Category Archives: Observations

More-or-less — well; more, since they don’t live in another category — random reports on various interesting things that catch my eye

Little billboards

A freshly-arrived Craft Queer t-shirt (My house, 10 April 2015)
My freshly-arrived Craft Queer t-shirt

As is probably also true of many or indeed most other long-standing / high-level1 beer enthusiasts, I have unfeasibly-many branded t-shirts. But there always seems to be room for one more, and I’d been meaning for ages to get one from the Craft Queer Project. Born from a particularly-rad present my comrade2 Dylan made for a fellow bartender, it evolved into a generally-purchasable thing and a worthy little fundraiser to boot. I’ve also seen way too much of the homophobic nonsense that he mentions in his post; from trolls fouling up the online beer community to boorish lunkheads in bars acting like they’d tumbled in from a prior decade — and see Melissa Cole’s latest piece if you need and/or can stomach examples from the Antipodes. But still, I share his optimism that things are (as they say) getting better.

It was really heartening, two weekends ago, to spy a few of these t-shirts in the crowd at the Great Kiwi Beer Festival, worn on the persons of total strangers. That was enough to at last jolt me into ordering mine. But as a habitual Overthinker, who coincidentally exists very much to the left of the Kinsey Scale, I vacillated for a while between getting the original ‘QuB version and the slightly-bowdlerised, ahem, straight-Beer one. But an analogy to all that brewery merch in my drawers eventually occurred to me: I’ll happily wear, for instance, a ParrotDog t-shirt, a Stone & Wood hoodie, and a Dogfish Head hat — perhaps even all at once — despite working at precisely none of those companies.3 I may not be of them, but I like them, and I wish them well in their many endeavours, supporting their good works and deeds where I can. Likewise this, really.4 Simple.


1: I mean this in the Dungeons & Dragons sense — lots of experience and a few perks. 
2: Disclaimers ahoy: then, in his day job, he was a customer of my day job (which, in turn, made the beer the artwork references); now, he’s officially my boss, since I’ve reshuffled my working life rather dramatically. 
3: So far, at least. I’d let you know
4: If I seem to be harping on these down-with-grossness and show-of-solidarity angles, I make no apology. I’ve seen two of my other beloved Domains Of Nerdness — namely videogames and speculative fiction — develop disgusting little cancers of reactionary bullshit and I’ll kick against that where I can.  Calling out whatever nonsense comes within reach is the least any of us can do, and now we can do it while wearing a snazzy t-shirt. Win-win! 

The pants are always greener — farewell, Stu McKinlay

Yeastie Boys Dioramarama (Golding's Free Dive, 1 October 2013)
Yeastie Boys Dioramarama — from their fifth birthday ‘zine; artwork by Jed Soane, colours by Em and myself, on a much-embiggened copy, over several enjoyable beers at Golding’s

This past weekend, the local — i.e., Wellington, but also New Zealand more generally — beer community exported one of its stalwarts, Stu McKinlay,1 best-known as a founder and large fraction of the Yeastie Boys. I first met him back in my Malthouse bartending days, at the debut of Pot Kettle Black, and it’s been excellent knowing him since. He was an early giver-of-encouraging-nudges to this very Beer Diary project, is officially a Friend Of The Show, and can frequently be found here disproving the old maxim of Don’t Read The Comments. I’m very much on board with his broader philosophies of beer; our disagreements are the quibbling-at-the-margins that happen among comrades. You never worry that he’s an opportunist, an interloping con-man, or anything other than a True Believer — he’s a proper mensch.

Yeastie Boys PledgeMe night: Digital IPA, tipjar and Dylan (Golding's Free Dive, 28 January 2015)
‘Make It Big’ night at Golding’s

After this January’s massively-successful crowdfunding push (no need for a disclaimer, here; I’m not among their new investors), Stu’s off to arrange for the UK-based production and from-there distribution of their beers, starting with Gunnamatta and Pot Kettle Black. Contract brewers from day one — with no pretensions to have or intentions to build a “bricks and mortar” HQ — they’ve found themselves freer to sidestep some of the annoying and complicated business of exporting and simply produce beer closer to its intended market. I find this kind of ‘Distributed Republic’2 model really appealing, not least because it lessens the shipping-around of masses of water and packaging materials. And this is altogether a more-promising example of the phenomenon: morally better than Stone’s recent and rather-disingenuous ‘campaign’3 to build breweries on the far U.S. coast and in Europe, and more loud-and-proud than ParrotDog and Panhead’s current contracting of keg beer in Melbourne for Australian consumption.

So here’s to good people making good money from good beer. And to a homegrown business expanding out into the world in a new, interesting and authentic way — not by resorting to distasteful nonsense,4 nor by subsuming itself within an existing conglomerate.5 I hope locals will raise a glass of beer (or a cup of tea, or a dram of whisky, since they’d all be appropriate)6 to toast their progress and speed Stu on his way. Please do look after him for us, Englishpersons and Other Antipodeans. I’m sure you’ll enjoy his company — in both senses of the word.


1: That’s him in the red pants, above, despite the title of this post, which just occurred to me while I was doing the dishes and wouldn’t get out of my brain until I wrote it down. It seemed vaguely punny and fitting for a celebrated colour-blocker moving to the other side of the world. 
2: To borrow a phrase / idea I’m most familiar with via Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash and Diamond Age — though I’m not madly keen on the association it has with libertarian techbros, to say the least. 
3: A story which went down mid-last-year, while I was on De Facto Hiatus and it was too much of a clusterfuck for me to manage to say anything much constructive. Glen Humphries’ trio of posts — the cash grab, the screw-up, and the cover-up — is excellent coverage from the time. 
4: By now, surely, you know who I mean. 
5: à la Emerson’s, of course, most recently and locally and notoriously. Not that that always goes badly, of course. In the next podcast episode — [SPOILER ALERT] — I have a few things to say about how well the past two years have turned out, for us and for them. 
6: Or anything you like. Or not at all. He’s a big advocate of the blessed subjectivity, so I’m sure he wouldn’t mind. 

Ich bin ein Radler

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

GABS 2012: Day Two & Three Photos, with Afterthoughts

GABS Weekend was genuinely awesome — and pretty-much exhausting. I just never caught up on the fact that my trip started with 26-odd-hours awake running on a mere two hours sleep. But these are trifling #firstworldproblems; I was having a marvellous time, giddy with beer-geek joy, doing a bit of volunteer monkey-work, meeting lovely people and sampling a surprisingly-modest few beers. I couldn’t keep up the standard I set on Day One, so will take the time now to post a few more photos and some very-preliminary afterthoughts I’ve thunk since.

— The People: Visitors

There were lots of people — ten-thousand-plus, distributed unevenly over the five sessions: a quiet and probably-valuable “soft” opening on Friday afternoon, a busier Friday night, the biggest crowd on Saturday afternoon, followed by a middling evening and a suitably-sedate Sunday — and they ranged massively from hard-core nerdy anoraks to “normal people”. The mix varied predictably (Friday night: more normal, Saturday day: more nerdy) but was never too lop-sided in either direction. They were good crowds, too; I have it on good authority that not one person was thrown out all weekend.

All those people and tasting paddles did stress the serving setup, and — ultimately — break it a few times. Queues got long, but people adapted by carrying multiple paddles and — barring minor flare-ups on Facebook and such — didn’t seem to let it ruin their mood. It’s a difficult event to design a system for, especially untested, and the organisers are wise to the issue and already talking about sensible-sounding revisions for next year.

Queue of visitors
Queue of visitors
People purchasing plural paddles
Purchasing plural paddles
Friday night cup-stackers
Friday night cup-stackers

— The People: Volunteers and Brewers

I was basically a backup-member of a few-hundred-strong volunteer army — I had a few duties at each session, but normal recruits did one or two full shifts. The economics of beer festivals is such that they’re basically always dependent on people working in exchange for a few tickets and tokens, and the fun of it, rather than regular wages. There was a lot of prep-and-re-prep to be done between sessions, on top of all those thousands of serves of beer, and swarms of coloured shirts got it done admirably.

Brewer presence is a tricky thing to figure out at beer festivals, too — it’s certainly a factor that Beervana needs to work on, and is working on — GABS-attending brewers had distinctive caps (though black hats all look alike at a distance, inevitably), but they also had a really-sweet VIP area (for which tickets were available to the public, at a premium price) with snacks and its own bar. Brewers were rare-ish on the main floor, but crowds were big and I still managed to meet a fair few — and, again, the organisers have already come up with a minor re-shuffle that should make them even easier to find, next year.

My wristbands
My wristbands
Bar 03's volunteers
Bar 03's volunteers
Tasting paddle return bin
Tasting paddle return bin
Guides and glasses set up pre-session
Guides and glasses set up pre-session
The easily-found Kjetil from Nøgne Ø
The easily-found Kjetil from Nøgne Ø
View from the VIP area
View from the VIP area

— The Food

Outside the building, through the big Southern doors, was a row of food vendors opening out of trailers and tents and whatnot. They were brilliantly varied, from pizza to curry, and reasonably-priced; basically perfect Festival Food. I didn’t have a dud snack or meal, and I had some absolute gems — particularly the gob-smackingly fantastic po’ boys from the guys in the Gumbo Kitchen truck, which was (rather brilliantly) playing things like the Treme soundtrack.

Po' Boy and fried shrimp
Po' Boy and fried shrimp
Argentine barbeque
Argentine barbeque
Paella pan
Paella pan

— First After-afterthoughts

It was a great weekend, and I’m very glad I made the trip. I’ve inherited my Dad’s engineer’s-eye for criticism and potential improvements, but basically all of them that came to mind were straight-away mentioned, unprompted, by Steve (the Festival Overboss) when I caught up with him late in Sunday’s session. He, and the rest of the organisers, are all over it. So I’m stowing most of them in my brain, satisfied that the wrinkles will be smoothed and next year will be even more awesome. I’m in.

GABS 2012: Day One Photos

So, I’m back in my dear old Melbourne taking full advantage of my well-timed unemployment to attend GABS: the Great Australasian Beer Spectapular. It’s rather a treat, and will warrant a proper write-up (or several), but I just want to use the last few moments before my sleep-deprived brain implodes to upload a few photos.

— The Location

The venue — the Royal Exhibition Building in Carlton Gardens — is right in my old neighbourhood (at the end of my genuinely lovely one-time ten minute walk to work, in fact), and it’s freakin’ gorgeous. The bars were in the East and West wings, renamed as the “Malt” and “Hops” Ends; the latter seeming to have just a bit more going on, which nicely fits the current state of the market and its fashions. The center contained a stage upon which a good collection of bands performed — usually slightly too loud.

Main Hall, looking East
Main Hall, looking East
Fountain and park outside
Fountain and park outside
Main hall, ceiling
Main Hall, ceiling
The Hops End
The Hops End
The Malt End
The Malt End
Main Hall, center
Main Hall, center

— The Beer

The selection of beer on offer — nearly sixty mostly-one-off brews from New Zealand and Australia — is headcrushingly varied and enticing. It skews somewhat to the experimental and odd, but not in a stuntish or boringly overblown way. The huge bars were well prepped and keyed mainly towards serving five-sample tasting trays, with payments all handled by familiar and ubiquitous tokens that help you forget just how much you’re spending. I kept things fairly sedate — I was slightly less sleep-deprived than now, but still extraordinarily so and had odd-job volunteer work to do off and on through the night. I had a tasting tray of the five mildest beers on offer (all ≤4.5% ABV), but later rewarded myself with a proper-glass nightcap of Garage Project’s ‘Double Day of the Dead’, a worthy (and embiggened) reincarnation of my Favourite Beer of 2012. There’s plenty more I want to try, but I am going to three more sessions; there’s time.

The Big Board part 1
The Big Board part 1
The Big Board part 2
The Big Board part 2
The Big Board part 3
The Big Board part 3
Bar 01, prepping
Bar 01, prepping
Bar 04, serving
Bar 04, serving
$2 GABS 2012 Token
$2 GABS 2012 Token
Row of taps
Row of taps
Sessionable tasting paddle
Sessionable tasting paddle
Double Day of the Dead
Double Day of the Dead