Monthly Archives: February 2013

Podcast episodes

The Lost Podcast Archive, Part II

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Clearing out the second half of the Lost Podcast Archive, I can here finally present our musings on “Wellington in a Pint”, Beervana 2012 — and, I’m sure most contentiously, on the acquisition of Emerson’s Brewery by the sprawling conglomeration best-known locally as “Lion”.

The W.I.A.P. four-pack provided an incredibly-varied set of Beers Of The Week and an opportunity to ramble through significant upsides and niggling downsides of each. Then, in the much-more-recent past, George and I were re-determined to get back into the podcasting habit, and wound up — relatively accidentally — talking through our reactions to the completely unexpected sale of Emerson’s; the much-loved gateway craft brewery for both of us. I found myself in the middle of the “debate”, such as there was, which was unfamiliar and strange although probably inevitable given the nonsense on both sides.

Next up is our 2012 Year in Review episode — and then we’ll see about rebooting ourselves for Season Three. Meanwhile, as always, direct downloads are available (here and here, respectively), there’s a podcast-specific RSS feed, and you should be able to get us on iTunes. George and myself can also both be reached on the Twitterthing, or you can leave comments here or on the Bookface.

s02e07: Wellington in a Pint & Beervana

— Show notes:

  • (1.15) Beer of the Week #1: Tuatara / Glynn Foster ‘Bye Bye Blanket Man’
  • (3.40) Drinking order is a tricky discipline, sometimes. Usually, the rule is to go mild to strong, light-ish to dark-ish, easy-going to fully-flavoured — or some negotiated compromise therebetween. But some beers will muck you up, usually through the presence of some freakish element. And three of those (i.e., a majority) did that.
  • (6.15) Ben Hana was famous / notorious enough to warrant a detailed Wikipedia page.
  • (7.55) Mike Neilsen (with whom we once casted pod) has since moved on to other pastures (i.e., setting up his own brewery), but I’m sure that’s unrelated.
  • (13.20) Beer of the Week #2: Garage Project / Kolja Schaller ‘Kawakawa Cable Car Classic’
  • (14.20) There still isn’t a filter at work, but there are a few other Clever Tricks in effect. So the Garage Project Haze has lessened considerably.
  • (14.30) Bright Brewery’s delicious ‘Resistance Red’ is gloriously red indeed.
  • (18.00) Seriously — to re-repeat myself — Beastwars kick arse. Get acquainted.
  • (27.00) Beer of the Week #3:ParrotDog / Nathan McEwan ‘Cooked Strait’
  • (30.30) It looks like George was as spot on about cold smoking as he was about Theseus. Full cooking-and-classics marks, that man.
  • (33.10) Beervana 2012. I put up a bloggish version of my “seminar” here, earlier. And — in one of those many odd coincidences of timing that gravitate toward me, here — I just got back from Christchurch and the Great Kiwi Beer Festival, whereat I did a version of same. (Final attendance was apparently ~8,000 people at Beervana; the G.K.B.F. was ~10,000 at once. It was huge, and awesome in many ways. But more about that properly, soon.)
  • (36.55) If you’re just joining us — or even if you aren’t — George v Rex is still very much worth listening to.
  • (38.55) People really do get slightly freaked out by our newfangled digital recorder. If an Englishman starts waving a breathaliser-looking-thing at you at your next beer festival, he might just be podcasting.
  • (48.15) George’s favourites: Three Boys Best Bitter, Cassels Milk Stout, Renaissance ‘Great Punkin’, Yeastie Boys ‘Her Majesty’, Garage Project ‘Ziggy’s Carrot Cake Ale’.
  • (53.20) See? These awards need a memorable / pronounceable acronym.
  • (56.00) The origins of the Llama pie are completely lost to me, now. (Help?) The beer was a Bridge’s Target, though, definitely. And it was great.
  • (58.20) Beer of the Week #4: Yeastie Boys / Andrew Childs ‘Celia Wade-Brown Ale’. Wade-Brown ran with Green Party affiliation, so George’s trivia streak finally breaks, here. From memory, the other ‘spammer’ was the man behind the nearly-up-and-running Baylands Brewery.
  • (1.02.55) My best-effort at an “acceptance speech” went up here not long after.
  • (1.03.40) The (Awkwardly-named) Beer Awards. If you haven’t seen Jo Wood’s chili-eating videos (which occasionally masquerade as beer reviews), seek them out.
  • (1.09.10) Well, we can say that Three Boys Best (for example) is the greatest blahblahblah. We just have to do so at our own Year In Review. (Online soon!)
  • (1.09.20) I did indeed have a bit of a ramble about beer award categories back in season one. Having just done the paperwork on Garage Project’s A.I.B.A. entries for this year, I’m sorely tempted to do so again.
  • (1.10.30) Beervana, again. (Despite me saying I didn’t have anything to say.)
  • (1.12.10) Beer News, which is horribly outdated now, of course. But still: Good George is still going good. And we really will need to roadtrip. A few kegs of their stuff made it to Malthouse for the IPA Challenge, but I’m keen to try their general run. Garage Project’s 24 More (or “24+”) is still going, but much slower than 24/24 did, due to the Extreme Busy-ness of the brewery at the moment.
  • (1.15.10) Recommendation: Harrington’s Anvil. About which Alice did indeed rave, a while back.
  • (1.17.45) We failed, then. We’re still trying. Meanwhile, cue the music: ‘Shopping for Explosives’, by The Coconut Monkeyrocket. Audio editing done in Audacity. Habitual thanks to both.

s02e08: Emerson’s Joins the Lion / Kirin / Mitsubishi Megaconglom

— Show notes:

  • (0.40) Belatedly, this is us explaining where we’ve been all this time.
  • (1.45) Beer of the Week #1: Langham ‘Hip Hop’. We may be slow getting these online — well, I am — but their website hasn’t caught up with the modern world, still.
  • (4.10) For those with hyper-acute hearing, we did actually change rooms, here.
  • (4.50) The “terrible, terrible, terrible” beers were the Crafty Beggars ones…
  • (6.30) Beer News: Beer “olds”, by now. But still, I haven’t had my ramble about the issue, here. So here I am. Boundary Road has since bought Founders, and the rumour mill is spinning so fast as to be audible, but no other news has broken, yet.
  • (11.50) As much as I habitually recommend Beastwars, I endorse Cryptonomicon — and the Stephenson corpus more generally — even moreso.
  • (13.00) I still don’t know. I should set up a secure PGP-laden email account for beer-related leaks from insiders. (BeerLeaks? HoppyLeaks?)
  • (13.50) There is some bad news on the West Coast front; almost all the small-deal investors got shafted and lost everything. (Including my long-vaunted 31¢ share!) The fact that the original managers / directors are still running the place and completely fine — despite the precipitating fuck-up being very much theirs — really raises my middle-class hackles. But that’s a matter for another time, perhaps.
  • (14.10) 1) They don’t owe you anything.
  • (16.00) 2) Reacting to new facts ≠ “knee jerk reactions” ≠ a bad thing.
  • (18.30) 3) Lion have form in both directions.
  • (20.40) 4) Optimism is not inherently worthy.
  • (21.20) 5) Selling out eventually isn’t mandatory.
  • (22.00) Speculation on future sell-outs now surrounds Tuatara. That’ll be interesting to see. They’ve wanted a cash injection for a long time. Who’s offering..?
  • (24.20) Beer of the Week #2: Garage Project ‘Trip Hop’.
  • (26.30) Scratch is a totally worthwhile documentary, if you haven’t already seen it.
  • (28.30) Crafty Beggars really pissed me off — though I was indeed grateful for the counter-example to the appallingly-saccharine Pollyanna / Pangloss holier-than-thou piously-optimistic goo that was been paraded around at the time.
  • (29.40) Boundary Road’s “The Resident” caused me some consternation at the time, and they are — interestingly, and to link in to a previous note — thought to be a prime suitor for Tuatara / Whoever Is Next…
  • (31.50) I think this — let’s call it Heimaey v Eldfell — is the story I’m talking about. The blessed YouTube turned up a video, too; an awesome case of overcoming disaster.
  • (34.50) 6) Lion are investing in Lion. That’s all. (To which I’ll return.)
  • (36.10) Lion and Coromandel have apparently settled, in a way that makes Coromandel pretty happy. So good on them. I hope they got a decent cheque, and have fun with it. It’s still kinda summer, too. You still have time. We didn’t make it that far, in our New Year’s roadtrip, but close. I waved, from the Bay of Plenty.
  • (39.10) 7) Winners and losers.
  • (42.10) Lion investing in Lion, again.
  • (43.20) Recommendations: Coromandel ‘Good As Gold’, which is hopefully okay, and Garage Project ‘Aro Noir’, which has since basically entirely run out, unfortunately.
  • (46.20) On the Beer List: George R.R. Martin. I’m sure he’d like a beer. (And maybe Ian McKellen.)
  • (48.20) Hobbit is definitely more weaponised, but it was still damn good fun.
  • (50.40) Cue the music: ‘Shopping for Explosives’, by The Coconut Monkeyrocket. Audio editing done in Audacity. Habitual thanks to both. We really will get back on the horse. Or the Prancing Pony. Whatever.
Podcast episodes

The Lost Podcast Archive, Part I

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In not-at-all breaking news, it is apparently February. When last I wrote, it was as far from New Year’s Eve as it is now; life moves pretty fast. I do feel somewhat guilty for the evident fact that it’s things that make me grumpy which most-easily rouse me from my happily-distracted existence and make me actually publish something.1 I’m in a damn-near-perpetual state of meaning to write something, but as the only-occasionally-wise Jayne Cobb once said — in an episode of Firefly which is just over ten years old but now seems oddly prescient of the current omnishambles in the European meat industry — if wishes were horses, we’d all be eating steak.

Liberty 'La Fin du Temps'
Liberty’s ‘La Fin du Temps’, produced to celebrate the Mayan Apocalypse, which didn’t happen while I was away — as, by now, you know.

Even more unfortunately — given the considerable efforts put in by my co-host and producer extraordinaire, George — the podcast has been even more neglected than it looks. We’d recorded episodes and dispatches as far back as the middle of last year which still haven’t been ‘aired’.2 Life-moving-fast would always get in the way of me posting them when I wanted to and should’ve done, which would then kick in truly maladaptive and dim-witted procrastinatory circuitry in my brain that somehow fools itself into thinking that maybe the answer to annoying delay is more delay.

Speaking (as I slightly was) of the calendar rolling around, the arrival of 2013 prompted us to record a Year In Review episode. Getting back in the saddle (to inadvertently return to the horsemeat topic) was great fun, but I’d be intolerably remiss if I didn’t finally also upload the Lost Episodes. So I’ll do that in a couple of compendium posts before getting on with the show proper — because I am as much of a pedantic completionist as I am a scatterbrained procrastinator.

So here they are for the non-zero numbers of people who have (graciously) hassled me for them, and as not-actually-that-out-of-date historical documents in their own right. As always, direct downloads are available (here and here, respectively), there’s a podcast-specific RSS feed, and you should be able to get us on iTunes. George and myself can also both be reached on the Twitterthing, or you can leave comments here or on the Bookface.

s02e05: West Coast IPA Challenge and Matariki

— Show notes:

The Big Board at the West Coast IPA Challenge 2012
The Big Board at the West Coast IPA Challenge 2012
Matariki merch, in defiance of trademark nonsense
Matariki merch, defying trademark nonsense
A Cherry Bomb, and many winter coats
A Cherry Bomb, and many winter coats

s02e06: Craft Beer College

— Show notes:

  • (0.30) Interviewees: Steph Coutts and Jonny Day of Craft Beer College. And, full disclosure: long after this sit-down, I actually started working with them as an occasional host of tastings.
  • (1.30) Beer of the Week #1: Emerson’s ‘APA’.
  • (4.40) Amazingly, and brilliantly, the Shoe Museum is actually a thing.
  • (5.40) Beer options.
  • (8.45) Weirdly, an NZQA-accredited course in craft beer has popped up. I’ve yet to form a firm a opinion as to whether or not that’s a good thing.
  • (11.00) Origin stories, as it were.
  • (12.20) “Social excitability” is Steph’s brilliant euphemism for the chemical effect of alcohol (in moderation). I do hope it catches on.
  • (16.55) Seriously, Beastwars rule. In many ways.
  • (22.00) That makes three people with Beer Diaries, at least.
  • (24.00) Volunteering in (many) beer-related contexts. Which you really should do some time, if you haven’t. (And if you have; cheers!)
  • (33.00) Beer of the Week #2: Rodenbach Vintage. Because yay sours.
  • (37.00) My photo did the colour absolutely no justice at all, sadly.
  • (38.40) Huh. There’s Hallertau ‘Funkonnay’, again. How conspicuous.
  • (40.40) My ramble about Lindeman’s ‘Cuvée René’ Gueuze attempts to capture this kind of reaction, wordless and sound-effect-y as it is here.
  • (43.50) The background noise is chocolate being opened. Sorry, we didn’t save you any.
  • (44.50) Craft Beer College, and consumer education — plus the usual (but completely justified!) jabs at the beer-marketing business.
  • (55.50) Recommendations: Yeastie Boys ‘Her Majesty 2012’. It’s possible that I knew the Secret Ingredient at some point, but I have — true to form — lost it. Garage Project ‘Kava Coconut’, which was tonnes of fun — disclosures, disclosures… — at Hashigo’s Pacific Beer Expo. Kereru ‘Moonless Stout’, which really is lovely for a session-strength stout — and should be around a lot more in the latter half of this year, since Chris has a new premises and big shiny steel tanks on the way. Mikkeler ‘Texas Ranger’, a chipotle-and-everything bottle of gorgeousness. And go on, have some Kula Shaker nostalgia.
  • (1.03.00) Seriously, too: Nokabollokov. Good god damn.
  • (1.04.00) Beer of the Week #3, or technically maybe not: Liberty ‘C!tra’. And there’s us talking about Beer of the Year. Which does make me really keen to get the Year In Review up. One more Lost Podcast Archive, then we will…
  • (1.10.10) But first, cue the music: ‘Shopping for Explosives’, by The Coconut Monkeyrocket. Audio editing done in Audacity. Habitual thanks to both. And to Steph and Jonny’s cat.

1: Though, speaking of which, I really should go to town on the Wellington City Council’s astonishingly-loaded questions in their “survey” on alcohol law reform issues. Tactically,that should probably wait until after my application for a Duty Manager’s certificate and the off-license at work both go through. (But when did I ever pay attention to such sensible tactics, I ask you.)
2: Uploaded. Beamed. Podified. Whatever.
3: In all honesty, I’ve forgotten. But it rings a bell.