(…of beer venues, I mean.) For the six years I lived in Melbourne I worked within a surprisingly-tight area; a two-kilometre circle centered somewhere in Collingwood, in the inner-North-East.1 That part of town saw a few high-profile closures in 2024, further datapoints for the general sense of doom that haunts the industry — but also some interesting (re-)openings, and given my proximity to it all I wanted to take a moment to sit with what’s happened and try to pin it down.
Since noticing a reference to modern hazy IPA in the New York Times crossword,1 and wondering what that “meant” in terms of beer’s currency in the popular culture, I’ve been keeping a tally of what else comes up. I recently realised I had a full calendar year worth of such records, and the urge to make a spreadsheet and go looking for patterns came on predictably strongly (for me) after that. The result: ninety-nine appearances, clumped around a few themes, with ale and ipa done to death, a few favoured brand names, some real clangers, and the occasional delight.
Illustration by my incredibly talented comrade ramikin.jpg
Given that I built this place and can visit any time, it’s a little strange to say “I miss being here” — but I do. I know why I haven’t been around more often; a mix of factors internal and external that’d be familiar-enough to anyone else who does this kind of thing: timing, distractions, self-doubt, and difficulty gathering the energy to do the work on a deep-dive, or to brace for the blowback on something critical, or push past feelings of futility. It’s oddly comforting the reasons are so mundane — they’re all addressable (if not actually solvable) problems. So I’m going to try.1
Mr. Boh goes to Washington (and regularly visits Chinatown)
For the second installment of The Session’s 2025 reboot (despite best intentions, I missed the first one for reasons that may soon be obvious), Boak & Bailey asked: “What’s the best beer you can drink at home right now?” In normal circumstances, I might’ve gone on a riff about the troublesome idea of “best” (or even “good”) but right now it’s the notion of “home” that’s more complicated for me. Anyway, the answer is still clear enough: it’s National Bohemian — Natty Boh, to its friends.
The 2024 New Zealand Beer Awards — formerly (and affectionately) known as the BGONZAs — were announced over the weekend, which means it’s time again to dive into the results and seek out whatever curious details lurk under the surface. This year saw a few breweries return to form, some interesting rearrangement among trophy classes, and maybe an uncommon (and underexplained) tie-break at the top.
A sufficiently big spreadsheet also counts as a “hinterland”
Since I moved here, I’ve been meaning to subject the Australian International Beer Awards to the same analysis that I do for the competition back home. But a mix of feeling less familiar with the industry here and the vastly bigger-and-messier dataset has derailed me. Until now. There’s a lot to unpack, but a little statistics can provide a better context for the results you might’ve seen promoted recently — and an effective antidote to spin and preconceived ideas about who makes “good” beer.
Food photography is so much harder than beer photography
Tiramisu, but with a nice strong stout instead of the liqueur or fortified wine the recipe might call for,1 has become one of those things that I’ll make at the slightest provocation. As a staff treat for a looming busy night, if some newly released beer seems like it might work nicely, or if I find a kilo of mascarpone on special; pretty much any excuse will do. It’s always a hit, so I’m well overdue to share what I’ve learned more widely than I can share the thing itself. You deserve a treat — but then we have to have a quick chat about some outdated terminology you’ll probably see when shopping for the right beer to go in it.
Last week, as I was helping out on a canning run at the brewery, I was listening to the ‘Why Brut IPA Never Hit It Big’ episode of the Taplines podcast,1 and it’s had me thinking and reminiscing and pondering ever since. That conversation (between journalist Dave Infante and brewer Kim Sturdavant, who developed the style and coined the name) is well worth a listen, and I don’t really disagree anywhere, but as someone who was bartending through the peak of the phenomenon and who really loved those beers, remembers them fondly and looks for their echoes to this day, I have a few thoughts to add.2
That’s McSorley’s ale house (which is old), not McSorley’s house (of old ale)
Late last year we were fortunate enough to be in New York, happily spending each day walking towards some landmark or other and then exploring the surrounding neighbourhood a bit before catching the subway home. After visiting the stunning Public Library and the enormous Strand Bookstore, I saw we were close to a couple of pins I’d put into my map before the trip1 so we walked a few more blocks — and stumbled into a succession of quietly magical moments. One unassuming little street, three lessons in how to be a great bar.
Ingredients: Anchovies. (May contain traces of anger.)
A few years ago, U.S. brewing company Fast Fashion sponsored a new hop varietal and named it “anchovy”, in a move that’s probably half in-joke turned outwards and half marketing stunt.1 It’s still fairly niche, but it pops up occasionally in this part of the world, and always restarts a train of thought of mine when it does.2 Personally, I love anchovies; that’s a word with positive associations for me,3 and I can see the fun in the incongruity of naming a hop that. But the beer industry has an awkward relationship with comedy that’s worth poking at a little.
So despite changing jobs three-and-a-half times (from Stomping Ground to Catfish, then Range, then The Mill / The Bendigo), at least three-quarters of my cycle commute over from Flemington remained the same. Which lead to the occasional auto-pilot error when I’ve been particularly tired or distracted, delivering myself to the wrong venue. There’s a map at the bottom of the post if you’re curious, or lost.
I don’t feel great about having a paid subscription to their puzzles section, given how comprehensively their newsroom has been failing to meet the moment. Maybe I should ditch it for something else, but you make your own mix of choices and for me they’re (just) on the side of doing badly rather than doing bad.
This one’s therefore partially just me talking to myself, or giving a peek behind the curtain to anyone who wants one. Stay tuned — if you need a reason — for what is effectively a belated entry in the round of The Sessionwhich I mentioned missing last time; these are the rest of the reasons why.
Given the language of origin, it should probably be called birramisu, but the easiest to find recipes under that spelling both involved pale ale among other questionable choices, so I’m going with the linguistic-hybrid naming here. Which seems apt, anyhow.
Plus, not for nothing, it really does feel like old-school blogging to properly tee off from something like that rather than make a few ephemeral replies on social media. And I missed blogging (and podcasting), to be honest.
With so much to do and to see, there’s no amount of cramming it all in that would manage to cram it all in (and I’ve written before about avoiding FOMO by embracing it) so we opted for peppering a map with potential spots and mostly letting the mood of the day guide us.
See this piece on The New School and this one at DC Beer for nice long reads on the brewery and the development of the hop. The short version is that they have a long history with pizza, but also an element of the mildly provocative in their brand strategy; even the name Fast Fashion is clearly co-opting something with big negative connotations.
The saving grace of an enormous pile of half-finished posts is that everything old is new again pretty regularly in this business. Garage Project just put out an anchovy-hopped beer, Pizza Face, but I have notes from a year ago when I tried a Wildflower one. Plus, for reasons that will soon be obvious, I was thinking about this a lot about eight weeks ago.
The header image here is from ‘A Fishful of Dollars’, the sixth episode of Futurama, which is when I knew Fry — with whom I already shared a name, sometimes a job, and occasionally a haircut — truly was my cartoon avatar; transported to the year 3000, he spends an unreasonable amount of money on the last-ever can of anchovies.
