Catching up for the first time in a while, and not long after a now-notorious kerfuffle over the ‘Death From Above’ beer put out by Garage Project (site of my day job, if you haven’t already noticed), my friend and fellow red-bearded beer writer Hadyn Green and I were about to have a ramble about potentially-offensive beer names when George leapt in and suggested / insisted we save it for a podcast. And here, perhaps obviously, is the result.

As it perhaps would’ve in the pub, conversation looped around the place — frequently bouncing back to the “beer names” theme, with detours for recent and upcoming festivals among other more-random topics (and no shortage of videogames).

As always, a direct download is available, 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; feedback is absolutely always welcome. Cheers!

— Show notes:

• (0.45) George feels he undersold Hadyn, here, and now offers “writer, announcer, gamer, raconteur” — which is all definitely true — as a tagline. You can find Hadyn, on the Twitters and occasionally on Public Address, among many other pursuits.
• (1.20) Beer of the Week #1: Regent 58 Stout. I’d link to the relevant column in FishHead, but the magazine stubbornly hasn’t properly joined the internets.
• (3.50) Beer names and ‘offense’ versus good form, with the usual heavy disclaimers about my day job: I’m here strictly on my own time and not even remotely speaking on the brewery’s behalf. The seminal article on the Death from Above ‘nontroversy’ is worth a re-read, along with its comments and (in particular) Dom Kelly’s two blog posts thereafter — one pointed, one parodic. Moa’s ‘Black Power’ got a Diary write-up, and ‘Bye Bye Blanket Man’ was one of one of the Wellington In A Pint beers we got through in a podcast episode last year.
• (8.20) Apparently George cut out a lot of Apocalypse Now exegesis around here.
• (9.20) I’ve had Murray’s (unrelated) ‘Heart of Darkness’, and it was great. By the way.
• (10.10) People may notice my uneasy relationship with ‘open secrets’. I tend to want to make them more open. Which might get me in trouble, but I honestly think all sides of the Hopocalypse Now saga — as it could be called — are readily understandable; but clusterfuck inadvertently sparked by bad timing was unfortunate.
• (12.50) There do exist a great deal of Hopocalypses.
• (15.00) It’s entirely irrelevant to his point, but if you haven’t had the pleasure of the ‘Smoke & Oakum’ Gunpower Rum, you should. It’s sublime and fantastic. (But it is also fair to say that piracy isn’t free from controversial references, either! Moa are learning that the hard way, and while I think it’s obvious they didn’t intend to make the connection — they’d never be so subtle — they shouldn’t be at all surprised people could think so little of them. I just wish the media better-covered their actual nonsense.)
• (17.10) The general feathered-wings motif is pretty common among U.S. Airborne logos and badges and whatnot, and you can find (weirdly childlike) versions with skulls and/or the slogan around the place, as well.
• (18.30) Seriously, though, Spec Ops: The Line is a masterpiece.
• (20.50) Oh look, there’s me still saying positive things about BrewDog.
• (21.20) Blatantly sexist themed beers are left as an exercise for the listeners. Write in!
• (22.20) Pumpclip Parade makes me equally sad, angry, and amused.
• (23.10) I do hear of B.O.T.Y. #1 having consistency issues, as is par for the course for such small operations, so Y.M.M.V.. But I liked mine, and it wasn’t my first.
• (24.30) Apparently the status of Haile Selassie vis-à-vis Rastafarianism is a little murkier than I suggest, here, but still. The philosopher in me always also asks how come cannabis is a sacrament, but people still shy away from hemlock tea?
• (25.30) Beer of the Week #2: Townshend ‘Flemish Stout’.
• (28.50) I notice that George didn’t edit this. So he’s probably mostly right.
• (29.30) Blasphemous local beers are also left as an exercise for the audience.
• (31.40) GABS debrief → Beervana preview. Last year’s posts, for comparison’s sake, form a good chunk of the May & June 2012 sections of the archive. Short version: tonnes of fun. And just awesome to see how the whole of Melbourne gets in the beery swing all week. I’ve got heaps of notes from this year; I’ll have to do a proper post. Dom’s write-up, just to throw you in his direction once more, is pretty-much bang on.
• (39.30) The Hundredth Monkey Effect is, of course, bollocks. But still an apt analogy.
• (42.20) From memory, it was Sam from Hashigo Zake who told me, and the beer was ‘Palate Wrecker’ (a.k.a. ‘Hamilton’s Ale’), from Green Flash. I’ll get some for B.O.T.Y..
• (43.20) George fell into the double-negative trap and just meant “clarified”, here.
• (45.45) Beer of the Week #3: 8 Wired ‘Bumaye’.
• (48.50) The black market beer barter economy is a wonderful, unexpected thing.
• (51.40) Malthouse’s West Coast IPA Challenge is today, in fact. This has taken me a little while to get online, evidently. Their Darkest Day was tonnes of fun, and hopefully becomes an annual thing. ‘Matariki’ falls outside, you know, Matariki this year and I suppose therefore reverts to simply being the Winter Ale Festival. Meanwhile, to return to the theme, Garage Project’s entry is ‘Love From Above’ — a straight-APA version of ‘Death’, without the unusual ingredients (chili, lime, mint), and rather-obviously referencing the aforementioned clusterfuck.
• (53.10) The ‘Tribute’ trademark. The Glengarry-Hancock’s video is, I repeat, utterly marvellous. You should watch it (again), and heap scorn upon them for that and for the trademark application. In an uncharacteristically-wise move, they’ve withdrawn their application. But seriously, fuck them for even trying.
• (57.30) Recommendations:ParrotDog ‘BloodyDingo’, their GABS festival beer, arguably a potentially-slightly-controversial name, and surely the spiritual successor to Hadyn’s mighty BitterHound blend. Yeastie Boys ‘Golden Age of Bloodshed’, which is a reference to a kick-ass track, and was another potential source of ignition for a good old-fashioned moral panic (which never eventuated). Dave Wood’s ‘Beetnik’ is one of the only home-brewed beers in my Diary, and it’s utterly marvellous. Baylands American IPA, which narrowly avoids being an offensive style name.
• (1.10.00) Hadyn’s Heineken lessons, with Franck.
• (1.20.50) More Recommendations: Three Boys Oyster Stoat.
• (1.22.25) Here Be Dragons: Sam Adams ‘Boston Lager’, says George. Now imported by “Independent”, about whom I rambled recently in the BrewDog context. In the end, I did write to them. BrewDog forwarded me to the Boundary Road chaps, who straight-facedly said they don’t mind how their whole business model is roundly and routinely ridiculed by the Scots they now import. But yes, I have a soft spot for Boston Lager, since it is Beer #1 in my Diary.
• (1.26.10) Cue the music: ‘Shopping for Explosives’, by The Coconut Monkeyrocket. Audio editing done in Audacity. Habitual thanks to both.