For the holidays — the familiar public ones, but also the 14th anniversary of the first entry in my actual Beer Diary — George and I sat down to talk about what’s changed, and what hasn’t, in the time since we last did one of these. We cover a little of the long arc of news, entry into and exit from the subculture of beer (or indeed anything else), the ageing of beer and of ourselves, the surprisingly fraught nature of not drinking, and keeping things in balance in this peculiar world.

A direct download is available here, if you need such a thing. And you can subscribe via iTunes or pretty much anything else if you’d like to be notified if ever we do one of these again…

Continue reading The 2017 Beer Diary Podcast Unexpected Christmas Special →

As we mentioned in the last podcast, we’ve got a few Lost Episodes in our proverbial back pocket. They’ve become little exercises in time travel, but we didn’t want them to languish forever, so I’ll be uploading them over the next few weeks. This conversation was recorded on 17 September 2015.

We sat down for a few beers ‘on the record’ with our friends Dave Wood and Denise Garland. Dave is the general manager of Wellington beer bar Hashigo Zake as well as the current President of SOBA (the Society of Beer Advocates) and Denise is a journalist — and both have long been key members of the beer community. They talk about the rapid evolution of the local scene, their introductions to it and their ‘epiphany’ beers, the simple pleasures of everday beers in their right place, and the joys of making your own homebrew. We also discuss the bar business, SOBA festivals, women-in-beer groups like Beerded Ladies and Pink Boots, lament the general lack of brown ales and have a few dated-but-foreboding words to say about company takeovers — Dave idly ponders a Ballast Point buyout that was just a few weeks in the future.

As always, a direct download of this episode is available, should that better-suit your listening habits. We’re on iTunes and there’s also a podcast-specific RSS feed you can follow through whatever app or gadget you listen to these things with. For handy reference, you can direct people to podcast.beerdiary.nz, and you should feel free to contact us — via this very page, the podcast’s Twitter account, or on Facebook — with any feedback, corrections, suggestions, or whatnot. Cheers!

Continue reading Beer Diary Podcast lost episode (s05e02) — Dave Wood & Denise Garland →

Damn these recurrent hiatuses. It happened again, as these things do. But we’re back this week — rather fittingly, after the long weekend — with a little look at crowdfunding in the beer business, some reminiscences over my marvellous trip to the Mussel Inn, and looking forward to the Great Kiwi Beer Festival this very weekend, at which I’ll be doing one of my little rambles. All that by way of bicycle bells and videogames, and accompanied by two rather strikingly different Beers Of The Week.

There are several sadly-long-neglected episodes in our proverbial back pocket, which I’ll upload over the coming weeks. You — our listeners and our excellent guests — have our apologies, and also our welcome back.

As always, a direct download of this episode is available, should that better-suit your listening habits. We’re on iTunes and there’s also a podcast-specific RSS feed you can follow through whatever app or gadget you listen to these things with. For handy reference, you can direct people to podcast.beerdiary.nz, and you should feel free to contact us — via this very page, the podcast’s Twitter account, or on Facebook — with any feedback, corrections, suggestions, or whatnot. Cheers!

Continue reading Beer Diary Podcast s05e05: Crowd, Fun, Ding →

Just in time for those missing out on this year’s Beervana, a blast from the past. During the 2014 festival, George and I ― plus an excellent suite of special guests ― recorded two episodes in the seminar room, and brought sufficient quantities for the Beer(s) Of The Week to share with anyone who wanted to join the audience. Civilised. Technical difficulties beset the recordings, though, and they got lost in the weeds of last year. But, at last, here they are.

On the Friday evening, we were were joined by Matt Kirkegaard ― founder of BrewsNews.com.au and then-recent AIBA award-winner for his writing and podcast and hosting and such ― and Sean Burke of the Commons Brewery in Portland, which was part of the inaugural (and smashingly successful, and now repeated) Beervana Exchange. We drank a longtime favourite in NSW’s Stone & Wood ‘Pacific Ale’, and then Commons’ collaboration with Tuatara, ‘Nova Pacifica’.

The next night, our accomplices were Luke Robertson ― ex-pat New Zealander in exile in Melbourne, blogger and podcast and since recipient of the very-same AIBA award that Matt previously won ― and Denise Ratfield of Stone Brewery and the Pink Boots Society, and a driving force behind the utterly marvellous International Women’s Collaboration Brew Day. We drank Mountain Goat ‘Hightail’ and Latitude 33’s ‘Worldly Scholar’, which was a fundraiser beer for Pink Boots.

As always, direct downloads are available ― here’s part 1, and here’s part 2. There’s a podcast-specific RSS feed, and you can get us on iTunes. George and myself can also both be reached on Twitter, or you can leave comments here or on Facebook. The show also has its own Twitter handle — which you can use for feedback, updates, suggestions and whatnot. Cheers!

― Show notes:

• …will have to wait until after Beervana 2015, I’m afraid. This is an insanely busy time to be a semi-professional beer nerd. Imagine if, at some stereotypical Christmastime à la hackneyed American holiday movies, you somehow had the timetable and temperament of Santa Claus, a few hundred of the elves, and a six-year-old, all at once.

And so the Beer Diary Podcast is back for a fifth season — and with our traditional delay in hitting ‘publish’, no less. Episodes should return to their usual non-super-sized format and a sharper turnaround in this back half of the year — but you all know what kind of paving projects are undertaken with good intentions. Here, we accidentally settle on a G-theme: we catch up about the end of my tenure at Garage Project, including some thoughts on how they make their interesting beers; discuss the debut of GABS — Sydney Edition, which also makes us ponder trans-Tasman beer availability; and read a neat little piece in the Guardian on Gastrophysics which sets us wondering about experiments that really should be done at the beer awards.

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 Twitter, or you can leave comments here or on Facebook. You can also now point people at podcast.beerdiary.nz and the show has its own Twitter handle — which you can use for feedback, suggestions and whatnot. Cheers!

— Show notes:

• (0.40) It has been ages, in a few ways, inadvertently. This episode was recorded 9 June 2015.
• (2.20) Beer of the Week #1: Garage Project ‘Sea Of Green’.
• (3.10) The speed-winemaking phenomenon is Beaujolais nouveau.
• (6.40) The poster is included in Pete’s blog post on the making of Sea Of Green, and their original Facebook post garnered a little pushback. The varietals don’t seem to’ve made it online anywhere obvious.
• (10.30) Leaving the Garage. We made a little Vine on me last day, with me (first official employee) raising a glass of Trip Hop (first official beer).
• (15.00) The ‘how to buy a beer’ ramble was recorded at Golding’s.
• (16.20) BDP’s first away mission, damn near four years ago: Garage Project.
• (18.00) The “cabbage beer” was Mon P’tit Chou, a saison brewed without cabbages. And George is no fan of saisons.
• (23.20) Beer of the Week #2: Garage Project ‘Bossa Nova’. And I have some idea how they put the fruit in it, but that probably counts as a Trade Secret. Pete addresses the classification question in his blog post for the beer, and has similarly little patience for overly pedantic taxonomy.
• (35.10) GABS 2015 — Sydney Edition v1.0, an excellent new incarnation of an excellent thing, and a lovesong to festivals in general.
• (48.00) I did get this right: Robe Town Brewery, in Robe, SA.
• (50.10) We talked about the ‘dud’ (now resurrected) P.K.B. in our episode with the now-Antipodean Stu McKinlay. ‘Darkmatta’ was released this week, huzzah for coincidences of timing.
• (54.40) In fairness, Beervana’s new overlords are all over this already.
• (57.00) Gastrophysics, following a little article in the Guardian.
• (1.00.00) Tom Scott (H.F.O.T.S.) on grammatical gender. I don’t quite finish the thought in the episode, but I obviously also agree that the “key” example says as many worrying things about notions of gender as it does about oddities of grammar.
• (1.01.10) It was ‘Black Se7en’ from 666 Brewing.
• (1.06.40) Doubling-up on brands obviously gets into False Provenance, an enduring bugbear of mine. George’s dairy example was “Piako”.
• (01.10.00) Beer of the Week #3: Garage Project ‘Day Of The Dead’. I’ve already cashed in my entitlement on Triple Day Of The Dead.
• (1.14.00) My copy is currently out on loan, but in Cryptonomicon, it’s chapter 70, ‘Origin’, where the family divide up an estate using a parking lot as a large-scale graph.
• (1.17.50) Our conversation with Hadyn on questionable beer names.
• (1.25.10) Festivals “coming up” are obviously now long gone. But hey, Beervana is just on the horizon…
• (1.30.40) Martin’s new URL is, indeed, beertown.nz
• (1.33.40) Tip of the hat: Little Creatures (part of the Lion Group). It’s not rocket wizardry, people. Wag of the finger: sloppy keg-filling.
• (1.37.40) Recommendations: Panhead special editions, and Hop Federation American Brown.
• (1.41.20) Honorary Friend Of The Show: Neal Stephenson, my favourite living author (especially after Iain Banks and Terry Pratchett both died, sadly). I just finished Seveneves yesterday, in fact; it’s responsible for at least a day or two of my delay in getting this online. And speaking of big books, The Year Of Reading Massively is definitely worth a listen.
• (1.46.30) A round of applause for Luke Robertson, too. Damn nice.
• (1.49.25) Cue the music: ‘Shopping for Explosives’, by The Coconut Monkeyrocket. Audio editing done in Audacity. Habitual thanks to both.

Following straight on — after a quick re-play of the introduction, thanks to some clever editing by George — from last weekend’s episode, we’re delighted to present the second half of our Very Special podcast takeover on Women & Beer, by women, drinking beer. Megan, Beth, Hayley and Steph continue their conversation, covering topics as diverse as canned beer, food matching, ‘extreme’ beers, festivals, labeling and tastings — as well as discussing the potential need for (and nuances of) dedicated women’s groups in the community, the role of (and need for) overt feminism in the beer business.

Massive thanks to all four of our substitute hosts; I’ve really enjoyed listening to these episodes and hope you all have, as well. George and I will be back behind the microphone soon, and should also have something to share from our Beervana Sessions, shortly.

As always, a direct download is available, there’s a podcast-specific RSS feed, and you should be able to get us on iTunes — and if that’s how you get your fix, a review and/or rating would be greatly appreciated.

— Not-quite show notes:

• The show opens with the discussion of Beer Of The Week #2: Renaissance ‘Bloody R.I.P.A.’, which was opened at about 24.30 of part 1. Beer of the Week #3: Rodenbach, from a can, appears around 6.00 into this part. Beer of the Week #4: Almanac ‘Barrel Noir’ takes over at 29.00, and then — getting close to threatening our standing record of six, set with Stu McKinlay — Beer Of The Week #5 Mikkeller ‘Brunch Weasel’, finishes things off from about 52.00.
• The Pink Boots Society homepage, and the NZ chapter’s Facebook page.
• Shameless plug: Craft Beer College.
• ‘How To Buy A Beer’ is still on TheWireless.co.nz, and was also written up here.
• The New York Times piece on Mikkeller (and his twin brother) is pretty fascinating.
• We’re definitely planning a longer discussion on ‘tied taps’ in a later episode…
• Thanks to Steph for taking over signing-off duties and cueing the the music: ‘Shopping for Explosives’, by The Coconut Monkeyrocket. Hayley also provided the obligatory photo of their Beers Of The Week. Audio editing is done (by George) in Audacity. Habitual thanks to all concerned.

For a Very Special episode, George and I relinquish the microphone entirely to four of our friends. We’d wanted to dedicate an episode entirely to ‘Women & Beer’ for some time and eventually realised that we were sufficiently blessed for potential guests — and also sufficiently lacking in personal experience, for obvious reasons — that a takeover episode made all kinds of sense.

Our replacements are, in order of introduction: Megan Whelan (journalist and producer for The Wireless), Beth Brash (blogger at Eat & Greet), Hayley Adams (bartender at Golding’s Free Dive and project coordinator for the Safer Bars Alliance) and Steph Coutts (SOBA stalwart and founder of Craft Beer College — and thereby occasionally my boss). They discuss their own beer epiphanies and preferences, run-ins with lamentable marketing and experiences as part of the beer community — good and bad, grating and brilliant. Here, with my traditional apologies for the delay in posting it, is part one; part two will follow shortly.

As always, a direct download is available, there’s a podcast-specific RSS feed, and you should be able to get us on iTunes — and if that’s how you get your fix, a review and/or rating would be greatly appreciated.

— Not-quite show notes:

It feels strange to show-note an episode I didn’t make, so I’m going to leave this one mostly un-annotated, other than the following little details:

• Comments are, as always, welcome here or on the Beer Diary’s Facebook page. In addition, all four substitute hosts are active on Twitter: Megan, Beth, Hayley & Steph. If a reference needs clarifying, a correction submitted, or any such thing, you are particularly spoilt for ways in which to have your say.
• Beers Of The Week in this part are: #1 Panhead Vindicator (at around 1.30) and #2 Renaissance Bloody R.I.P.A. (from about 24.30).
• Since the traditional sign-off will have to wait until part 2, I’ll drop the relevant end credits here: our theme is ‘Shopping for Explosives’, by The Coconut Monkeyrocket. Audio editing is done (by George) in Audacity. Hayley also provided the obligatory photo of their Beers Of The Week. Habitual thanks to all concerned.