With my beer photos, I vacillate wildly between 1) painstakingly setting something up, mucking about with lighting and re-arranging things far in the background (even when they aren’t mine and when doing so is a nuisance to someone else, I’ll admit), and 2) just getting it done-in-one, cinéma vérité style (if you’re feeling generous; just go with slapdash, if you’re not). My Little Creatures Stout is a nice recent example of the former, this is a classic case of the latter.¹

Firstly, I was just too busy having fun. I was at Weta Digital, hosting a beer tasting at which ‘Rex’ was the Not-Very-Surprising-Actually Special Guest Surprise Seventh Beer — its highly-anticipated official launch was the next morning, so I couldn’t really say I had a “surprise” without it being a rather-obvious one. Secondly, if I did re-shoot this, it wouldn’t be at Weta Fucking Digital, would it? The beer geek population overlaps surprisingly-much with the computer geeks — I’m a professional one of the former, and an amateur of the latter kind, and here I was hanging out with people who were the vice versa, essentially.² One great thing about unashamed geeks is how well we get along with other geeks, whatever their particular domain; we just love that combination of over-enthusiasm and scarily-specialist knowledge, wherever we find it and no matter what it’s about.

‘Rex’ is a seemingly-mad proposition for a beer: a 7% golden ale, with the entirety of its malt heavily peat-smoked in the manner of that which would usually go into a fiesty Islay whisky. Smoked malt is hardly commonplace in beer, but local things like Invercargill’s ‘Smokin’ Bishop’ and 8 Wired’s ‘Big Smoke’ make for nice introductions. Peat smoked malt is something else again, though, with its sharper and simply smokier smoke — and the Received Wisdom is that you shouldn’t use more than a fraction of it in a brew. And how better to test the Usual Line than by crashing right through to 100% and seeing what happens? This is your swift-kick-in-the-pants sort of science — in the fine tradition of Newton sticking a needle in his own damn eye-socket to figure if he was on the right track about the optics of human sight, or of Joseph Kittinger jumping back to Earth from the edge of space to test whether a parachute system for jet pilots was feasible.

It is, I mean to say, ballsy. It was pretty-much impossible not to have an extreme reaction to it; our favourite part of bartending for a while after its release was to watch people have their first taste. In my handwritten notes, I mention hoping that Jed would get some good reaction shots, since I knew he’d be at the launch the next morning. And damn, did he ever. If anything, Stu seemed slightly disappointed that more people at the launch weren’t disgusted by it. I’m not sure how much of that was politeness, knowing he was around, or whether it was down to the self-selectingly beer-geek-heavy crowd we had — or bits of both, of course. But I do like it when something doesn’t mind going out on a limb in the knowledge it’ll be hated in some quarters; that’s basically how the world avoids descending into an amorphous grey goo, after all.

The nose is what gets you, and generates those now-famous reactions. This unassuming little pale golden beer has an aroma that just hurtles out of the glass and charges up your nose, like a crowd of demented pixies wearing golf shoes and in a vengeful hurry to headbutt you directly in the brain. An intense smokiness, to be sure, but one that apparently changed quite a lot over time,³ and one which (to me, at least) lacked the scarier chemical notes from the wilder South Coast Islays — those memorable “burning wetsuit” and “broken bottle of iodine” notes of a Laphroaig, for example. It’s still confronting, because you just easily can’t prepare your mind for it, but the smoke is somehow still light and delicious once you take a few sips; it swiftly becomes good smoke, not scary smoke, a softer version of the “righteous smoke” in BrewDog’s Islay ‘Paradox’, not the sort that might wake you up in terror at night.

The golden ale body is genius, perhaps the masterstroke of it. Other smokey beers I’ve enjoyed have tended to big gloriously big heavy-footed things with a delicious sideline of smoke — 8 Wired’s ‘Big Smoke’, to me, is like having the best porter of your life while you just happen to be relaxing near a campfire. Here, because you’re way up at 100% peated malt, you just clear the stage and let that one element do its thing, with everyone else providing only minimal backup and balance.

It’s a great lesson in the blessed subjectivity: even people who hated it could attest to it being well-made — it is a thing that is perfectly doing what it sets out to do, and that fact changes not a damn depending on who likes it and who doesn’t. And if you didn’t like it, fair enough. I can totally see where you’re coming from, won’t at all try to convince you otherwise and am happy to just have all the more for myself. It is utterly different, and — from my experience on the dispensing-side of a bar — whether or not you’ll like it correlates not at all with any obvious thing about you, your opinion on beer, your opinion on whisky, on peculiar old-school French techno, or on the proper colour for pants.

Verbatim: Yeastie Boys ‘Rex Attitude’ 29/4/11 330ml x 4 ÷ with the Weta crowd, as a Mysterious Something Special for our tasting. Since it was an ‘obvious’ “surprise”, I had to lie. But it was heaps of fun, before + during. Reaction shots are hilarious; I hope Jed gets some goodies. It’s all peat, but without the scary chemistry-set-on-fire side of a South-coaster. The golden ale body is the master-stroke, for sure. So much fun.

1: Or, compare the photos for the also-Yeastie ‘Rapture’ and the just-after-it Emerson’s ‘1812’. I was, in that instance, flustered by the abundance of people around me. For someone who works late nights in a frequently-busy bar, I’m remarkably crap with crowds.
2: We also had a few relative-neophytes to the wonderful world of Good Beer who just jumped in in the spirit of trying something new and hanging out after work. One of them, a self-described “I’m not really a beer person” person, wound up absolutely loving the Twisted Hop’s bloody-great-big Imperial Stout, ‘Nokabollokov’. I love it when that happens; you really never can tell what will work as some particular someone’s Gateway Beer — that’s why you just keep trying.
3: Kick-in-the-pants science, remember? The chemistry of these things is untested; this is it being tested, right there in these bottles.

On February 26th,¹ Hashigo Zake hosted an amazing fundraising night, donating all of their takings between 6pm and midnight to raise money for a local mental health charity and the Red Cross effort in Christchurch. My plan was to stop by late shortly before midnight, after spending my Saturday night hanging out with some friends. But when Pieta realised she’d been locked out of her apartment and that her key was with her flatmate on the other side of town, it was me and my bike to the rescue. Which was all very fun and random, but it did put me in the mood / give me the need for something light and refreshing once I arrived at the pub.

And damn, was this it. Joseph Wood of Liberty Brewing had donated kegs of his West Coast Blonde, and it was precisely what I needed. The Amarillo-hopped version was on tap at the time (it exists in two differently-hopped varieties, and a a few kegs of both were delivered), and it reminded me a lot of Stone & Wood’s ‘Draught Ale’ (now renamed ‘Pacific Ale’) — and I mean that as a compliment because I freakin’ love that stuff² — what with the multi-faceted fruit-salady-ness, the gorgeous hazy strawish appearance, and the ability to make a person feel human again. For Liberty’s first official release, it’s pretty damn promising (and apparently also rather lovely in its Simcoe-hopped incarnation). But we already knew it would be, especially after his stupidly-awesome ‘Summ!t’ IIPA, which was an unofficial third entrant in Malthouse’s West Coast IPA Challenge last year — and which very much stole the show.³

Verbatim: Liberty ‘West Coast Blonde: Amarillo’ 26/2/11 donated to HZ for their Christchurch Quake / Mental Health fundraiser, which was apparently a huge hit, raising $5K+. Full Marks. I’ve just been biking around a bit tonight, so needed something light + refreshing. This is very much it. Lovely pale + hazy straw. Fruit[] salady, with edges of smokeyness. 5.5% (I still can’t draw fives.) Crisp + dry finish, compared to a nice NZ Pils by some. Really rather reminiscent of Stone & Wood Draught — though I should say “Pacific” now. Stunning burps.

1: i.e., “today”, if you’re playing along with the fiction wherein I update these things as I go, rather than in fits of productivity days or weeks or months (or years!) after the fact. And please, do play along.
2: We had it at the Malthouse after each of the two most-recent Beervana beer festivals. Which puts it in that awkward Grey Area of Not Uploaded Yet Diary Entries. Sorry about that, but take my word for it; its appearances are met with fairly glowing reviews.
3: I’d direct you to its entry, but, er, Grey Area (see above, n2) again. Sorry.

I am very fond of the Brewers’ Reserve series, and I am even more fond of golden ales, so when the former produces one of the latter… I have myself a little Beer Geek Moment.

We got two kegs of this at work, about a week apart. Uncharacteristically, when I first tried it, I was armed with neither camera nor Diary — so, you know, oh damn, you’ve twisted my arm, alright fine, damn you, I’ll have another. Marvellously, my second crack at it also coincided with the birthday of my dear friend Victoria. Not that she was around; she lives in Sydney. But I’ll take any excuse to raise a glass, and she provided two in being both officially-English (as is the style), and someone with whom I’ve had more than a few golden ales — she was there for that first Australia Day.

‘Tally Ho!’ was bloody marvellous, really. Quite a bit more full-throated and solid than something like the beloved Three Boys Golden, it made for a nice counterpoint and was still stupifyingly refreshing; just perfect after work on the humid nights we were having at the time. Really, the only thing wrong with it at all is its existence as a reminder that Emerson’s still haven’t put a golden ale back into proper permanent / semi-permanent / seasonal / at-least-predictable production. Sob, I say; genuine, heartfelt sob.

Verbatim: Emerson’s Brewers’ Reserve: Tally Ho! 10/2/11 on tap @ MH 4/9% I had one last week, too, but didn’t have Diary or camera; sheesh. So here we are again. Bigger & richer than your usual modern local golden ales. Very, very drinkable, but with a nice sort of solidity to[] it on the back end, too. Really makes you wonder why they don’t have one in the rotation.

I love the idea of Variant Editions of beer. Though I only got to try the All Together Now culmination, I loved that Mikeller did ten single-hop pale ales in a run. And the Yeastie Boys themselves trod a similar path with their ‘Nerdherder’ and ‘Monster’ beers, both of which existed in two varyingly-hopped versions. It sounds like science,¹ doesn’t it? Doesn’t it give you that extra geeky glow of enjoyment? Well, it does for me, at least.

The ‘Blondie’ golden ales see them in a similar mood, but this time with the differences between yeast varieties up for experimentation. A light, summery body of pale malt (with some wheat) is given a deft touch of local hops and then the ‘Europa’ variant has a German ale (kölsch?) yeast doing the fermentation, while ‘Rapture’ employs a Belgian abbey yeast. The latter will be on tap shortly at work, so should show up here in the not-too-distant. But here was ‘Europa’, on the handpull at the just-opened Hop Garden. Well, the not-really-opened Hop Garden, in fact; we were there on a bit of a sneak-preview “soft open”. I’ll do a proper entry on the bar itself soon, but suffice to say it was bloody lovely, looked absurdly promising — and has continued to be loveliness, and to build on that promisingness in my several visits, since.

I’m always a little freaked out by something this light on handpull, but that’s just me. Well, me, and probably also the fact that the smaller Wellington bars (the ones without the giant keg chillers in which to stack things, I mean) really should probably cool their handpulls down a few notches, especially for beers like these. But as much as I suspected I’d like the regular-tap version a bit better, this was pretty damn tasty and faultless and interesting. Which goes a hell of a long way. I did get to try the colder / bubblier version not too long after,² and I was right to think I’d go for it more; the extra fruity snap made it just exactly what I was looking for.

Verbatim: Yeastie Boys ‘Europa’ 20/1/11 4.?% 380ml @ Hop Garden! Sneaky soft open night. Beer first. Is very promising. For the style, handpull is odd, but doubtless the Yeasties have tweaked it a bit away from style anyhow. It’s light + faultless + nicely flavoured. Caleb says they have it cold + bubbly @ Bar Ed! Will revisit this soon then. So: the bar. So neat. Great to have a Mt Vic local. Very, very promising here. Total work-in-progress vibe at the moment — but Hashigo had that on their sneak-peek night, too. I can see where they’re going, and it’s going to be awesome.

30/1/11 a second, cold & bubbly @ Bar Ed. How appropriate to ha[ve] the “other half” here. George is unenthused, expecting more oomph, which means I should’ve warned about style better. He thinks it’s a bit like a Disprin in Sunny D. And I can see where he’s coming from. But I like it. As I thought, I’m more fond of it like this, but it does bring out a real sneaky bitter tail a lot more. Definitely grew on me. Light, but snappy + fruity. Good for a lazy afternoon of talking beer. Which we’re doing.

1: And by “science”, I mean Science!, wherein you pronounce the italics and the capital ‘s’, and take the exclamation point as your cue to thrust your index finger into the air. Proper 1950s Doomsday-Machine-building, cackling-at-thunderstorms kinda stuff, you know?
2: Does this count as double-Science!, now? Does the fact I took notes help?

The Canterbury Earthquake was certainly one of the stand-out local news stories of 2010. Given the astonishingly-low levels of harm suffered by people, curiosity was very quickly allowed to return to topics that would always be interesting, but would otherwise seem callous to ask about too soon afterward — things like “what’s going to happen with all those Christchurch beers we like?”

The question was quickly addressed by Wellington beer writer Neil Miller, and by journalist / Beer Nerd / Christchurchian Denise Garland — and the short version of the answer is: not much. Amid some serious and widespread property kablooey, the local craft breweries were relatively lucky.

One particularly-interesting effect of the earthquake, though, was this. Three Boys were back at work a few days after the initial tremor, and were in the middle of a brew of my utterly-beloved Golden Ale. An aftershock interrupted them at a crucial time, but rather than letting it ruin the day’s work and dooming however-many litres to go down the drain, they pulled off some improvising that was as impressive as it is mysterious. The result was named ‘Aftershock’, brewed to an appropriately-memorialising 7.1% — and packaged in cute little bottles adorned with a piece of smashed brickwork (plus a few kegs, sadly brickless).

We had it to cap off the Christmas Dinner for our Beer Club at work. One of the attendees had to go home early, so donated me their share. I really like it. I mean sure, I love the Golden, and the “story” behind this is way too cool to resist — but it’s also, crucially, an inherently worthy thing. Light and fresh, flavourful and interesting, far too drinkable for 7.1% — it has a lot going for it. Its uniqueness and its yumness are seperately sufficient for it to be worthwhile; whether your starting point is the former or the latter, you get the other for free. Lucky you.

Verbatim: Three Boys ‘Aftershock’ 8/12/10 donated flute from Beer Club for waitering their Christmas Extravaganza. 7.1% in honour of the Christchurch quake, an aftershock of which disrupted a brew, leading to the creation of this oddity by the seat of Ralph’s pants. Bottles were adorned with broken masonry, even. It’s just unashamedly odd; and Ralph won’t really be drawn on just how he improvised. A boatload of Green Bullet was suspected… Maybe, but the funk isn’t there, in this glass at least. Steph & Johnnie had a skunkier one at Bar Ed, they say. Whatever the hell it is, it’s crisp, tasty + zingy. But most of the attraction is still the utterly unique story — it’d be worth it just for that, but the beer stands up on its own. (Though you do need the story to justify the price…)