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Beer Diary Podcast s03e07: Jono Galuszka

January 20, 2014 Phil Leave a comment

Just before the holidays — so apologies for the delay but, you know, holidays — George and I sat down for a ramble with Jono Galuszka, journalist, beer-and-music nerd, former bartender and barista, and occasional drummer. We discuss the many and varied joys of homebrewing, the at-last semi-reliable appearances of good beer in unexpected places, and (inevitably) a bunch of music. We had a venue change for this episode, so the background dog-shuffles have been replaced with regular overhead airplanes.

You may also note that B.O.T.W. #4 is a (non-boycott-breaking) Moa Sour Blanc. It prompted a predictable little side-ramble into their current situation. We’ve excised it from the main episode and present it below as a DVD Extra / after-credits scene. I allude a few times to a work-in-progress catch-up with post-IPO Moa, and I’ll try to get that done this week. (Meanwhile, I still really miss the Imperial Stout.)

As always, a direct download is available (plus one of the Bonus Bit), 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 — I’m also about to start working on providing a few more subscription and download options so any input on such mechanical details is extra-welcome. Cheers!

Yeastie Boys / Jono Galuszka 'Screwtop', with super-appropriate newspaper (Hashigo Zake, 28 August 2013) — Yeastie Boys / Jono Galuszka ‘Screwtop’

Wellington's closing time announcement (Cambridge Terrace, 18 December 2013) — Wellington’s new closing time announcement

Liberty's Bhuty Choc at SOBA's "¬Matariki" (Hunter Lounge, 20 July 2013) — Liberty’s Bhuty Choc at SOBA’s “¬Matariki”

— Show notes:

(0.50) I do say this every week, but still. Check out the Coconut Monkeyrocket.
(2.30) Beer of the Week #1: Jono’s own [un-named] Belgian golden ale. The other-yeast variant apparently turned out okay, too.
(12.30) Friends-of-the-show cross-referencing: Stu McKinlay and Jo Wood.
(15.00) Geoff Griggs’ regular Marlborough Express column. ‘Beer minimum of respect’ is the column that Jono and I had particularly in mind.
(17.00) Michael Forbes and Shane Cowlishaw’s Beerhive blog.¹
(19.00) The gear’s all here, but I haven’t yet managed to fire it up. I’ve been gardening.
(19.30) Beer’s recent ‘normalising’ turn — session beers and four/six-packs. Also, the Hallertau-Liberty mini-conglom is officially The Beer Fountain.
(23.10) Beer of the Week #2: Stewart Brewing ‘Top Of The Hops’. Which was definitely tasty, but that extra (accidental?) point of booze counts against, in context.
(27.00) Good beer outside the main centres — and getting around big-brewery-lockdown contracts. And good beer in “non-beer” bars.
(29.30) Further friend-of-the-show cross-referencing: Hadyn Green.
(30.10) Neil Miller’s Beer & Brewer blog, which does indeed include the Backbencher and Thistle pieces Jono mentions.
(33.10) The Beer Diary Podcast basically started with Emerson’s Pilsner. It probably really is time to revisit it in detail. (He says, making a mental note. And a real note.)
(34.20) Beer of the Week #3: Jono’s own [un-named] Chili Pale Ale.
(45.40) Jono’s day job, his blog (and its original incarnation, so you can trawl the back catalogue), and his Twitter account (to save you spelling it).
(47.00) The WilliamsWarn, the (super-slick) bread machine of homebrewing.
(51.40) Beer of the Week #4: Moa Sour Blanc.
(54.30) Spiegelau glass de-brief. And I’m having a PKB in the IPA one, now.
(1.00.30) Recommendations: Session IPAs (the aforementioned Semiconductor, XPA, etc.), good cider (not the RTDs in drag which are flooding the market). Rodenbach Grand Cru and/or Vintage. Drinking “out of season”. Summer Sommer — which has actually run out in the meantime, but will be back. And try Export Citrus.
(1.10.00) Also: play more games. Tabletop Day is coming up, again, too.
(1.11.20) Music: Arctic Monkeys’ ‘AM’, Richard Hawley, and BBC6. Plus Beastwars and the All Seeing Hand.
(1.19.00) Beer Thanksgiving: 1) Dave Wood (overlord of SOBA and Hashigo, and open-hearted beer geek), 2) Martin Craig (Pursuit of Hoppiness editor and former blogger), and 3) George Langlands himself, lovely chap that he is.
(1.22.30) Belatedly happy holidays! I still owe you all a fuzzy-microphone photo.
(1.22.50) Cue the music: ‘Shopping for Explosives’, by The Coconut Monkeyrocket. Audio editing done in Audacity. Habitual thanks to both.

1: Interesting that Fairfax / stuff.co.nz has so much good beer-related content online, and increasingly good stuff, yet is still an offender in the Use Beer To Illustrate Moral Panic cliché stakes. ↑

Observations

Ich bin ein Radler

January 16, 2014 Phil Leave a comment

Waldhaus Radler, and my new bike (Oriental Parade, Wellington, 15 January 2014) — Waldhaus Radler, and my new bike, on Oriental Parade (i.e., nearly home)

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 do suggest you strongly consider getting your own velocipede, if you don’t already have one: it’s a nice mix of relaxed and efficient transport, with little traffic, no parking meters, and genuinely-therapeutic windows into the Zen Of Cycling — wherein you may come to believe that there seldom are hill climbs or headwinds so punishing that they’re ultimately unworthy of the blistering downhills or superpowering tailwinds that eventually follow.²

And what better to celebrate with than a radler? An actual radler, mind. Not that wrongly-named and more-wrongly-trademarked carbonated dishwashing liquid that D.B. peddle, nor their new-and-differently-horrible “Export Citrus” — which weirdly might kinda count as more truly “radler-esque”, and which must have them laughing all the way to the bank given that they charge basically the same for something upon which they pay a fraction of the excise tax. No, this thing was actually pleasantly refreshing. I can imagine it’d go truly gangbusters on a hot day, especially after and/or during a good non-commuter ride. There’s naught wrong with a well-made shandy — but therein lies the thing, doesn’t it? Waldhaus’ version (not really surprisingly) manages it; being recognisably beery (albeit superfriendily and easily beery), with lemonade that avoids tasting fake, candy-ish, and contrived as it too-often does.

It’s an often-mentioned madness that I technically shouldn’t have been allowed to buy that beer, here, thanks to an incredibly stupid quirk and/or interpretation of the local law. There was recently a knock-back on just this style term in the Czech Republic for Heineken — which, at a high level of abstraction, is D.B. — that deserves to be celebrated, but unfortunately doesn’t signal any kind of good news, here, given the vast differences in jurisdiction. There was a distinct element of protest and provocation when Hashigo Zake imported this,³ almost daring D.B. to send them a lawyer’s letter which they’d no doubt just frame and hang on the wall. Nothing ever came of it, but given the long-running rule that you risk losing trademarks you don’t actively defend, that might’ve been bad tactics on their part — and, just maybe, a brilliantly patient long-lead play by Dominic. Radlergate gave context to the Porter Noir Saga which came and went relatively quickly, but maybe there’s life left in the former fiasco yet. Hopefully it’s sensibly solved by the time I’m shopping for my next new bike, at least.

1: Even though I want to quibble with it, myself; there’s a good deal of CO₂ involved in making a bike and getting it to me. But still. “Vanishingly little CO₂, in comparison” doesn’t really make a good slogan. ↑
2: Remember I say these things about hills and winds as a Wellingtonian. And while it’s maybe a trite example — but perhaps a decent-enough slogan (see above, n1) — it really might do your mental health a lot of good. It did mine. ↑
3: Their distribution arm has since spun off and transmogrified into Beers Without Borders. ↑

Mediawatch

Someday Reading

January 9, 2014 Phil 2 Comments

Mash Collective 'The Old Persuader' (Sydney, 26 December 2013) — Mash Collective ‘The Old Persuader‘

So. It’s not quite Sunday, and these posts don’t even remotely form any kind of pattern in time. Such is life, I suppose. Productivity goes all over the place when you get a) really busy, then b) a complete break from being busy at all. Drifting slowly closer to Normality once again — strictly in the timetable-statistics sense, mind you — I’m inclined to have another go at beneficial-habit-forming.¹ And besides, just as your holidays are not everyone’s holidays,² your Day Of Rest — and thereby your catch-up-on-reading-stuff time — isn’t necessarily a Sunday according to the calendar. (Apparently, University mostly taught me how to rationalise missed deadlines.)³

Anyway, I was privileged enough to have a decent-length summer holiday in which I caught up on a metric butt-tonne of (non-beer-related) reading. And so now, in the interests both of spreading the love and of assisting in everyone’s valuable procrastination, here follows an eclectic collection of (beer-related) Things To Read I’ve stumbled upon recently. Enjoy!

Beer money: Stu McKinlay — Yeastie Boy and friend of the show — recently wrote a wonderful piece for the local paper’s beer blog, breaking down the cost of his products. It’s a nice antidote to the all-too-frequent whinge about the price of a pint when beer is actually the most ludicrously value-for-money luxury consumption good I can think of. Stu and I agree completely about that,⁴ and his before-the-beer-goes-in breakdown of costs is a large part of his rejoinder to my complaints of origin-fudging in labelling.⁵ (He’s also bang on with his own recommended reading / inspiration at the end, there.)
BrewDog burglary: Despite the above-mentioned affordability of beer, it seems we’ve “matured” (which almost certainly isn’t the right word) where apparent thefts-to-order of particular bottles are now occurring. Naturally, I’m obligated to wonder if they perhaps orchestrated the heist themselves, just for the headlines. Given other antics, you couldn’t really put it past them, any more… The perils of stunt marketing, I suppose.
The Sub: The website for Heineken(etc.)’s in-fridge keg system, similar to Lion’s ‘Tap King’ which recently debuted in Australia. It’ll be interesting to see how these things pan out in the wild, but for now just look at the wank with which it’s presented. Yeesh. And for next, let’s wonder about whether some cleverness and some 3D-printed parts might make them universalisable for dispensing flagons of better beer… (Thanks, of a sort, to Luke — who has recently joined the Podcasters’ Guild — for the link.)
Proper history: Brewery History, the journal of the (UK) Brewery History Society, operates a neat model whereby the full text of issues becomes freely available once the content hits its second birthday. The most-recent to be so revealed is their special edition dedicated to the life and work of Michael Jackson (you know, the other one), and it looks like a cracker. I’m ordering a printed copy, after just scratching the surface of the text online. (Massive thanks to Kieran for the pointer.)
Probably somewhat revisionist history: The McCashin’s Story is out, and I’m yet to grab / find / borrow a copy for a proper read — but colour me skeptical. The surtitle is transparent nonsense, whatever your personal definition of “craft”, and the smell of myth-making is strong — compounded by the (very gentle) interview Terry McCashin had on Radio New Zealand. Theirs is only a “David & Goliath” story if David later entered into an, er, money-for-physical-company arrangement with the giant. So to speak. They talk up an “#8 wire mentality” after buying an existing brewery, they deride beers ‘notable only for what they lacked’ while peddling Reinheitsgebotty nonsense, and credit themselves with giving Lion its first “lager with legs” presumably never having stumbled upon Steinlager. (That said, I did enjoy two of their ‘Recognition Series’ beers while writing this up — and re-watching Harry Potter.)⁶
Local reportage: A perfectly nice write-up — of my de facto new ‘local’ and its environs — by profoundly hit-and-miss critic David Burton, which slips into oddness when it insists that the area has a nickname it’s never had.⁷ Best anyone can tell, it was suggested once, in sarcastic jest, on Twitter, and hasn’t ever been used earnestly. A timely reminder that you should always be wary, when reading reviews from abroad: too many writers just can’t help themselves from making up little details to make them seem down with the kids. There’s a need for a general raising of the collective eyebrow given the quality of some stuff out there, and I’ve been meaning to get into that for a while — he says, casting a sideways glance his copies of the industry rag DrinksBiz.
Dry January, defended: I couldn’t be more on Pete Brown’s side on this, even though I don’t share in his yearly ritual (or anything like it). I’ve struck my own balance with the chemical realities of beer and the many ways it’s involved in my life — and no longer working nights in a bar and becoming a daily commuter cyclist have definitely helped — and do think it’s important that everyone find their own way to do the same, and to keep checking in with themselves whether its working. Just don’t dismiss people who do things differently; they each might find different balances and particular patterns that work. In extremis, they might give it up entirely. And on that, read this incredibly brave piece by Jackson Wood and — as always — don’t be a dick.
And finally, an irrelevancy. Because you really should consider re-watching and/or re-reading Harry — not just because Neville Longbottom is super bad-ass.

Holiday reading (Sydney, 26 December 2013) — Holiday reading

Golding's disappoints (Golding's Free Dive, 6 January 2014) — Golding’s disappoints

Stoke 'Double Pale Ale' (My house, 8 January 2014) — Stoke ‘Double Pale Ale’

1: As much of our civilisation attempts to do, each January. I’m always torn between wanting to join in the hoots of derision for the cycles of failure that most New Year’s Resolutions orbit within, and having to admit that it is indeed an excellent time of year for clean-outs and rearrangements both external and internal. ↑
2: As a long-serving hospitality worker, I really hope everyone does remember to keep this in mind, each year. But you, dear readers, are Civilised Folk and treat service staff properly at all times, right? Excellent. ↑
3: Lines from the much-mourned Douglas keep coming to mind, lately: “Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so.” and “I love deadlines. I like the wooshing sound they make as they fly by.” ↑
4: And rambled about it together in a piece recorded recently for Radio New Zealand, which will hopefully find its way to air (and online) soon. ↑
5: Which we didn’t get to on the podcast, but will have to revisit properly one day. ↑
6: Your Mileage May Vary, as always, but particularly so here because a) I’m genetically near-immune to the diacetyl fault, and b) Em described the Double Pale Ale — which, as Fritz & Maria rightly point out in the above link, is entirely wrongly named — as “nicely buttery”. ↑
7: It also nicely proved the need for Stu’s Beer Money piece, when the first comment it attracted was a whinge about $10 beers. ↑

Location notes

Young Henrys

January 4, 2014 Phil 1 Comment

Logo artwork on the container-fridge in Young Henrys’ bar

There’s probably some neat-and-vaguely-plausible theory to be elaborated about the psychogeography of a suburb called “Newtown”. I can only speak from experience about the two closest ones — in Wellington and Sydney — but they’re similar-enough in sufficiently-numerous ways to make me wonder if their history as the first-established alternate center of a city is enough to stamp them forever as a wonderful home to the non-dominant demographic and/or freshly migrated and/or just somewhat odd.

Young Henrys 'Newtowner' (The Courthouse, 4 March 2013) — Young Henrys ‘Newtowner’, non-local at its local

Anyway, the New-South-Welsh one is lovely, and I’ve had several enjoyable days wandering through it. It’s also blessed with its own brewery — the unaccountably unapostrophe’d ¹ Young Henrys — beers from which I first sampled at The Courthouse, a charming back-street bar to which I’ll happily return, despite their minor sins of a) bringing out the dodgy polycarb non-glass-glassware on the weekends (as if we were all going to start a riot and start shanking each other) and b) using “local beer” as a euphemism for “mainstream crap” in their Happy Hour rules such that the Y.H. stuff (though still a bargain) wasn’t eligible despite being from within rock-throwing distance, while Carlton Draught counted even though it’s from a whole ’nother fucking state.²

Young Henrys bar: No dicks (Newtown, Sydney, 28 December 2013) — A universalizable rule for all bars worth visiting

There’s a little cellar-door-and-bar attached to the brewery, and I made damn sure to pay them a visit these holidays having missed them — and their rather-restrictive opening hours ³ — on a previous stop. And I’m glad I did; it’s a gorgeous little spot, a damn-near-perfect little in-house bar. If only they could stay open a little later, especially in the summer. You’re basically right there in the brewery, with nothing to separate you from the reality of the place as somewhere were work is done and it brings a lovely laid-back sense of open welcome which the staff nicely continue with amiably professional service and plenty of help for anyone unfamiliar with their offerings. It’s got a charmingly odd style, with nice little quirky touches all over the place that never seem overwrought or fake; you get the impression it’s a genuine local for a good number of people and a space that reflects the personalities of those who spend their days there.

Young Henrys bar: Real Ale and Bill Murray (Newtown, Sydney, 28 December 2013) — Young Henrys ‘Real Ale’, and Bill Murray

The beers embody (intentionally or not) a nicely pub-first mentality; they skew hugely towards the sessionable and the simple-but-tasty, finding plenty of nuance and interest to be had within pretty damn friendly bounds. ‘Newtowner’ is an even-handed hoppy-and-golden thing, bordered nicely by their ‘Natural Lager’, being lighter and easier still, and the ‘Real Ale’, satisfyingly richer and apparently also gangbusters on handpump — an option I was talked-out-of on the day, given the weather. Instead, I ended my little visit two things I’d normally avoid: a cider, which was perfectly endearing and quaffable, and a much-boozier cherry saison, which did very well to throw nice doses of fruit flavour without coming across all candy-ish and phony as too-often happens.

They’ll quickly tell you of expansion plans, when you compliment them on their cute little setup,⁴ but hopefully they’re not self-conscious about for-now being a relatively-obscure suburban brewery. They do it very well indeed.

Young Henrys bar: Regulars' glasses (Newtown, Sydney, 28 December 2013) — Young Henrys bar: Regulars’ glasses

Young Henrys bar: Merch (Newtown, Sydney, 28 December 2013) — Young Henrys bar: Merch, and subtle satire

Young Henrys bar: More merch, and kegs (Newtown, Sydney, 28 December 2013) — Young Henrys bar: More merch, and keg-plumbing

Young Henrys bar: Beers, elaborated-upon (Newtown, Sydney, 28 December 2013) — Young Henrys bar: Beers, elaborated-upon

Young Henrys bar: In medias res (Newtown, Sydney, 28 December 2013) — Young Henrys bar: *In medias res*

Young Henrys bar: The End (Newtown, Sydney, 28 December 2013) — Young Henrys bar: The End (until next time)

1: Coopers always confused me, as Australia’s other famously non-possessively-styled brewery. But I suppose, by now at least, they’re so multi-generational that it’s just a proud plural. I’m still not sure about Y.H.’s reasons — weirdly, people tend not to address these questions on their websites — but managed to get a mangled version of Supergrass’ ‘Alright’ stuck in my head just thinking about it: “We are young / we are free / we don’t need / no ’postrophe”. And if that now suddenly transfers to your brain and earworms you, I sincerely apologise. ↑
2: In the interests of full disclosure and Good Mental Hygiene, it’s worth pointing out that these two observations draw from two separate visits, the latter from my holiday last Easter(ish) — the write-up of which has languished a little unloved in my Drafts folder as ‘A New South Wales Travelogue in ≈38.5 Beers’ — so it’s at least possible that they’ve traded the former sin for the latter. ↑
3: Which provides a nice balance to the regulator-praising in my most-recent post; all is not Utopian in Sydneytown, of course, and sensible small-bar special rules still exist alongside apparently-overly-restrictive ordinances for relatively-suburban operations like this.↑
4: So, it must be said, will seemingly everyone in these corners of the market — even those you know to’ve already expanded, relatively-recently. It’s a terrifyingly exciting time in the beer business, and it must be keeping the steelworkers busy.↑

Location notes, Rambles and rants

Small, but Perfectly Formed

December 30, 2013 Phil Leave a comment

Anchor 'Steam', as a Boilermaker — Anchor ‘Steam Beer’®™, as (most of) a pretty-bloody-marvellous Boilermaker at Stitch

Still enjoying my Sydney sabbatical — especially now the heat has eased somewhat — I’ve been reconfirmed in a small thought about small bars, of which this town has increasingly-many, thanks (apparently)¹ to a relatively-recent law change. I had a bit of a ramble recently on the podcast about licensing laws and will need to return to the topic properly now that New Zealand’s “reforms” are in effect, but for present purposes my concern is that our current (and former) rules were applied almost entirely uniformly, whatever they are. There’s always a certain facile attraction in blanket legislation, but my recent wanderings have reinforced a simple point perhaps too-often overlooked: you are insane if you treat all licensed venues alike.

There is a lot wrong with the prevailing Antipodean drinking culture, and I’m not remotely suggesting that “small bars” are flawless ² or the complete answer to anything. But you have to applaud Sydney for its neat little ecosystem of different-sized places doing different-styled things, giving varied ideas and formats an airing and seeing what works. Treating every venue as if they were heaving, recklessly-discounting, neighbour-nuisancing boozers just because that seems an easier way to tackle genuinely-existing ³ problems will wind up causing a tonne of needless collateral cultural damage. A lot of New Zealand’s new rules seem unfortunately destined to make life harder for exactly the kinds of operations that represent (on their good days) a more-enlightened approach to things-with-booze-in.⁴

From my bartender-training days, I remember “test-tube shots” being specifically called-out and demonised in the materials as if they were somehow inherently a sign of ill-advised drinking. But here one was at Stitch — a supercute basement bar in downtown Sydney, decked-out with a suprisingly-successful sewing machine aesthetic (including dozens of vintage Singer machines, and treadle-equipped tables to sit and drink at) — and it’s hard to imagine that an eighteen-dollar Boilermaker ⁵ of a mini-Old-Fashioned and a dependable American import ⁶ is ultimately implicated in many worrying and/or unhealthy nights out. Instead, it was a thoughtful and delicious little addition to their overall offering, perfectly capable of being Enjoyed Responsibly. If you can’t handle even the small amount of nuance needed to allow for just those kinds of possibilities,⁷ you need to get out of the policy-making business. All drinks are not created, or served, equally.

1: I’m a Foreigner; forgive me if I get the details and/or the history wrong. And by all means — and as always — corrections, clarifications and continuations are more than welcome. ↑
2: This post’s title, to head off any observant but poorly-read pedants, is an irresistible little English cliché (of weirdly-uncertain origin, apparently) more than anything else. ↑
3: Although almost-always overblown. We do love a good Moral Panic, as a species, it seems. But that’s another post for another time — and will require a lot more references (though Pete Brown does a damn-admirable job in pulling a bunch together for semi-regular and enjoyably-sharp rants thereon). Meanwhile, just have a look at the scaremongering quote from the Hotel Association rep. in the above-linked Time Out article. Battle lines in the policy debate aren’t as simple as regulators versus retailers; the huge operators will happily slag off the small to try and lobby against losing their advantages. ↑
4: Indeed, recalling the spectacular tin ear I complained about the other day in regard to Wellington’s advertising, our Council’s first draft of changes for the local area included the creation of a ghetto — styled as an “entertainment precinct” — which would’ve hugely favoured the City’s obviously-problematic operators and seriously hampered further evolution of the increasingly civilised fringe. I remember being outraged by the incredible wrong-headedness of the idea around podcast-recording time; fortunately, it was abandoned. ↑
5: See also Whisky + Alement, next time you’re in Melbourne, for a really excellent range of deftly-matched [Craft] Beer + Whisk[e]y combinations. ↑
6: Albeit one with a bit of an identity crisis, to be fair; the brewery bleats on nonsensically about how “traditional” and “small” it is while a) committing the classic Big Business sin of trademarking a style term and b) producing 20ML already and planning under c) it’s new mega-corporate owners to d) quadruple capacity. ↑
7: And then, once your imagination’s nice and warmed-up, to contemplate rules, conditions, and fees that differ appropriately in response to the character of the place in question… But again; details another time. ↑

Metablogging

Station Ident: Beached

December 23, 2013 Phil 1 Comment

Disappearing handrails at Dee Why beach, Sydney

I’ve taken temporary refuge ¹ in a country so emphatically beachy ^† that it resists any attempts us monkeys make to lay infrastructure on the shore. There’s always plenty of “research” to be done while I’m here — I can confirm, for example, that Toohey’s Extra Dry (“Ted”, to its friends) does have contexts in which it’s perfectly fine and lovely,² and that the Murray’s bar in Manly has morphed significantly since my last visit (though not obviously to the worse, at all). More-exotic explorations to follow, and possibly also some things to upload here while I’m away, since we have a podcast in the bag and I’ve got several drafts (some ranty, some rapturous) I may find time to hack away at.

But mostly it’s a holiday, in that particular time of year rich with people-to-see and plenty of food and all sorts of idiosyncratic traditions. I’ve just indulged in one of mine, re-watching Seinfeld’s ‘The Strike’ episode,³ and so should take the time to with you all a happy Festivus and a bloody marvellous holiday season all round. Since I always used to work right through what everyone else called “the break”; I always have to ask that everyone be especially nice to their bar staff and everyone else who keeps the world ticking over — and if you are one of those people, I hope you have a munter-free and convivial week. Stay safe and as stress-free as possible, and may there be plenty of lovely beers — to have, and to give. Cheers!

†: Indeed, it occurs to me — closer to the writing of this post rather than (you know) this one, hence the un-numbered footnote — that I’m in a town that’s basically built on fossilised beach. The sandstone around here, a sprawling coastal metropolis very-fond of carving motorways about the place, is gorgeous. ↑
1: If you can call it that. Given my kegtris-technician cold-weather constitution and the heatwave Sydney’s having, a lot of effort has to go into simply not spotaneously combusting. ↑
2: It’ll come as no great shock that these mostly involve a) extremes of temperature outside and b) Ted’s prior existence in the fridge. ↑
3: No bagel no bagel no bagel. ↑

Rambles and rants

Get your hand off it, Wellington

December 19, 2013 Phil 22 Comments

Absolutely Positively Wellington's 'Well Proud' ad, detail — Pile of beery (and other) goodness from Positively Wellington Tourism’s ‘Well Proud’ ad

This is indeed a great town to live in — in general, and especially in the going out for a drink or a dinner or a mooch or a movie senses. But a few things about Positively Wellington’s recent ads begin to slip into the territory of the boorishly boastful or (worse) looking like they’re covering up for a needless underlying lack of confidence — when it’s taking out full-page ads in the Wellington paper, just who is Wellington marketing itself to?

Postively Wellington Tourism's 'Well Proud' ad, claims — Better boasting through dubious statistics

Anyway, they strayed into beer territory this week, and attracted my attention with the claim that there are “10 craft breweries in Wellington” — a sentence for which you need to simultaneously hold aggravatingly loose defintions of “craft”, “brewery” and “Wellington” all at the same time for “10” and “in” to stand any chance at all of being considered true.

To count them off, in a rough geographical order, the City itself currently has 1) Garage Project,¹ 2) ParrotDog, 3) Fork & Brewer, and 4) Black Dog — the latter a test for your definition of “craft” since it’s a wholly-owned subsidiary of D.B., local representative of the Global Heineken Behemoth and proud member of the standing duopoly.² Out a little in the still-definitely-Wellington suburbs, you’ve got tiny little 5) Baylands Brewery, and then in kinda-maybe-not-“Wellington”-anymore Upper Hutt, 6) Panhead and 7) Kererū have recently sprung up. Now, I consider myself a Wellingtonian and would introduce myself as such to foreigners but everyone ³ knows I’m really not, because I’m from Lower Hutt, which is still a good deal closer than either of those two new breweries. But onwards anyway, generously, to 8) Tuatara; easily the #1 brewery in the region in terms of production volume and still-standing longevity, but who are really starting to get the definition of “Wellington” to breaking point, since you can’t even phone them for free from here and need to drive through a good deal of intervening farmland to visit them in person.

And that’s it, really. Eight, tops.⁴ Which is a really good number for a place of our size, especially with the appalling absence, just a few years ago (which somehow goes unmentioned and even un-hinted-toward, in the ad), of any breweries from the above list other than Tuatara. And while 8 out of 10 is nothing to be sneezed at, pretending 8 is 10 amounts to letting a four-foot-nine person claim they’re six feet tall. Which, in this Tolkein-derived-movie-obsessed town, will get you some seriously miss-cast extras. It is indeed boom time for beer-making in Wellington; we’re recovering spectacularly from an embarrassing low point and kicking serious arse, it’s fair to say. But I’ve never spoken to anyone in the business who has highly praised the local bureaucracy for any astonishing helpfulness. It’s a big red-tape tangle. These things always are. That’s a reality, not a gripe. I’m just not sure Wellington (as an ad-buying entity) has done enough to help this development to entitle them to boast of its success and bask in its halo.⁵

Positively Wellington's 'Well Proud' ad — Positively Wellington Tourism’s ‘Well Proud’ ad — or: full size

Given the Yeastie Boys logos in the ad, it seems they’re padding their numbers further by also throwing the usual meaning of “brewery” on the fire and extending it to “companies who produce beer under contract at various places around the country, but have at least one director who lives in Wellington”. But then you’ve probably got oodles other than them and Funk Estate. The second statistic under the image claims 10+ coffee roasteries, so why couldn’t it have been “5+” breweries? Easy, unassailable, and still praiseworthy. The reaching for a bigger boast just looks a little sad, and causes the corrosive effect where if one data point looks shady then the rest get a sideways glance, warranted or not — and that’s if you weren’t already wondering about contextless figures on two hundred thousand people eating snacks.⁶

To top it all off, have another look at those Yeastie Boys logos. You’d be forgiven for finding them unfamiliar, because it looks like they — and the others — have been composited on to packaging those breweries don’t use. “10 craft breweries” in Wellington, and yet the ad features the produce of precisely one. That’s fairly egregious poor form for a town of such diversity, and in which there exists a small wealth of excellent retailers — such as perhaps the one mentioned twice by name in the ad itself — from which further props could’ve easily been sourced.

It’s a great little town, it really is. If it’s “home” — temporarily or not — you should be prouder of it than you are, however proud you already are. And if you’re not semi-permanently one of us, you should visit more often, however often you already do. We are basically the perfect small town; let us not succumb to Small Town Insecurity. Counting tokens of a hard-to-define type ⁷ will always lead to trouble, and you quickly look oddly sad for trying. So just don’t. The numbers do not constitute the scene, and the scene is doing damn well on its own. Boasting doesn’t count as helping.

1: Entirely coincidentally, for present purposes, my current main (but not only) employer. It’s probably always worth repeating that I’m not speaking on their behalf here — nor basically anywhere — and indeed, if anything, they’ll be somewhat miffed (but hopefully forgiving) at my nit-picking an ad which features them in such a positive light. ↑
2: Although possibly not for long, in both the sense that a) ~~I hear D.B. might be wussing out of their worthy experiment and shuttering Black Dog, which seems a shame~~ [Updated: rumours unfounded, according to their Twitterthing. But that’ll be worth following-up / double-checking for Big Brewery Spin And Evasion soon…], and b) it might not be a “duopoly” much longer, given how well (in the pejorative sense) Boundary Road / “Independent” / Asahi have been doing, lately. ↑
3: Where “foreigner” equals, e.g., an Albanian, Australian, or Aucklander; anyone from outside the 04 area, basically — and “everyone” is those of us within it. ↑
4: For the sake of completeness, you could always argue that “the Wellington Region” also includes (at least) Regent 58 and Martinborough Brewery and so, ta da, 10. I think the ad’s pretty-obviously about Wellington-Wellington, though, not the “region”. From a perusal of their website, Positively Wellington focus on the City and its immediate environs, and while you can find them pimping wider-regional things like Toast Martinborough, you’d be just mad or speaking another language entirely if you said the latter event, for example, took place “in Wellington”. ↑
5: While happy to adopt the “Craft Beer Capital” moniker — and admittedly supporting the website and organisation of the same name — the local bureaucracy seems to miss plenty of chances to help out in tangible ways: my understanding is that Beervana gets little to no Council assistance,^a with them proving unable even to alter catering arrangements at the Town Hall to enable non-horrible food to be served when the festival was held there, and throughout the recent revisions to our liquor laws I haven’t seen anything from the local Council which seeks to treat small, civilised bars any different from more-problematic booze barns, or local brewery cellar doors any different from discount retailers. ↑
— a: Despite their weight being thrown behind a recent “Octoberfest” knockoff, though that was perhaps a one-time abberration caused by John Morrison in campaign mode and looking to shore up the boofhead vote. ↑
6: Is that a lot, on a per-capita basis? I have literally no idea. I do vaguely recall some statistic that suggested us Wellingtonians ate a weirdly-high proportion of our meals outside of our homes, so there’s probably something in this. But who knows? A bamboozling barrage of numbers is a pretty sure-fire sign of a bullshitter, all else being equal. ↑
7: To note one little point against bothering to define “craft beer” at all — a topic on which I’m still undecided and not going to totally open the valves on, here — just look how strange it is that beer is basically the only noun in the ad that they feel needs an adjective. It’s just “bread, ice cream, pizza”. No need to gild the lily. “Boutique”, as a qualifier for various small industries, seemed to quickly come and go, and “artisanal” pretty-much instantly became synonymous with hipster pretension. Again; get your hand off it. We’ll probably survive if we just call it “beer”. ↑

Podcast episodes

Beer Diary Podcast s03e06: Stu McKinlay, Yeastie Boy

November 24, 2013 Phil 7 Comments

George and I recently had the pleasure of sitting down — for a record number of Beers Of The Week, amidst all the banter — with Stu McKinlay, notorious pants-wearer, and one half (give or take) of the Yeastie Boys. We crash-tested whether fresh is best, sampled some ill-fated beers from the Great Drought era, and heard the origin story for several individual beers and for the unique operation itself — before turning to industry-wide issues like collegiality in the beer business and the culture of consuming alcohol. (Some local wildlife joined in as Special Guest Stars, with Zola the dog providing various thumps and scuffles, and myriad native birds adding a backing track.)

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 — I’m also about to start working on providing a few more subscription and download options so any input on such mechanical details is extra-welcome. Cheers!

Yeastie Boys handpull, my view on ‘Daughter Porter’ night

Yeastie Boys 'Golden Perch', during Dioramarama — Yeastie Boys ‘Golden Perch’, during Dioramarama

Firestone Walker's utterly fucking marvellous 'Double DBA' — Firestone Walker’s utterly fucking marvellous ‘Double DBA’

— Show notes:

(0.38) Get the coloured-pants references out of the way right out the gate, and welcome friend of the show Stu McKinlay, Yeastie Boy.
(1.55) “Bagonza” is way better than “Suhguhbuhguhnnnn-zah”, to which I resorted in previous episodes, when sponsor’s initials were awkwardly appended to the acronym.
(8.50) Beer of the Week #1: Pot Kettle Back, 2^ed. #freshisnotbest
(18.00) I’m trying to find the link to Yeastie Boys’ explanation of the Great Yeastie Drought — which set the bar for open and honest communication from a brewery — but it seems to’ve been splatted when Posterous closed down. These are the perils of the modern internets, I suppose.
(19.45) Moments of Zola are just wonderful, and I say this as a committed Cat Person. If superadorable puppies are you thing, follow George on the Tweets for a daily dose.
(22.55) Beer of the Week #2: Digital IPA, plus microbial guest(s).
(24.55) I spent a good part of the rest of the afternoon trying to figure out clever ways to rescue these beers, from a retail point of view. They would’ve been worth it.
(25.40) Beer of the Week #3: Gunnamatta, likewise accidentally remixed.
(28.40) I’ve learned a lot about music by Googling beer names from Yeastie Boys.
(29.45) I loved Hud-a-wa’ — and the confusion its name caused.
(32.30) At time of writing, ‘Perch’ is my third most-checked-in beer, claiming a place in a crowd otherwise populated by predictable freebies I get from work. And Gunnamatta.
(40.50) Stu’s probably here anticipating a friendly-but-philosophical debate on “origin-fudging”, which we never really got around to in this episode. Another time, for sure.
(41.20) Beer of the Week #4: Firestone Walker ‘Double DBA’, which truly was face-meltingly awesome. Seriously mind blowing and delicious.
(44.20) John Palmer’s website (and book) is admirably simply-named How To Brew. The entire first edition is online for free, which is just awesome.
(46.20) Shit Beer Geeks Say: “…but in a good way.”
(49.30) Tea. So much tea.
(55.10) Untappd ratings’ inappropriateness was on my mind as I uploaded this, too.
(56.55) Prison Brew sounds amazing. Let’s stage this again, someone, please.
(58.30) Beer of the Week #5: Rex Attitude, vaguely vintaged, which George bravely re-tries after his ordeal way back in s01e03. I love its origin story, and hereby apologise for perpetuating the not-quite-right one for ‘Men’n Skurrts’.
(1.10.40) Five Yeastie Beers for Five Yeastie Years, a.k.a. Dioramarama, really does deserve a post of its own. But I am, as always, appallingly far behind with such things.
(1.11.45) Yeastie Boys Tea Party / Yeas-tea Something. Mere days away! Wellingtonians, mark your calendars; non-Wellingtonians, book travel. George and I have quiz-related duties on the night, but will make sure to stop by before and/or after.
(1.15.30) Beastwars were unsurprisingly awesome. Get familiar with them a.s.a.p..
(1.18.40) Recommendations: The original ‘G.A.o.B.’, by Rowland S. Howard, and A Tribe Called Quest, probably on Rdio. And any steaming service is welcome to my tip-jar idea. I just want it implemented.
(1.22.45) Beer of the Week #6: Townshend ‘Flemish Stout’. We did have this a few episodes ago, and I’m entirely on board with Stu’s generalised praise for Martin. I don’t have a photo of the 750s, sadly; I should grab some for my stash.
(1.28.00) In praise of sessionability, for all sorts of reasons.
(1.31.00) The various ways PBE encouraged sensible drinking are a real factor in its loveliness as a festival. I also owe you all a festival-roundup. (A non-podcast one, at least, our surprisingly-balanced assessment of Beervana was our last episode.)
(1.33.30) Pete Brown on alco-pops, a.k.a. “ciders”.
(1.38.40) See, e.g., Victoria Bitter and Crafty Beggars.
(1.40.10) 90% of the random thumps, and 100% of the slurping noises, were Zola.
(1.40.30) Cue the music: ‘Shopping for Explosives’, by The Coconut Monkeyrocket. Audio editing done in Audacity. Habitual thanks to both.

Rambles and rants

Everything in Its Right Place

November 23, 2013 Phil 2 Comments

Crafty Beggars 'Wheat As', in context — Crafty Beggars ‘Wheat As’, in context

In this, as in all things, context is king. Perfect circumstances can rescue the naffest of beers — and mismatchings of time and/or place could equally ruin the most otherwise-charming. Today, Wellingtonians were rightly beside themselves with the sheer loveliness of the weather out there, seizing upon this as the first real Saturday of the summer by pootling around in boats, sitting in the warm sunshine, or hurling themselves off a pier and into the still-actually-rather-brisk-now-you-mention-it harbour. Myself, I was gardening.¹ My deeply-ingrained nocturnality is slowly and awkwardly (but painlessly enough) giving way and I’m becoming a little more ambitempstrous ² as I slowly discover worthwhile things about the daylight hours the Normals inhabit.

Meanwhile, there was a Crafty Beggars ‘Wheat As’ in my fridge, thanks to its — potentially ironic — inclusion in a little Thank You parcel the Brewers’ Guild gave me after I helped go over the Beer Writer Of The Year nominees earlier this year. Since I was hugely not a fan of it the first time I had it — as an inherently-underwhelming thing as well as because of its annoying halo of brandwank — I resolved to give this “bonus” bottle its best-possible go. A few hours of serious hack-and-slash dig-and-heave garden rehabilitation provided exactly the right opportunity to climb the goat-track to the Thinking Chair in the back corner of the property to take in the view,³ eat some delicious cheese, and have a beer.

Crafy Beggars 'Wheat As' for lunch — Crafy Beggars ‘Wheat As’; part of your complete breakfast

And it was, I’ll cheerfully admit, fucking glorious; properly refreshing, flavourful but not distractingly so, it went gangbusters with the cheese (and its surroundings), and had the added benefit of being a sessionable four-point-zero percent. Given the price-point these things seemed to be pitched at — doubtless to serve as a bulwark against Independent / Asahi’s rather-aggressive (and successful!) attempt to carve out some market share — it could prove one of the bargain buys of the summer. If — always a crucial “if”, and always up to the individual — you can bring yourself to hand over your money to its producer.

If you’ll forgive the loose extrapolations from a single (but sublime) moment, this impossible-to-overstate element of context is a good part of the reason why I can never bring myself to push the “ratings” buttons in Untappd, and a strong element of my ongoing leeriness of beer awards. What would I be rating any particular beer against — my assumptions of what it was going to be like, its reputation, its “style” (defined by its marketing department, or someone more “objective”?), or how it fit the particular occasion, no matter how little thought I gave to my selection? And likewise, what hope can any number of potentially-bloody-marvellous beers have of being at their best in a little tasting glass, among scores of broadly-similar relatives, at a table full of weary judges?

I would happily stand up in any beer geek support group and say “Hi, my name is Phil Cook and, just the other day, I acutally bloody loved a Crafty Beggars ‘Wheat As'”. Hopefully, this is part of what separates the enthusiasts from the snobs. I won’t be rushing out to buy more — Lion aren’t in boycott territory,⁴ but I think there always plenty of more-deserving candidates for a dose of my meagre monies — but, in context, it was great. If you need me, I’ll be up in my Thinking Chair, mulling that over.

Contemplating context — and garden layout, and sunburn, and how my life has changed

1: And then I hurled myself off a pier. ↑
2: Apparently the actual word is “cathemeral”. ↑
3: Caveats: 1) it’s a rental, not “mine” (nor even “my bank’s”) in the ownership sense, 2) there’s a seriously perilous goat-track to get to this spot; it’s not even vaguely representative of the rest of the place. I hope my Middle Class credentials are unsullied after you’ve seen my Harbour Views. ↑
4: Unlike, you know, some people. ↑

Mediawatch

Sabbath Reading

October 28, 2013 Phil 4 Comments

Brewaucracy / 666 Brewing 'Devil in the Details' — ‘Devil in the Details’ by Brewaucracy & 666 Brewing at PBE 2013 yesterday

I’ve been on a run of six-point-something-day work weeks, lately; some self-inflicted, some externally imposed. Still not a word of complaint, though — but equally few hacked out to put up here. And so a public holiday to the rescue, delivering a three-day weekend by way of a Day Of Rest in commemoration of a nice idea that’s forever been tricky to actually apply. With some a couple of alarm-free mornings,¹ just the right amount of domestic productivity, and a lovely little beer festival, it was a cracker of a super-sized weekend and today has a very suitable Sunday feeling to it.

Which, naturally, puts me in mind of the ‘tradition’ I keep trying to make more traditional. And so, with all the best intentions to do this — as well as everything else — more often, I present for your perusal ² a few choice tidbits:³

A history of Canberra brewing. I have a real soft spot for Australia’s deeply-odd little capital — I lived there for a while and had truly formative Beer Geek Moments at the marvellous Wig & Pen — and was delighted to find an apparently-exhaustive history of the beer business in town. Visit the Wig while it lasts, and immediately check out whatever Richard Watkins gets up to next.
A sobering longer-view look at the history of American IPA — and of beer in general, while they’re at it. I’m not sure I entirely agree, but I’m much more there than not; we’ve been doing this for a long time, as a species, and it does sometimes pay to do a little internal check-sum on whether you’re losing proper sense of scale in time and place.
The effects of alcohol might not be quite what you think they are.⁴ Two years old, now, but this article was returned to my attention just when I was posting our liquor-law-freakout podcast ponderings. From my perspective as a former bartender, at least, it was summed up best by a friend and former colleague: no one is genuinely different when they’re drunk, they’re just more. If you’re a dick when you’ve had too much to drink, you might just actually be a dick.
An uncomfortably close satire of beer-bar offerings. The stout looks good.
This lauded (and recently revised) chart, which has (if you ask me) almost jumped the shark into an unreadable mess with its looping glassware-suggestion arcs and the largely-useless-for-non-Americans brand tokens for each type. Paging Ed Tufte. (But full marks for the lower-left’s Spaghetti Junction which consigns a few deserving candidates to being drunk from the can, 40oz, or Solo Cup.)
A much more sedate Brewer Portait than usual, enjoyable not just for his delightfully soothing travelling-Canadian accent. Nicely personal and engaging.
The (bloody-marvellous) Gruen Planet team talked beer, for the first major section of last week’s show. Interesting to see things from a marketer’s perspective; even though they’re not dogmatically pro-“craft”, they’re still anti-crap — whether the crap in question is outright lies, or just boringness. (They’ve also reminded me that I really, really want to hack the Tap King into a general-purpose flagon-dispensing gadget.)
TrackYourBud.com,⁵ where you can learn — to use the word quite wrongly — that rice is an extravagantly expensive ingredient that other breweries don’t love you enough to us (and definitely not a cost-cutting blandifier), that “ageing” a beer can be measured in mere days (not silly old-fashioned months or years), and that Budweiser can still apparently say (with a straight face and without being fined and/or sued into oblivion) that “no other beer takes as long to make”.
And finally, an irrelevancy, because it’s nice to be reminded that the “new” things — be they comic books, videogames, digital art, or whatever — aren’t necessarily just vaguely-modified and somehow-weaker instances of “real” culture; they can be totally and amazingly themselves.

1: Sleeps-in, as I like to call them, ever the fan of a French-style front-loaded plural. On Saturday, my first un-buzz-assisted waking-up in weeks, I actually managed to have a surpassingly suitable song lodged in my brain the second I was conscious. ↑
2: In either the original sense of “to read with careful attention” or the more-modern usage of “to skim, hoping to vaguely extract the gist”; language evolves in wonderful, liberating and contradictory ways. ↑
3: Which admittedly do require a more expansive, cultural-studies-esque definition of “reading”, since two of them are videos, one is a (dis?)infographic, and one an interactive webmonstrosity. ↑
4: Or rather, given the mechanics of the Placebo Effect, they might be mostly exactly what you think they are. Thanks to Amy for the link — both times. ↑
5: Thanks, if that’s the right word, to Hadyn for the link. ↑

— Show notes:

— Show notes:

Tastings and ramblings and whatnot