in their poster for the beer, and said at the time that this was probably a one-time only deal.

Credit: Garage Project/Rachel Smythe.

So what I’m trying to get at in a long-winded kind of way is that the beer selection at PBE is the absolute business. And for myself that’s really the main draw-card. But then I do proudly wear the badge of Beer-Geekdom. What other benefits are there for the more casual punter?

Well frankly, the atmosphere.

Unfortunately I didn’t get any photos of the PBE atmosphere. In fact this is the only photo I took, on someone else’s camera. I was too busy getting my festival on. C/O Megan Whelan.

Beervana is noisy and cramped. Octoberfest is a piss-up. Marchfest is a pleasant afternoon in the park. In contrast PBE is so damn convivial. It feels like a festival: a day off with friends and beer. Now a lot of people complained about the lack of seating (I’ll get to complaining soon), but I think that kind helped with the atmosphere. Instead of being cramped around little tables, where some poor bastard is left standing, trying to not feel excluded; everyone could wander freely between standing groups, or join little circles of people sitting on the ground. I think this added a lot to the atmosphere.¹

What else? The embossed Spiegelau glasses were a nice touch.

Possibly the most classy beer-fest glasses ever.
Credit: Phil Cook

You know what the biggest benefit is, though? The cost. Yeah, tickets were kind of steep this year, and a few people complained. First of all, they contained an $8 Ticketek booking fee, which was a bit of a shitter. But frankly, I was there from start to finish of the festival, and it took me an hour to use up all my complimentary tokens. Then I think I only spent about another $20 on tokens all up. A taster was $2, a glass $4 (a flat rate for all beers). I remember my last trip to Beervana (to work). A taster was $4-$6, a glass was $6-$8 (ABV dependant) It cost me a hell of a lot more, and I wasn’t even drinking. PBE really is one of the best value festivals I’ve ever been to.

Alright, that’s enough positivity, time for some evenhanded criticism. There were some issues this year, and almost all of them can be linked to the venue. Ooh, surprise, surprise, a Wellington beer festival has venue issues. This is the perennial problem for festival organisers: each location has its positives, but also comes with frequently arbitrary limitations. In the case of the Town Hall, its a tied caterer. With the St James, its a tied ticketing agency driving up admissions costs and limitations on how much seating could be brought into the venue. Also for some reason, they couldn’t turn on the air-vent’s which meant it got rather stuffy in the hall.

So even if the venue was a bit of a triple-shitter, there is a positive side: next years PBE will be back at the beloved Boatshed on the waterfront next year. Moving on.

Some of the beers advertised didn’t make it this year. That is a bit of a let down, but then I’m inclined to entirely forgive this on two grounds. First of all, the beer-list was still objectively outstanding. Secondly, ordering the beer for Golding’s, I have to deal with this sort of thing on a weekly basis. New Zealand freight companies (and let’s face it, breweries) are notoriously unreliable. Frankly some days I’m surprised anything ever turns up at all.²

I’m also assured that further steps will be taken to remedy this at the next festival.

Finally, my last gripe: the caterers rather seemed to phone it in this year. Yeah, the food was good, but last year it was amazing. And yeah, the selection was varied, but it seemed a little insubstantial. As I write this though, I’m wondering why I’m even complaining about this. What was on offer was good, what I ate I didn’t pay for, because food tokens were included in the ticket. What’s more, if I really wanted something else, I could have just popped out onto Courtney Place and picked it up. So I’m just going to stop talking about this now.

If you take anything away from this, it should be that PBE wasn’t perfect. But also, if any of the above is a deal-breaker, then I’m afraid you’re just being too damn picky. The Pacific Beer Expo is still the Wellington beer festival with:

The most exciting lineup.
The most convivial atmosphere (except possibly SOBA’s Winter Ale Festival).
The best value for money.

Frankly if you don’t make it there next year, you’re missing out. I’m already looking forward to next year.

1. But then, four years of hospo has meant that I can now spend 10 hours straight on my feet no problem. In fact, I can pretty much sleep on my feet if need be.↑

2. My favourite experience of this was ordering beer from a certain New Zealand Brewery: I was assured it would be delivered within one week. Ten days later, I call up them up to find out where it’d got to. It still hadn’t left the brewery. ↑

Actually, I lied. I took one other photo with someone else’s camera…
C/O Phil Cook

What I Do When I’m Not Doing This

Posted on 18/10/2013 by Dylan J

This bloooog is my main outlet for most the words I stick on the internet. When I’m not writing this though, I’m frequently tapping keys for other publications. For instance, I’ve written a couple of short pieces for the Society of Beer Advocates Magazine: The Pursuit of Hoppiness. I’ve also penned quite a few Golding’s press releases for craftbeercapital.com.

But you know what my favourite publication to write for is? Salient Magazine. Yep that’s right, Victoria University’s Student publication. I’ve been co-writing it with Dave the Beer Guy for a number of years, which means that, owing to the rather irregular publishing schedule, I’ve only actually written a few columns, which can be found here.

Salient can be quite fun to write for. You can take a more relaxed attitude to other publications. on the other hand, you do need to temper your beer-geekery for what you might call an ‘introductory audience,’ or in other words, students, who frequently can’t afford to drink lots of exciting Mikkeller beers or the like.

So far I’ve refrained from crossing my Salient work to my blog, for reasons I can’t quite explain. A while back though, I wrote one that I’m a little proud of, so I thought I’d share it here. My column on extremophilia:

http://salient.org.nz/columns/beerd-extremophilia

I originally started writing about my own love for extreme beers and the way they seem to be looked down on by a certain section of the beer and brewing community (a subject I would like to return to sometime). However, I found it morphing into another, more positive and ultimately more useful column for this particular medium.

For the record, I actually seriously believe that a tour through the more extreme sections of the Hashigo Zake fridge can often be an effective way to get someone interested in beer. It’s a hell of a lot better than pissing-around in the sub-5% lager category with someone who clearly needs a little rock’n roll to get them excited.

I think I might start cross-referencing my Salient columns to my blog. If only for the sake of extending their audience.

That’s all for now.
Cheers,
D.

Retro Review: Gizzy Gold

Posted on 28/09/2013 by Dylan J

The other day, I was faced with a conundrum: find a beer that’ll appeal to the Heineken crowd, but that I was still proud to put in Golding’s very small fridge. You see, when you run a high-end beer bar, you still need to have something that you can give to the folks who just want a Corona. I call it Snob Insurance, because having an easy, mainstream-style option prevents a beer bar from being called elitist snobs. Well, most of the time, anyway.

So for assorted reasons, we needed a new easy lager to put in our fridge. Now if a large group of lager drinking ~~Suits~~ people comes in, they can demolish a 24 pack in a night easy. So we needed a lager that we could order overnight from a local distributor and have it turn up the next day. Now that cuts out at least half the bottled lagers brewed in NZ because they don’t have reliable distribution in Wellington.

The leading candidate was Tuatara Helles. It fit the style, it was affordable and easily available. But it seemed, I don’t know, too easy I guess. We were considering Epic Lager; a good little beer with fantastic brand visibility. Unfortunately it came at shall we say, a premium price point. Then Sean made a suggestion: what about Gisborne Gold? Suddenly the heavens parted and rays of Sunshine (Brewery) fell upon us.

Ah Gizzy Gold! That reliable old workhorse. My student beer. Back when no one made good beer, there was Terry McCashin, there was Richard Emerson, there was Roger Pink, and there was Ben Middlemiss. But there was another name, which doesn’t get mentioned a lot these days: Geoff Logan and Sunshine Brewery.

For a more complete history of Sunshine Brewery, I recommend reading Michael Donaldson’s Beer Nation, which has most of a chapter devoted to the brewery. As far as my history with Gizzy goes, five years ago, when I was a penniless student, I drank a lot of it. I drank a lot of it because it was cheap, good, and plentiful. It really was everywhere in Wellington at the time. I even remember the first one I drank. It was at the Film Archive, whilst watching a 16mm print of The Woman of the Dunes. Gizzy was a fixture on the FYO at Regional Wines and Spirits and even the named sponsor of the annual Beer Options competition.

The Gisborne Gold sign at Regional proclaims it to be ‘All Malt’, harkening back to a time when that actually meant something.

Five years later though, and things have kind of changed. I can’t remember the last time I saw Gizzy in a bar, let alone drank one. I fear sunshine brewing has, like a handful of other small breweries fallen behind the times (cough *Founders* cough) . They make pretty much the exact same beers they’ve always made. And lets face it, the market has changed. People want excitement and variety.

Of course lagers will always sell well, but Gizzy doesn’t have the brand muscle to make a dent in Stella sales, but isn’t quite exciting enough as a beer to cut it with today’s Pilsner crowd. And that’s kind of why I’m excited to have it in our fridge. Because it’s a slice New Zealand brewing history, as well as a piece of my own personal beer journey. It’s also a damn good lager and we’ve been selling a metric shit-load of it.

I reckon it’s time for a Gizzy come-back tour, and that might just be on the cards. My sly mention of Founder was pertinent, because just like Founders, Sunshine Brewery has been sold. Not long after we got it in, I learned that ~~Hancock’s, liquor distribution company and very new (despite what they say) contract brewing company~~, Correction, my network was wrong: a group with ties to liquor distribution company Vintners, has bought the brewery. The sale will become official in 2 days time (30/09/2013). Whether this is a good or bad thing, only time will tell. I hope it will re-invigorate a brewery that has basically, not shifted much in over a decade. We shall see.

I was going to do a normal review of Gizzy, but frankly when I drank one, it bored my trousers off. It’s not the beer that’s changed. It’s me. So instead, I’m going to review it through the persona of 19 year old Dylan. Beardless and a bit skinnier, here I go:

Gizzy Gold. My old friend.

Beer: Sunshine Brewery ‘Gisborne Gold’
Style: Pale Lager
ABV: 4%
From: Golding’s Free Dive
Date: 21/09/2013

Gizzy Gold: F*** Yeah! I love this beer. Lovely golden colour with a white head. Solid lager-malt body with a slight hoppy bitter finish. Head and shoulders above such brews as Macs Gold. For about $10 for a 2L rigger from Regionals, how can you go wrong?