Croucher Pale Ale

October 30, 2010 Phil Leave a comment

Saturday brought an end to my Hamilton Expedition, but did compensate me with a lovely drive home down State Highway 4 — I decided I’d done SH1 too often, so thought I’d go around the other side of the Lake. And when I got home, I had a house full of people getting ready for a day-early dose of Hallowe’en craziness.

Peter and I were relatively-lazy with our Hallowe’ening (though him much moreso than me), so we had a bit of time to kill and therefore a beer. We’re both big fans of Croucher’s Pale and I found the new bigger 500ml bottles up the road at Regional. They’re now also brewing at Steam in Auckland, which gives them some extra capacity with which to meet their (deservedly) increasing demand and have a crack at some export markets. These bottles are labelled up ready for the U.S., and I was chuffed to see that Paul’s original (and accurate) tasting note of “delicious burps” has been left intact.

And the beer is just as good as it ever was. Possibly a tad better, if anything. If I had to pin down a difference, I think the fresh, fruity (Cascadey) hops are even more present in the aroma than they were last time I had one. It’s a delicious beer, and was just what I needed.

It deserves to do well overseas, and I think it (and the Pilsner) are a good bet. Exporting to places like the U.S. from little old New Zealand is a tricky proposition. Tuatara took a crack at it a little while ago with their IPA, which I thought was vaguely mad — would the Americans really go for such a relatively-sedate take on the style, given their hop-mad craft beer sensibilities? And Tuatara had their U.S.-labeled beers around a time when they were already stretched to capacity and seemed to be sacrificing conditioning time to meet local demand. Don’t get me wrong, I like their IPA, but it just didn’t seem like the right beer or the right time. Croucher’s more-individual Pale and Pils could well be a better fit.

Verbatim: Croucher Pale Ale 30/10/10 500ml ÷ 2 w/ Peter $6 from Regional 5% At my house after a long drive back down SH4, and while the girls are upstairs getting all Hallowe’en’ed. Apparently production has shifted to Steam, possibly after Kaimai re-took their kit. They’re bottling for the US market now, too. And more power to them. The awesome original “delicious burps!” tasting note has survived, and the beer hasn’t changed much — if at all, for the better. Lush, fruity, yum. Bigger fresh-Cascadey nose, perhaps.

Actual Diary entries

Gouden Carolus ‘Hopsinjoor’

October 29, 2010 Phil 2 Comments

An evening of pub-hopping and beer-having had made Kirsten and I rather peckish, so we backtracked a little up Hood Street to a place called Gothenburg, which had caught our eye on our way to House. She picked the food, and I took about ten times as long to pick the beers.

I had missed this ‘Hopsinjoor’ when we had a few bottles at work — we presumably got them from the same place the restaurant did; local (to Hamilton, that is) beer importers Beer Store — so leapt at the chance to have one. Kirsten herself had never had the Westmalle Tripel, and I thought both would go well with the prawns, calamari and anchovy pizza we’d ordered. And go well they did, indeed. I feel I deserve some Beer Matching points for that, but really the bulk of the credit goes to the restaurant for their insanely yumtastic food, and to these rather clever breweries.

The ‘Hopsinjoor’, as the name begins to give away, is a hoppier-than-usual Belgian ale, which has considerable zing thereby added to the nicely dry, complex goodness that is a well-made pale golden strong ale of its type. Trading a few sips for a side-by-side comparison, the extra angles of flavour become really apparent.

Verbatim: Gouden Carolus ‘Hopsinjoor’ 27/10/10 330ml 8% $14 @ Gothenburg, Hamilton. This place for dinner, and drinks took longer to decide on; I’m guessing that Beer Store are largely to credit for the impressive, Belgian-stuffed beer list. We had this one at work a while ago, but I missed out. It’s a cloudy, pale straw. Big, yeasty nose; not a lot of hops present until you get to the face. There, they give a nice zingy bitterness that is welcome + unusual. Kirsten had the Westmalle Tripel and both have gone ludicrously well with the insanely tasty prawns, calamari + anchovy pizza we went for. Civilised.

Actual Diary entries, Location notes

House on Hood, and House / Croucher ‘Mighty’ Golden Ale

October 29, 2010 Phil 1 Comment

Hamilton really does get a bad rap. Frequently from me, I’ll freely admit. It just has this big, flat, sprawling bland black hole kind of a feel to it — especially when you’re trying to get through it on your way somewhere else.

But there were increasing rumours of Good Pub To Be Had in the City, and so I seized the chance for a roadtrip up to visit a friend and conduct some “research”. Kirsten and I had a nice little wander through town, stopping at several suprisingly-civilised (but non-amazing) places on our way here, to the reputedly-lovely House on Hood.

It’s a charming little place, really; the decor is comfortably cute and quirky but not overdone, and the atmosphere seems pretty relaxed. The beer selection is pretty damn good — I really want to say especially for Hamilton, but that would just seem like lingering bigotry, after this opinion-changing night out — and the list has helpful notes, some of which are summarised and repeated on a handy Big Board for the tap selection. I got the distinct feeling that Nerds would be welcome and wanna-be Nerds would be well helped. I met the owner, and he definitely seemed to have his head screwed-on right; beer is a thing for civilised enjoyment, not for wankery.

And… the Croucher brewery made them a golden. I do loves my golden ale, I do, so that felt particularly welcoming. House fell into the easy and often-done trap of describing it as a lager-ale hybrid, which is a strange combination of kinda getting across the right idea and kinda missing the point entirely — but you get used to that, as a fan of the style, and I suppose it would work to pique the curiosity. Anyway, descriptions aside, it’s lovely. Light and quaffable and refreshing and different enough to be interesting, and fairly sessionable too, at 4.1%. All in all, a damn good idea for an own-brand offering from a place like this — “house beers” are utterly bleh all too often, even when you find them at otherwise-genuinely-lovely places like Betty’s here in Wellington.

Verbatim: House / Croucher ‘Mighty’ Golden Ale 29/10/10 4.1% $8.30 @ House on Hood. Had a few decent little pubs here in the Tron before making our way here — just nice, nothing special. This place looks lovely. Nicely shambling slightly-kitsch interior. Quite a diverse crowd. And Croucher made them a golden! Tasting notes on the wall are a bit limp (“cross between lager + ale”…) but still. It’s proper Golden — light + pretty lovely. When the notebook + camera came out, Kirsten pretended not to know me. Understandable. I borrowed the beer list + met Nathan, the owner; all the right ideas about enthusiasm for good beer while avoiding over-done wankery.

Actual Diary entries

Emerson’s ‘Southern Clam’ Stout

October 23, 2010 Phil Leave a comment

This must be a pretty-damn-rare example of the Emerson’s brewers following, rather than leading. You just couldn’t say that this wasn’t knowingly made in homage to Three Boys’ ludicrously masterful Oyster Stout.¹ The comparisons are as inevitable as they are apt, and the thing about Imitation’s place on the Sincerity Scale of Flattery Analysis comes immediately to mind.

It’s properly huge and rich and coffee-ish, and the briny / salt air accompaniment just touches things off perfectly, just as it does with the Oyster Stout — or with posh, rock-salt-topped chocolates. If there’s a difference, though I didn’t side-by-side them, I might say that this is ‘livelier’ in the carbonation and thereby body, but it’s still very Barry White.

Verbatim: Emerson’s ‘Southern Clam’ Stout 23/10/10 500ml $8? from Regional 6% The label actually says “Warning: contains shellfish”. The smell is gorgeous. Rich + coffeeish, with that salt-air hint. The inevitable comparison will be to the (awesome) Three Boys Oyster Stout, but you know the thing about imitation + sincere flattery, right? Quite impressive, really. Hugh flavour; a body full of chocolate with that same saltiness just blamming it up a notch like it does with the Oyster, or with posh chocolates. Possibly a touch ‘livelier’ than Oyster, but still very Barry White.

1: I definitely have at least one diary entry and photo for this lovely stuff; I just haven’t gotten around to uploading them, yet. Sincere apologies. But meanwhile, your homework assignment is to note it on your list of Must Haves. Unless you’re a vegetarian or something. It does have actual oysters in there. So put it on your Must Have If Ever I Deconvert list, or something.

Actual Diary entries

Mikkeller ‘10’

October 23, 2010 Phil Leave a comment

Mikkeller is a wonderfully-mad roving brewer. He’s Danish, but this beer is properly tagged as ‘from Belgium’ — he brews all over the place, the absolute reigning rockstar of collaborations and experiments and (more than occasionally) ludicrously whacked-out beers.

As an exploration / demonstration of the individual character of different hop varieties, he did a ten-member series of single-hopped IPAs, each using an identical base recipe and just one cultivar for its bittering and aroma to really show it off. And then — because, frankly, why the hell not? — he made a 10-hopped IPA with that same base and a bit of everything.

Tasi, one of our regulars and a bartender at Hashigo, kindly gave me a bottle, the mad rainbowy design of which has a section of each of the single-coloured labels from the earlier series — like a tolerable version of that absurd EU “barcode” flag proposal. The colour of the beer itself was gorgeous, and you’d have to assume that was true of the ‘singles’, too — the nose, however, was naturally something else entirely with a hell of a lot going on. The masterstroke was just that, though. It’s very easy to overdo things, with beer, and this could’ve easily tasted like the sound of a jazz band falling down a flight of stairs, if you’ll excuse my recurring synesthesia. But it absolutely didn’t; it had balance, and style, instead.

Verbatim: Mikkeller ‘10’ 23/10/10 gift from Tasi + the peeps @ Hashigo 330ml ÷ 2 w/ Scotty, who has revived that black + red shirt we all like so much. 6.9% Really pretty peachy hazy appearance, in a madly colourful bottle, presumably echoing all of the ‘1’ releases at once. (These were a series of single-hopped beers; this has all ten at once.) A suitably complex nose, but not the cacophony it might easily have fallen into. Easily avoids that jazz-band-falling-down-stairs problem of overdoing things. Nothing really stands out individually against the crowd, but that’s probably the point.

Actual Diary entries

Stoke ‘Gold’ & ‘Amber’

October 20, 2010 Phil 22 Comments

When Lion bought out the Mac’s brewery (to be their pseudo-craft brand, parallel with DB’s acquisition of Monteiths for same), they didn’t really do much with the original site. Unlike their rivals, they never pretended that the beers were still coming from the formerly-independent source — so there was no need to maintain a potemkin brewery like DB did in Greymouth.

So when the relevant contractual restrictions lapsed, younger members of Terry McCashin’s family¹ (the patriarch himself still having restraints of trade against him as part of the sale having retired²) re-took the premises and slowly resumed work. They put out a thoroughly yawn-worthy (if you’re me, at least) range of flavoured vodkas (fairly shamelessly aping the 42 Below range), and then some alarmingly-decent ciders under the ‘Rochdale’ name.

Then, at last, came the ‘Stoke’ beers. Which turned out a genuine let-down. Maybe the ironic problem is that they’ve too-faithfully gone back to their roots — the brewing scene has massively moved on since Mac’s gained their fame, deserved at the time as it was.

But that wouldn’t account for the distinctly unwelcome faulty / unfermented remnants-y flavours that made their way out of these beers, as I tried them one night with two fairly like-minded regulars after we all did a training session for a charity-thing I’m involved with. Wafts of dodgy budget homebrew helper come and go with odd and alarming randomness, leaving neither beer with much chance to endear themselves.

And the brandwank is just lazy and boring and awful, too. The beers are uninformatively marketed as ‘Gold’, ‘Amber’ and ‘Dark’. Despite being willing to mumble-mumble past such actually-relevant and potentially-interesting questions such as “what style were you going for?” and “what varieties of ingredients did you chose?” — not addressing such matters in the label text — they took the time to trademark “Paleo Water” and harp on about how the water they use is 14,000 years old.³ I’m not alone in saying that the insight this sort of thing gives into a brewery’s priorities is a bit worrying. It’s definitely time to worry less about the ‘brand’, and to worry more (that is to say, at all) about making the beers not naff.

Diary II entry #27, Stoke 'Gold' and 'Amber'

Verbatim: Stoke ‘Gold’ & ‘Amber’ 20/10/10 freebies from Savior, w/ Steph & Johnny after we did Kaibosh volunteer training. These things really aren’t doing so well. The marketing is just odd; playing up ‘Paleo’™ water for no reason, but equivocating like a crazy-person on actual style, even down to lager v ale. They do both smell distinctly of unfermenteds; like when you open a can of homebrew-helper. There’s a distinct metal zing to each of these, too. Some sips are decent, some are simply rank.

1: Wait. Why the hell does Mac’s have an ‘a’, but McCashin doesn’t? Er, other than the one it does have. You know what I mean.
2: (Edited 15 January 2010.) I was misinformed. Terry’s retired, which makes perfect sense, if you take the time to do the math on how old he is now. Thanks to Emma McCashin for the correction. For a reply to the rest of her comment, see below.
3: Firstly, who cares? Secondly, water is water is water. If it’s pure, being older won’t change it a damn. Thirdly, they can’t decide — with their website fighting their label — whether they want to say “Paleo” or “Palaeo”. Fourthly, the Paleolithic covers about two and a half million years, making the term an odd fit and a bit much of a reach. Fifthly, the vodka they make is ‘26,000’ and named so because of the supposed age of the water involved — which is it? Or are they plumbing seperate irrelevantly-old aquifers? Are they brewers and distillers, or oddly-obsessed geologists? And lastly, who the fuck cares?

Actual Diary entries

Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout

October 13, 2010 Phil Leave a comment

We’ve struck censorship once before in these pages, but here I find myself doing some redaction before the paper was ever scanned. I’d had a very weird run-in with some misbehaving Police on my way home from Hashigo, so I stopped by Malthouse and raided the fridge’s supply of abandoned samples in search of something to follow ‘Péché Mortel’.

I found this, and shared it with a plural number of colleagues who I shan’t name; it’s obvious enough that I had it, but they were a little more squiffy as to its status as ‘abandoned’, despite it having laid idle for months.

Unfortunately, despite its ludicrously high scores on Ratebeer.com, I just wasn’t wowed. This could be attributable to several things (or some combination thereof):

Maybe I’d had too-many high-grunt beers before it. This is definitely a factor with beer; you just can’t properly try that many ‘new’ things in a session, especially if they’re quite strong. There comes a point at work where someone will ask for one more random recommendation from me (who is, quite naturally, well stocked with such), and my frank advice will be to return to something they know. Save the new things for next time.
Perhaps the beer had had a hard life before reaching me. Beers of this kind (strong, malt-driven) tend to age well, and the brewery are confident it would, but this was two years old and may have had some difficult (too hot, too rough) travels in its time. It’s a relatively-fragile product, really, and that fact is a large part of what drives the controversy over ‘grey market’ imports — about which more later, I’m sure. Or,
Possibly it just Wasn’t My Thing. The subjectivity of beer tasting should never be allowed to be forgotten. That you yourself don’t enjoy something otherwise-almost-universally-acclaimed is no cause for concern. Especially if you know even just a little about what you’re getting in for, you’re perfectly entitled to not like something.

For me, at the time at least (I’d certainly give it another go, with that reputation), it was just too smack-in-the-face, too fumey — despite being only a nudge stronger than my previous beer’s 9.5%, one particularly-apt comment on Ratebeer.com has it as smelling “like some sort of solvent poured into an ashtray”. Just not nearly as lovely as the Péché Mortel.

Verbatim: Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout 07/08 13/10/10 10/6% abandoned sample @ MH. 12 floz ÷ 3 w/ [redacted] Same gorgeous colour, same espresso head, fumier, though. Tarter chocolatey flavour. Strength is much more apparent in the face, too. Rapey, says [anonymous]. As you can see from the censorship, the internet publication potential is meeting with paranoia about the exact abandonedness of these things. Possibly a bit too full-on, actually. Or maybe just mis-timed.

Actual Diary entries

Dieu du Ciel! ‘Péché Mortel’

October 13, 2010 Phil 1 Comment

First, it must be said that a brewery which insists on ending their name with an exclamation point deserves a bucket of Awesome Points right out of the gate. Next, I’m delighted to have a second Canadian beer in my book so relatively-soon after my first.

I’d enjoyed my Tall Poppy (and its accompanying Japanese Chicken Curry pie) so much, and my ‘early’ night’s time off spent just mooching in the pub was doing my brain a world of good, so I decided to stay for another — and then spent an agonising seeming-eternity trying to decide just what my ’nother would be.

Evidently, I settled on this. Adjusting for the Frogspeak, the brewery is called ‘Oh My God!’¹ and this ridiculously good little ‘Imperial Coffee Stout’ is named ‘Mortal Sin’ — though they don’t explicitly indiciate which one they mean… It’s freaking delicious. Big and gloopy and dark with an appropriately crema-looking head, it’s a lovely thing to look at, and a serious wallop of chocolate and coffee up the nose when you give a swirl. The coffee flavours aren’t all just bitter, plenty of that chocolate from the nose is there in the taste, too, along with nudges of smoke and earthy hops to dry out the back end of each sip, and send you back on another go-round of the gawp-swirl-sniff-taste cycle.

Verbatim: Dieu du Diel! ‘Péché Mortel’ Imperial Coffee Stout 13/10/10 $16 @ HZ 341ml(?) What better way to visit more often than just to stay a while longer? Also, it’s a bit of a Bad Brain Day, in both senses. So: reward self. Quebecker beer. I’m told the favourite of a recent tasting. Gorgeously dark, crema-ish head, appropriately. Superblunt coffee / chocolate nose. Slightly syrupy body, borders closer to Big Dark Choc than classic dry bitter coffee. Places an even hundred on rateBeer, and some people there rightly note that it’s not all coffee; much more complex + better for it. Smoky, earthy, grassy hoppiness. No way a one-note showpony. Impressive. One of those beers you just keep taking big whiffs from.

1: Well, literally ‘god in the sky’, but it’s an idiomatic exclamation — much like the German ‘gott in himmel!’ — for surprise or suchlike.

Actual Diary entries

8 Wired ‘Tall Poppy’ India Red Ale

October 13, 2010 Phil 1 Comment

8 Wired continue to be a sure thing in the local beer scene. Whenever the almost-aggravatingly-talented Søren Eriksen releases another beer, just try it. Worry about details like style, strength and price later. It’s going to be good, whatever the hell it is, you can basically rely on that.

This pint of ‘Tall Poppy’ is from a preview keg that was at Hashigo. Dave Wood, one of their bartenders, recommended it to me when he stopped by my pub — all ‘suited up’ in honour of the great Barney Stinson. I finished work pretty early (by my standards) that night, so wandered over for a pint, and was very glad I did.

Tall Poppy is pitched as an ‘India Red Ale’ — big, strong (enough that I put ‘Imperial’ in my notes, accidentally), hoppy, and definitely red. The latter comes from the richer malt and is a wonderful signal of the flavour and balance that are lurking within. We eventually got four kegs for our pub, and blammed through them in deservedly short order. It’s popped up in (really gorgeous) 500ml bottles, so you should bloody-well grab some of those if you’re at all able.

‘Red IPA’ is a developing trend, too; Emerson’s did a ‘Brewers’ Reserve’ of them late this year which produced a couple of lovely beers. Black IPA is certainly a stronger trend in terms of emerging styles, but I’m very fond of both. The pale ale scene has lately been dominated by a gone-too-far (I think) fashion of More Hoppiness Whatever the Consequences, and I’d like to believe that increasing appearance Red and Black IPAs might be an antidote to that, if not an intentional reaction against it.

Verbatim: 8 Wired ‘Tall Poppy’ Imperial Red Ale 13/10/10 preview keg from the pilot batch @ HZ Dave recommended it when he was at my pub, earlier, all suited up in honor of Barney Stinson. 7% $10.5 Murky reddy amber, flat as a pancake (but not on a handpull). Lovely hoppy nose and malty body. Red is the synatheish word from both, really. Good initial whack of fruity bitterness. Almost alarmingly-well suited to the Japanese Chicken Curry pie they made for me, too. Resolved: visit more often.

— long-range addendum, 20/11/10. The actual batch, on tap @ MH. Remains a thing of Bloody Lovely-ness. Big, but not off-putting after a few. And the colour is just bloody gorgeous.

8 Wired 'Tall Poppy' tap badge at Hashigo

Actual Diary entries

Beer 101 Tasting Session

October 10, 2010 Phil 1 Comment

George (the gifter of the original Diary) organised a little tasting session at his house for a few friends of ours, with me playing the Informative Nerd. I’ll be the first to admit that I made them all run a bit of a marathon, but we hit most of the Big Styles, did some Interesting Comparisons, and had a whirlwind tour of the Long and Rambling History of Beer.

There’s a lot more variation in beer than there is in, say, wine or whisky, so a fairly zoomed-out overview can go a long way towards making people more ‘conversant’ in the basic styles, why they are what they are, how to figure out what they’re in for by looking at the bottle, and to help people discover what is (and isn’t) Their Thing.

I can’t help but notice, though, that I utterly failed to fulfil Jessie’s request / demand for a “super-awesome” Diary entry. I’m definitely more of an improvisational entertainer than an on-demand one — and that curry was seriously distracting. Especially after all that beer.

Verbatim: Beer 101 10/10/10 I have to write something super-awesome, says Jessie. No pressure. Tasting session & history lesson at George & Robyn’s, with Jessie + Simon + Pip. Great chance to get my nerd on, and evangelise to Robyn. We had: – Wigram Spruce Beer – Hoegaarden – Hofbräu Munchner Weisse – Köstritzer – Pilsner Urquell – Mussel Inn Golden Goose – Tuatara Porter – Invercargill Pitch Black – Emerson’s Bookbinder – Fuller’s IPA – Epic Pale Ale – Three Boys Golden Ale – Chimay Blue – Kriek Boon. And now, George + Pip have wrangled us a curry. Bloody marvellous.

Beer Diary

Monthly Archives: October 2010

Croucher Pale Ale

Gouden Carolus ‘Hopsinjoor’

House on Hood, and House / Croucher ‘Mighty’ Golden Ale

Emerson’s ‘Southern Clam’ Stout

Mikkeller ‘10’

Stoke ‘Gold’ & ‘Amber’

Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout

Dieu du Ciel! ‘Péché Mortel’

8 Wired ‘Tall Poppy’ India Red Ale

Beer 101 Tasting Session

Tastings and ramblings and whatnot

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Tastings and ramblings and whatnot