All posts by Phil

Pink Elephant ‘Golden Tusk’

November 15, 2008 Phil Leave a comment

I should’ve been all over this. It’s from a pokey little operation in Blenheim where his bit seems to be making overstrong brews. This one clocks in at 7.1% and is the lowest-booze of the three we have in stock. It’s pitched as a ‘special bitter’, and starts with a nice big nose full of apricots and other orange-coloured stonefruity things. On your first sip, it’s got a pleasantly bitter punch and then… pretty much nothing. Alarmingly thin for a seven-percenter, one wonders how they managed that. You can keep going back for the aroma and the punch-upon-sipping, but your brain just keeps asking why that’s all there is.

Verbatim: Pink Elephant Golden Tusk Special. 15/11/08 $8 @ Malthouse 7.1% 330ml. A special bitter, with punch. Very big nose full of apricots and orangey stonefruits. Taste is pleasantly bitter, but very short. Surprisingly thin for a 7%-er.

Afterthoughts, November 2010: Weirdly, this entry and #63 seem backwards, in the book. There’s all sorts of funny little time-loops going on with the uploading of this Diary thing. It’s beginning to do my head in.

Actual Diary entries

Duchy Originals Ale

November 14, 2008 Phil Leave a comment

I’ve already said how utterly indifferent I am to the organic fad, so when Prince Charles’ outfit present me with a ‘classic ruby ale’ to try, I’m flooded with conflicting emotions: apathy, curiousness, anti-Monarchism (but I always have that), a desire to not give money to Prince Charles but still to have his beer, and — above all, thirst. My conflict was solved when a customer bought one for me, out of the blue. Nice.

Which is a good word for the beer: nice. It won’t change your life, but it’s solid. Not overly ‘ruby’ for a ‘ruby’ ale, you’d have to say, but it’s a good little quaffer.

Verbatim: Duchy Originals Organic Ale. 14/11/08 $12.5 @ Malthouse. 5.0% 500ml. Shouted by a customer, so my republican cred is intact. An organic ruby ale. Classic English. Don’t give a toss about organic-ness, of course, but this is very pleasant. Quite accessible, I think. Some reviews say its hardcore. Maybe my taste is skewed.

Actual Diary entries

Emerson’s ‘Bookbinder’

November 9, 2008 Phil Leave a comment

Verbatim: Emerson’s ‘Bookbinder’. With a book to read, naturally. Easily one of my favourites, again. (And I’ll have to get another one to photograph, since we’ve just recently gotten in some neat branded Emerson’s glassware. The sacrifices I make.) A classic English-style bitter ale, at session strength. When people come to our bar and are disappointed to learn we don’t have Sassy Red, they leave having met the Bookbinder, and being Better People for it. It’s got assertive, but still mild, hoppiness and maltiness and is just the sort of all-around beery awesomeness that a person could drink until the Universe goes pfft. And I intend to.

Afterthoughts, November 2010: The beer is still a favourite. And so is that book, Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. That was George’s copy, which I borrowed and absolutely adored. It’s purest genius. And rather oddly and coincidentally, I just finally bought my own copy the day before posting this entry and writing this note. Peculiar.

Actual Diary entries

Tuatara ‘Ardennes’

November 8, 2008 Phil Leave a comment

Verbatim: Tuatara ‘Ardennes’. A belgian-style strong golden ale from local favourites Tuatara. Just recently back on tap at work, and thereby eligible for staff drinks. Huzzah. One of our regulars (a formidable Beer Nerd) rates it as the #2 All-Around Best Value Beer Buy on the Planet, which isn’t a bad nod. It’s a lovely bright gold, slightly heftier than usual (at 6.5%, so not as full-on as the Belgian-Belgians often get), and with a nice smooth, slightly warming, peachy kind of yumminess to it.

Afterthoughts, November 2010: #1 on the Best Buy list mentioned above was Schneider Aventinus, if memory serves. But it often doesn’t, so don’t quote me on that.

It also occurs to me that I’m posting this, and writing these Afterthoughts, almost exactly two years since I took that photo. Two more years of backlog before I catch up with the steadily-marching-on ‘present’. Sheesh.

And then — mysteriously, a few weeks later — an actual Diary entry for this same beer pops up. But I didn’t take a photo at the time, so I’ve put the entry here, in the spirit of consolidation.

Actual Diary entries

Dux de Lux ‘Sou’wester’ Stout & Three Boys Pils

November 5, 2008 Phil Leave a comment

Verbatim: Dux de Lux ‘Sou’wester’ Stout. The Dux was nominated in the “Best Pub” category this year at the bar awards, and so was a certain little pub in which this photograph was taken. But the Dux won. And they brew. Fairly well. The Stout isn’t nearly as smooth as the Emerson’s or the Pitch Black; it’s a lot ‘livelier’ where the other two (especially the Emerson’s) go silky. This may well be Your Thing. It’s not quite mine.

And Three Boys Pils. A not-well-enough-known microbrewery from Christchurch (and so a fellow survivor of that Blight on the Universe, with Dux de Lux), and home to a similar range of uniformly better beers, I say. The Pils is a solid lager offering, with a good deal more presence and punch — and altogether more Interestingness than Dux Lager (just for instance). Closer to the lagers most people are used to than the Emerson’s would be, but conspicuously head, shoulders, and Big Tall Green Bottle above the Heinekens and Steinlagers of the fridge.

Actual Diary entries

Invercargill ‘Pitch Black’ Stout

November 5, 2008 Phil Leave a comment

Verbatim: Invercargill Brewery ‘Pitch Black’ Stout. Again from the hand pumps at Old Malty, and in many ways one step further down Black Beer Boulevard from the aforementioned (and aforedrunken) Tuatara Porter. Bigger, darker, and stouty, basically. But still (I think) fairly accessible. Something of a favourite for a few of my female friends. But that might just indicate my peculiar taste in female friends. Who knows?

Afterthoughts, November 2010: Here’s a very-minor example of a common rebellion, with me; I’ll have absolutely no part of this frequent talk of what might be a ‘girly beer’. I just know too many exceptions in both directions (girls who drink “non-girly” beer, and non-girls who drink “girly” beer) and am too-easily bored by blokey sexist blahblahblah to tolerate it much.

Also, the whole question of what divides ‘stout’ from ‘porter’ is a controversial one, despite my breezy invocation of a commonly-understood difference, above. I’ve always had it in my head that stouts will tend to be drier and coffee-ish-er, while porters will tend towards the sweeter and chocolatey-er end of the spectrum. Apparently, though — just like all other putative distinctions — that’s not really very historical of me. Martyn Cornell has written a pretty damn definitive account entitled ‘So what IS the difference between porter and stout?’, which — spoiler alert — basically concludes: there isn’t one.

Beer history is tricky like that. And I’m just going to keep on using my non-historical terms anyway. I’m stubborn like that.

Actual Diary entries

Tuatara Porter

November 5, 2008 Phil Leave a comment

Verbatim: Tuatara Porter. A quiet little achiever, this one. On hand pump at das Malthaus, and so lovely and smooth and, well, flat. A nice way to ease yourself (and others) into drinking dark beer, it’s subtly coffee-ish and toast-ish and slightly chocolatey. A surprisingly good pre-lunch pint, too.

Afterthoughts, November 2010: After a long run of having the Tuatara IPA as my habitual after-work drink (roughly around the time of this ‘entry’), I think the porter has eventually become my favourite of the range. Especially on the handpull at work.

And in the background there is the deliciously nerdy fivethirtyeight.com (now deservingly subsumed into the New York Times webpage). I do love watching politics unfold, and am definitely fond of actual data, rather than talking heads wobbling their faces and venting their half-baked opinions. FiveThirtyEight and (the earlier, but somewhat more basic) electoral-vote.com thus necessitated that we be armed with a laptop as we watched the election. We did get some funny looks, but we also started a trend; just this week at the pub, people were gathered around, just as we were, to watch the American midterms. The most-recent local national election was up on the big screens, too — despite the result, there, it was nice to have something playing other than sport upon sport upon sport.

Actual Diary entries

Emerson’s Pilsner

November 5, 2008 Phil Leave a comment

Verbatim: Emerson’s Pilsner. The other organic offering from Emerson’s (together with the previously-noted Oatmeal Stout) so they made something of a nice pair as First Drinks for George and I, having installed ourselves early in the pub.

The Pils is a slightly-hazy glowing gold, with a very white-winey kind of a feel to it; nice and complex, drawn-out flavours. Not as sharp or as dry as a pilsner might often be, but in this case, all the better for it.

Afterthoughts, November 2010: Very rare, even for a ‘Lazy Facebook diary entry’ that I’d take a snap and have a wee ramble about someone else’s beer. But there you have it. I guess it was out of pure enthusiasm for this delicious stuff. I hope you understand.

Actual Diary entries

Emerson’s Oatmeal Stout

November 5, 2008 Phil 2 Comments

Verbatim: Emerson’s Oatmeal Stout. This is how I started my day, at 10.00am, watching CNN for coverage of the U.S. Presidential Election. As we all know by now, the Good Guy won.

It pours as absolute darkness in a glass, and is ludicrously smooth to drink, with a great big chocolatey afterglow that tickles the brainstem a few moments after each sip. If Barry White were a beer, this may well be him.

Afterthoughts, November 2010: That line about Barry White was very useful. I tend to describe beers very idiosyncratically — I’m much more of the impressionistic style than the fine-detailed sound-like-a-wine-wanker sort. (Though the latter does have its place.) I loved this beer, and recommended it by saying that it was Barry White reincarnated in beer form; big, black and deeply sexy.

And yes, past tense; “was very useful”, “loved this beer”. Emerson’s sadly ‘retired’ this beer, and I mourned. You suspect I’m not even being metaphorical, don’t you? Well done.

Actual Diary entries

Founders ‘Generation Ale’

November 1, 2008 Phil Leave a comment

Verbatim: Founders Generation Ale. An all-organic brewery, and organic farming/whatever is something about which I could not give a toss. So: no points on for that, from me. But: indifference also means no points off. Provided the beer is good.

And the beer is good. Straight up and down nutty brown ale. Which develops some fairly serious nuttiness (in a good way) by the time you’re done with a half-litre of it. But it’s smooth and satisfying and uncomplicated.

Afterthoughts, November 2010: Founders Brewery is another one of those ones with a strange relationship with the apostrophe. The labels say ‘Duncans Founders Brewery’, which seems to me to need at least one apostrophe, somewhere. Maybe there needs to be a Good Use of Grammar and Punctuation certification regime, like there is for all this organic produce malarky. Since Founders were the first Australasian brewery out of the gate on the organic front (the number is now approximately oodles), maybe they’d be willing to take the lead, here, too.

Beer Diary

All posts by Phil

Pink Elephant ‘Golden Tusk’

Duchy Originals Ale

Emerson’s ‘Bookbinder’

Tuatara ‘Ardennes’

Dux de Lux ‘Sou’wester’ Stout & Three Boys Pils

Invercargill ‘Pitch Black’ Stout

Tuatara Porter

Emerson’s Pilsner

Emerson’s Oatmeal Stout

Founders ‘Generation Ale’

Tastings and ramblings and whatnot