My big present-to-self this year, after several years on a semi-dependable runabout that has massively improved my daily / weekly / seasonal routine, is a nice new bike. While I did make sure to wear my super-smug cyclist t-shirt when I picked it up, today,1 I’m no rabidly dogmatic anti-combustion-engine fanatic — but I really … Continue reading Ich bin ein Radler
Over the decade I’ve been taking handwritten notes of my beer-drinking experiences, I have inevitably developed an idiosyncratic Style Guide.1 Broadly — though there are exceptions early on as the pattern developed, and sporadically throughout as I either forgot my own practice or thought of some now-lost rationalisation for a variance in some particular case — it’s … Continue reading Monteith’s “American Pale Ale”
For our first recording of 2014 and the penultimate episode of Season 3, George and I sat down for a post-holiday catch up over two beers he’d brought back from his travels and one we’d been meaning to share for a while. Somehow, we also talked about Canada a lot. We offer our traditional recommendations … Continue reading Beer Diary Podcast s03e08: What We Did On Our Holidays
So Monteith’s — i.e., D.B. (i.e., Asia Pacific Breweries) — has re-commissioned the Greymouth brewery that they, in a near-unprecedented display of tin-eared-ness, originally decided to close back in 2001. It was essentially a museum for several years, but they’ve decided to spark it up again, to produce a range of (self-described) craft beers throughout … Continue reading ‘Porter Noir’
Invercargill Brewery really is the unsung workhorse of the local beer scene — or insufficiently-sung, at least. I was re-struck by that thought when I was writing about their utterly-delightful ‘Pitch Black’ stout, and I’ll take the chance to just repeat myself now, if you don’t mind. If, while staying busy running contract-brews, you can … Continue reading Invercargill ‘Sa!son’
I was in the very-vague planning stages for a Midstrength Beer tasting (which did eventually, er, eventuate) and George and I thought that the topic itself was worthy of a longer discussion, not merely a little recurring segment — although we’ll keep that, too. Sessionable beer really is an ongoing obsession of mine; a good … Continue reading Beer Diary Podcast episode 4: Emerson’s Bookbinder and Midstrength Beer
The weather took a serious turn for the freezing-cold just as we were contemplating our third episode, so something on Winter beers seemed suitable and sensible. It also gives us a chance to talk a bit about how breaking habits, taking chances, and paying a little more attention-to-situation in general can do a beer drinker … Continue reading Beer Diary Podcast episode 3: Stonecutter, Winter Beers (and Rex Attitude)
Once more unto the brandwank, dear friends, once more. — Not quite Henry V This one positively reeks of being a project out of the marketing department rather than one with its origins in the brain of a brewer, beer drinker, or normal person. At the time I’m putting this post together (in early July), … Continue reading Monteith’s ‘Single Source’
Back for a second round, we have a beer which George discovered purely from its advertising. Which leads to a discussion about beer marketing in general; the history, the good and the very-very-bad indeed. We touch on a few recent controversies and try to make some sense of them from each end — George the … Continue reading Beer Diary Podcast episode 2: Fat Yak and Beer Marketing
Poorly-justified trademark nonsense and brandwank that flies in the face of the plain meaning of words are rather topical at the moment — for the avoidance of doubt or subtlety, I’m looking at you, D.B. and Moa — and so it is the perfect time to finally enter into my Diary the arguable Granddaddy of … Continue reading Budweiser
