Tag Archives: from New Zealand

I/IPA Workshop

June 5, 2011 Phil 4 Comments

As the U.S. Hop Crisis — 2^nd Edition, after the 2007 price rice / demand spike / availability crunch — starts to make itself felt, with stories of hop-fueled local beers being backburnered and put on hiatus for maybe-years, a tasting session like this seems absurdly decadent; the sort of wanton profligacy that makes a proudly-middle-class boy like me feel slightly squiffy and embarrassed. Thinking back upon it now and writing it up feels weirdly like reminiscing about days spent swimming in champagne, using high-denomination bills to light cigars, and paying the wastrel children of the lower classes a pittance to cart me hither and yon in a goddamn sedan chair. But, like a beer-powered meat-based version of Hedonism Bot, I apologise for nothing. We had a great time, and I’d do it again — though I probably should do so soon, while I still can.

If this new hop shortage really is the big deal that some people suggest — i.e., if it’s not all just tulips in Holland, all over again — it’ll be utterly fascinating to see what distorting effect it has on the beer drinker’s palate. The New New Thing in a subculture like that of the Beer Fanatics is always changing, but it’s especially interesting when change is imposed from ‘outside’ by something like an ingredient shortage rather than just by whatever-the-fuck it is that usually drives the ebbs and flows of these things (in fashion, or pop culture, or any number of other fields). It’s possible that malt-forward beers will have an accidental renaissance, but if I have to put my Predicting Hat on, I’d have to guess that in the (relative) absence of hopness, we’ll see a marked uptick in weirdness. Hopheads seem to correlate rather strikingly with extremophiles, in general — them being peatfreaks with their whisky and ultra-spicy food afficionados, and whatnot — so we might see a surge in the funky and the sour and the generally-rather-freaky. I’d be entirely unsurprised if idiosyncratic yeastiness (with a side order of wood-aged peculiarity, perhaps) was the Next Big Thing — but ultimately, who knows?

Anyway. Simon & Jessie — them who I met way back at a Birthday Dinner for Robyn, and who were there for the ‘Beer 121’ tasting session — had just-recently gotten back from California, and brought with them some swag to share. They all tilted toward the kind of hop-stupid things for which the Americans are (deservedly) famous for, so we decided to do a three-and-three face-off — which, given our shared experience of spending way too long at university (with an average of more-than-one degree-per-person and two out of our five still studying, in our thirties), it quickly became known as a Postgrad Seminar in IPA, or the Double IPA Workshop.

— Epic ‘Armageddon’ (Auckland, NZ, 6.66%)

It’s fair to say that if you find yourself having a beer called ‘Armageddon’ to calibrate and zero-in your palate, you’re in for a pretty big night. This is something I’ve had umpteen times — though usually on tap, since it makes semi-regular appearances at work — and have really grown to enjoy. It’s probably a “little bit of column A; little bit of column B” scenario whether that’s because it’s improved or whether my tastes have just drifted in its direction, but I do remember finding it rather obnoxious when it made its début in the original ‘IPA Challenge’ at Malthouse, way back when. It definitely changed a lot through its Challenge Season Iterations, and has settled into being a suitably big IPA, with an enjoyably multi-note aroma and a solid malty body. Its pieces are well put together, and it does make for an interesting contrast against the Hop Zombie I’d been drinking a lot of, around the same time — Zombie is officially ‘stronger’, but has a lighter body, and/but has more-lush hop flavours that match it very well; the two are both big, they’re just differently big.

— Sierra Nevada ‘Hoptimum’ (Chico, California, 10.4%)

I’d seen ads for this in a few beer-related magazines that made their way into our Rack of Reading Material (thanks to generous / littering foreigners and wanderers) and utterly adored its label art. When Simon & Jessie told me that this was one of the IPAs they’d muled over, I was very excited to try it — but it just didn’t quite do it for me, tragically. The colour was stunning (with its warmly rosy tint), and the aroma (which took a little while to waft out, surprisingly given its strength) was pleasant (if unusually understated). But, for me, it was just too fat, too hot and too bitter — so bitter, on the palate. That’s no Gentleman Lupulus, on the label, that’s the Headless Hopsman — a scary motherfucker out for a revenge that he seems to assume can only be had by laying waste to your tastebuds. But, like I say in my notes, it still does exactly what it says it will. My dislike of it — much like my (apparent) dislike of 8 Wired ‘Superconductor’, which came later at Malthouse’s IPA Challenge (and I say “apparent” because I was off-and-on inflicted by nasty, flu-y, sense-impairing grossness at the time) — mirrors George’s dislike of ‘Rex Attitude’; I can honestly say (to the beer, I mean) that “It’s not you, it’s me”.

— Hallertau ‘Maximus Humulus Lupulus’ (Riverhead, NZ, 6.8%)

And so then back to something more familiar, to re-calibrate — and this must be the only real way to make the great-big Maximus flavours come across as light and refreshing. Originally brewed for the original Malthouse-hosted IPA head-to-head (against Epic’s ‘Armageddon’, no less), Maximus has also changed around a bit and is now steadily available as a member of Hallertau’s gorgeously-branded (and aptly-named) ‘Heroic Range’. Just like ‘Armageddon’, it was once the top rung of its brewery’s ladder in flavour-and-fiestiness terms but has since acquired a few more-full-on stablemates — and, of particular interest for me and my peculiarities, it spawned a midstrength sibling in the shape of the oh-so-lovely ‘Minimus’ (if only Epic’s family expanded in the downward direction, now that would be interesting…). It took us right back to ‘my kind’ of big-hoppy loveliness, after the assault of the ‘Hoptimum’, and that nose — my gawd it smells delicious. As we all noted at the time, it practically made Sierra Nevada’s Headless Hopsman smell like an empty glass that had held beer hours ago.

— Russian River ‘Pliny the Elder’ (Santa Rosa, California, 8%)

And then Pliny. About as famous a token of the type as you can get. I do very much like the way they relentlessly hammer home the plea / demand that you have your bottle in its best-possible condition (“Not for saving! Consume fresh or not at all!”, and all that, on and on and over again). It’s utterly-legendary status and the drink-it-fresh commandment make it difficult to ‘judge’ when you have it here at the bottom end of the world — a problem I struck once before — but this was in about as good a condition as you could’ve hoped for: Jessie and Simon were awesomely particular about it. When I check it’s “bottled on” date, I was momentarily taken aback by just how absurdly fresh it was — it appeared to have been bottled on the day before, until I remembered the inexcusably daft middle-endian nature of U.S. calendar notation. But still, the 6^th of April is pretty-damn-recent, when you’re drinking on the 5^th of June. And it is great. I’m still not convinced that it’s absolutely the best damn pale ale ever to have graced our humble universe, as so many people attest, but it’s astonishingly lovely stuff and remarkably well-balanced and put-together. George speculated that its reputation might, in addition to a bit of the Emperor’s New Pale Ale effect, be bolstered by a sort of Watchmen-esque place in people’s minds, earning extra credit for being gate-crashingly ahead of the curve in its day.

— Mike’s Organic Double India Pale Ale (Urenui, NZ, 9%)

Last of the locals in the lineup was Mike’s IIPA. Bookending a legend like Pliny with a couple of small-brewery offerings seems like an intimidating or unfair thing to do with the little guys, but it was genuinely awesome to see how well they stand up — they Americans really don’t leave us in the dirt on this score, if anyone was worrying. My original plan was to have 8 Wired ‘Hopwired’ in this slot, but the Mike’s makes an admirable substitute (as it’s done in a tasting or two that I’ve hosted, when stocks of 8 Wired were scarce). It throws a bit of that characteristically-American pineyness into the mix, and stands as a big, solid, somewhat-sweet monolith of a thing. There’s a fair amount of truth to the rule-of-thumb that 330ml offerings from Mike’s will be well-made, if slightly mainstreamy (out of commercial necessity), but the big-ass 750ml bottles may well blow your mind. Batch #2 of the IPA certainly held its own in a difficult crowd, and while I continue to not remotely give a damn about the certified-organic nature of the enterprise, it is impressive that they can do what they do with that extra constraint.

— Dogfish Head ‘90 Minute’ IPA (Milton, Delaware, 9%)

And then finally — and it was an enjoyable ordeal, heavy-laden with booze and hops as it was — we had a Dogfish Head ‘90 Minute’ to finish. It presented in the same heavy-orange tone as the Mike’s before it, but was shiningly clear. I’ve had this several times before and count it (and plenty of its siblings from the same brewery) among my favourites. Something about it fits nicely with the experimentalist spirit, too — its last appearance on here was as part of a side-by-side with its 60-minute brother. It’s big and glorious and suitably night-cappy, although you may be able to see (if you scroll way up to the original ‘Lineup’ photo) that we actually finished things off with a different-but-slightly-similar Croucher ‘Patriot’, just to reset from all these hoppy pale ales and have something dark with our dessert. We all got a distinct ‘vanilla’ note out of the 90 Minute, although at that late stage, our palates had taken a pounding and we may have been in the thrall of a mass hallucination. This is why you end a great-big tasting with something you already know, I suppose.

But it was a bloody-marvellous evening, all round. Two definite take-home lessons stand out, to my mind: 1) that local brewers really are very good indeed, there really is no need for any kind of Small Country Shyness (not that we often exhibit it, but it’s nice to be reassured), and that 2) beer is a many-splendoured thing; even when you pick a pretty-narrow corner of its spectrum of styles like IIPA, there’s a lot of variety to be had. Beer can be, you could say, fractally lovely stuff — the loveliness needn’t degrade, just because you zoom in closer.

Verbatim: Postgrad Workshop: I/IPA 5/6/11 @ George & Robyn’s 1) Epic Armageddon To calibrate, and ZOMBIE wasn’t around. Toffee-ish. Less one-note than PALE ALE. Massively contentious label text. 2) Sierra Nevada ‘Hoptimum’ Less aromatic, way more bitter in the face. Gorgeous glowing rosier colour. The label is misleading, until you see him as the Headless Hopsman. 10.4% Jeebus. Fat. More aromatic as it warms. But still maybe not the sure thing it should’ve been? Though it does do what it says on the tin. 3) Hallertau ‘Maximus Humulus Lupulus’ The first time it’ll seem light + refreshing. Biggest nose so far. Paler, hazier, peachier. HOPTIMUM now smells like an empty glass. 4) Russian River ‘Pliny the Elder’ Again, with a much better travel provenance. Fresh, too. Bottled on the 6th of April, or yesterday, if the Americans used sensible dates. Fruitier, definitely well-balanced. Geroge is right that it’s Watchmen-y, in that it’d be mind-blowing a generation ago, but it’s still absolutely great, in context. 5) Mike’s IPA Batch #2. Piney + fruity + a bit sweet — though we’ve now got spicy pizza competing. 6) Dogfish Head ’90 Minute’ IPA. Same colour, but clear. Definite vanilla streak in there, now. Weird. Bloody marvellous finisher.

Actual Diary entries

8 Wired ‘Batch 18’

June 3, 2011 Phil 2 Comments

This is ‘anniversary beer’ done right. And good god damn is it done right. I am peculiarly fond of ‘occasion beer’ and so do love it when brewers mark special moments with special beers. But when they’re afterthoughts, or half-assed, or tokenistic, then they’re just sad. Tuatara’s ‘X’ Anniversary Ale last year was one of those (for me, and just to pick the example that comes most-readily to mind) with its bungled packaging and uninspiring recipe — though it has to be said that this year’s offering was considerably better on all fronts, but we’ll get to that in its own turn, soon enough. Suffice it to say, though — as I already have done, twice — that ‘Batch 18’ is no let-down; it’s a freakin’ masterpiece.¹

8 Wired really did hit the ground running back in late 2009, with a lovely brown ale (which came to be known as ‘Rewired’, but initially carried the somewhat-awkward name ‘All of the Above’), then an attention-grabbing local-produce-celebrating pale ale (in ‘Hopwired’), and onwards to an ever-expanding frequently-impressively-experimental range of beers. Most-recently, the still-relatively-new brewery’s rise was marked by taking out the “Best Brewery” gong at the beer awards this year — an achievement that was utterly deserved and generated seemingly-none of the usual beer geek grumbles or quibbles with such awards.

But ‘Batch 18’ was in the works long before that. According to Søren’s characteristically-useful label text, the plan was to celebrate an “anniversary” with their eighth batch, setting calendar-based timing aside and leaning instead on that numeral in their name. Things were way too busy when #8 rolled around, so they pushed it back to #18; do it right, or don’t do it at all. I just love that;² it takes balls to delay something obviously-occasion-based past its actual date, merely in the name of doing it right — just try, those of you with spouses,³ to skip an anniversary and see how much compensatory awesomeness is required in return. This, though? This gets away with it; it’s massive and elaborate and you wouldn’t want to’ve done it in a rush. It’s a big imperial stout, fundamentally, but definitely isn’t just a slightly blinged-up version of their bloody-lovely ‘iStout’. Rather, it’s brewed with two different yeast strains, dosed up with jaggery (a raw sugar, which throws in some interesting flavours and helps kick the alcoholic strength up a few notches), infused with coffee, aged for a few months in oak barrels, infused with more coffee — before finally being bottled up and wrapped in a gorgeous-but-simple label that implores you to a) share, and b) be brave.

So I did, and I was. After I was done for the night, I sat at the bar and poured out five glasses — while admittedly bogarting the biggest glass for myself. We were all struck by the forceful nature of the nose of it, on first whiff. This was not a beer that was shy about letting you know that a lot would be going on in the glass. It doesn’t warn you away, but it does warn you nonetheless. There’s a distinct booziness to it (it is 12.5%, after all), and that must help waft all those aromas up out of the glass. All the components are quite obviously doing something, and can certainly be picked out individually if you try hard enough — but it’s also a deft exercise in Flavour Jenga; they’re piled in a great big stack, but not precariously or without balance. They combine in interesting ways, too, stitching together into interestingly-unexpected notes like the “blue cheese and pears” comparison that Jono hit upon.

I’ve got two more of these, sitting in my stash at work. I should drag one out now (well, not now, since it’s 4.30am as I write this) and have it in celebration of the Champion Brewery trophy, and then I might just leave the other bottle to sit and wait until their calendar-birthday rolls around later this year. Søren was pretty sure that the coffee flavour would ease right off over time, but it was still nicely present in the bottles we had at a Weta Digital beer tasting not too long ago — so there’s an element of Science! to my plan, not just an attempt at delayed gratification and blatant act of hoarding. Thought it is those, also.

Verbatim: 8 Wired ‘Batch 18’ 3/6/11 500ml ÷ 5 with Peter, Haitch, Jono + Katie (the new girl) 12.5% $15-ish @ Reg. Bloody nice idea, well pitched and executed bang on. A little terrifying in your nose, but not in a bad way. Fumey + funky — blue cheese + pears, we think. Definitely hot + lingering on the palate, and you can definitely taste all the components. I said “definitely” twice. That’s telling. It’s a bit crazy, but in a charming kind of way, not (just) an off-putting one.

1: Hell, given the elaborate recipe and execution, it comes close to being a “masterpiece” in the older-school sense of the thing that signifies the turn from journeyman to craftsman. But that’s not how the Brewer’s Guild works, these days, despite the name. I have to say that, now I mention it (to myself so far, obviously), I can’t shake the suspicion that it’s a pretty neat idea…
2: I’m a habitual procrastinator, as you might be able to discern from the disparity between the dates of Diary entries and the dates on which they appear, here. When I feel the need to defend myself, usually just to myself, this is the line I run most often.
3: “Spice”?

Actual Diary entries

Invercargill ‘Sa!son’

June 3, 2011 Phil 5 Comments

Invercargill Brewery really is the unsung workhorse of the local beer scene — or insufficiently-sung, at least. I was re-struck by that thought when I was writing about their utterly-delightful ‘Pitch Black’ stout, and I’ll take the chance to just repeat myself now, if you don’t mind. If, while staying busy running contract-brews, you can produce a range that includes a stout, an easy and accessible lager, and a motherfucking saison — then you are a very clever chap, indeed.

Saison is, as a style, well within the realm of the weird — both for its inherent, peculiar, funky and contradictory flavours and for the genuine oddness of some of the devotees it attracts (though they’re not quite as peculiar, in the main, as habitual gueuze-drinkers). One of the local craft beer scene’s elder statesmen, Fraser McInnes (who may not ever forgive me for using “elder” or “statesman” to describe him) is especially fond of them and was, for a while, helping us out at the Malthouse. On a Friday, his going-home time roughly coincided with my half-way-through time, and so I picked this up to share with him when he was done and I was in need of a mid-shift treat.

The seemingly out-of-place exclamation point is, I believe, a reference to the often-forgotten fact that when D.B. registered their now-infamous (and still-standing) “Radler” trademark, they also snagged “Saison” — despite that being equally daft, for the exact same reasons. D.B. did quietly abandon the Saison mark,¹ so the Bowdlerised version isn’t really necessary, but it remains a nicely-timed and well-aimed poke in the ribs — clever and funny enough that my Inner Sarcastic Bastard easily wins out over any complaining from my Inner Punctuation Nerd.

And it was delightful. The background-level of peculiarity never got in the way of the deliciousness of it all, which was a very welcome trick for it to pull. It’s gorgeously light and fruity — the label is absolutely right that there’s tangerine and passionfruit flavours kicking around in there, but the zestiness of the thing really made me think particularly of the dry, powdery sparkle you get flying off the freshly-ripped peel of a tangerine on a hot day. We were drinking this in a fairly-seriously wintery patch, but now that the weather has turned back towards the warm-and-sunny, I’ll definitely have to give it another go — the label’s text says that the beer tastes like a “bittersweet memory of summer”, and that couldn’t have been more bang on, really. And there was certainly a properly-Saisonny funk going on in here, too; they hadn’t just wimped out and sacrificed it entirely, for the sake of more mass-market appeal. It was firmly in the background, but it was artfully placed there for balance’s sake, rather than relegated to an out-of-the-way corner, in shame.

Verbatim: Invercargill ‘Sa!son’ 3/6/11 330ml $5.50 @ Reg 6.5% ÷ 2 with Fraser, since this is very much his favourite kind of thing. Nice DB-prod with the name, too. Does exactly as it says; light fruit nose (they say tangerine & passionfruit — which is right, but with the powdery peel of the former, too); zesty body that still manages to be nicely smooth under the lively bubbles. Deftly funky, not fraughtly so. Actually pretty damn lovely. Given the current weather and its suitability for their opposite, their “bittersweet memory of summer” note is perfect. The funk-level is James Brown on the stereo next door — when you were in the mood to listen to him anyway, but too lazy to get out of your chair.

1: God knows what they were planning on doing with it. I’m not sure if they intended on creating some non-saisonny “Saison” — much like their 5%, no-lemonade “Radler” — or whether they were going to try and buy some exotic, foreign-language flair for their “Summer Ale”. In any case, cooler heads prevailed. If only they had with the whole sad Radler debacle.

Actual Diary entries

Renaissance ‘Craftsman’ 2011

June 1, 2011 Phil Leave a comment

Gawd, it has been a while.

But it all rounds out in an oddly-nice way as I sit here and write about an absurdly, magnificently, madly chocolatey beer while eating some of the very-last (at last!) of my ultra-massive birthday cake — it seemed to be made of chocolate, chocolate, chocolate and some other kinds of chocolate. This whole week (since my actual birthday, last Tuesday; it’s late on September 4 as I write this) has put that whole “you can’t have your cake and eat it” cliché in a bin and thoroughly given it a pounding with cricket bats. It turns out that if some lovely-lovely people buy you a sufficiently massive cake, you can have it all week and eat it all week, too.

‘Craftsman’ had its re-launch at work way back in June — the value of t isn’t quite in the triple-digits, at least — shortly after it scooped the Champion Stout trophy at the Australian International Beer Awards. George and I were just recording a podcast episode today in which we discussed the various oddnesses of beer awards in general, so it’s additionally-fitting that I finally get around to this one, now. Whatever their issues — and let’s, for a moment, leave aside a) the peculiar way in which beer-judging works and b) the traditional Miniturised Industrial-looking Piece of Thing theme that all the trophies seem to go for — it remains a lovely moment when a deserving beer picks up an award and gives you yet another opportunity to shake the hand of the people from the brewery and congratulate them on the goodness of what they do.

I’d had a lovely afternoon, and had forgotten entirely that this was making its return that night. But on seeing the tap badge, quickly grabbing a tasting glass, and having just the merest sniff of it, I was instantly transported into a state of giddy, child-like glee. The nose of it is just perfect chocolate; like birthday cake, or a craving-ending snack, or an easter egg you found under the bed just when you were regretting having eaten them all already. The ultra-choc character comes from combining an oatmeal stout base with additional doses of cocoa nibs and vanilla. The latter was eased-off a little this year, and I think that was definitely the right move; last year’s edition had the same grin-inducing chocolatey loveliness, but got perhaps a little sticky by the time you’d made it most of the way through your pint. Here, everything’s in marvellous balance. That may be an odd-looking trophy, but it’s one damn well-earned.

(And in one final piece of nice, spooky timing, I closed my Diary entry with a mention of “The Barry White Joke”, a phrase that harks all the way back to Emerson’s sadly-retired Oatmeal Stout, and which I last noted here while rambling about Emerson’s ‘Grace Jones’ Porter — a ‘Brewers’ Reserve’ beer which has, itself, just been re-released. I had some tonight at Hop Garden, and it was tasting great.)

Verbatim: Renaissance ‘Craftsman’ 2011 1/6/11 @ MH. Launch of the new edition, which did very well over at the AIBA. Always nice to have Brian in the house, too. Me and Haitch were both reduced to wordless joy with our tasters — me probably helped along by still being on a bit of a high from a lovely afternoon. It’s just gorgeous. The vanilla is toned-back from last year, making it worryingly drinkable — I liked the 2010, but it did get a bit sticky. It’s liquid chocolate, dry and cocoa-y and dark. A worthy new target referent for my Barry White joke.

Actual Diary entries

Yeastie Boys ‘Fools Gold’

May 31, 2011 Phil 5 Comments

Given its provenance, I think it’s safe to assume that the name here is more a Stone Roses reference than an Iron Pyrite one. But hey; you never know — just when you think you’ve got their naming scheme figured-out, they do go and change things on you.¹

If you’re me — and I am, if you think about it — the name works especially since it combines my fondness for golden ales with the fact that my nieces have long called me “Uncle Fool”. I don’t know whether it started from classic two-year-old language-mangling or from a particularly-early activation of the Cook Family Bastard Sarcasm gene. But it passed from Niece I to Niece II, and will probably become part of Nephew I’s lexicon, once he starts finding his words. I kinda like it, I must say.

Meanwhile, the value of t has embiggened itself embarrassingly, thanks to recurring computer issues and a particularly vicious visit from an hospitality-worker winter lurgy. So this is fast drifting into the dark recesses of my already-enfeebled memory, but I can say that I absolutely loved it — short on particulars why as I admittedly am.

But it all makes sense, in a weird sort of way; I was at Hop Garden again just yesterday (for their absurdly-sublime burger, which had Yeastie Boys ‘PKB’ as an ingredient, no less) and something about the absolute depths of a stupidly-freezing winter night does make at least part of your mind turn back to warmer days — even if you are famously fond of colder weather and are basically-obliged to think back that far anyway, since you’ve become so far behind in uploading your Beer Diary.

As I say, I’m always up for a good golden ale — they’re the warm-weather obsession which matches my winter fondness for oatmeal stouts — and this was a nicely punchy one that suited a snackfest of Hop Garden’s big-fat-fries and salt-and-pepper squid (the latter matching unusually well, with its higher-than-usual pepperiness). To me at least, Fools Gold straddled the line between your modern light-and-lush golden ales and your more-classic paler-than-pale English pale ales; different, but still delicious. I only managed to have a couple of pints before it was gone from the City’s taps, so I presume I wasn’t the only one who found it a charming little uncomplicated and worthy thing. Peter and I were just mooching around town in honour of the fact he was finally free of his University responsibilities — and, given my nearly-interminable history with those places, I have complete sympathy with the need for a pint or several to mark the ending of such things.

Verbatim: Yeastie Boys ‘Fool’s Gold’ 31/5/11 on tap @ HG, with Peter, who is now free of Uni, and with fries + salt-and-very-pepper squid. Apparently 4%, which is marvellous. Pitched as “pale ale”, it’s a nicely punchy golden. It was handpulled @ HZ, but I always prefer these bubbly. Goes gangbusters with “dinner”, such as I have. More forceful than a lush Three Boys Golden; but just different, not remotely ‘inferior’.

1: Personally, I’m really hoping it’s actually a reference to a Fool’s Gold Loaf — a sandwich (I use the term oh-so-loosely) popularised by none other than Elvis Presley. Fittingly, it’s a hollowed-out whole loaf, crammed with a jar of peanut butter and a whole ’nother jar of grape jelly — and a motherfucking pound of bacon. I’m seriously tempted to make one and maybe go on to produce a whole series of Elvis Meal Time videos.

Actual Diary entries

Renaissance / 8 Wired / Yeastie Boys ‘Rescue Red’

May 26, 2011 Phil 4 Comments

Around a year ago, Luke Nicholas was talking to Sam Calagione and was able to apparently-accurately say that their ‘Portamarillo’ would be New Zealand’s second-ever collaborative brew — after the also-with-Luke Epic / Thornbridge Stout. Now, they’re everywhere.

To maybe-needlessly hammer the point: Galbraith’s Alehouse is currently hosting several brewers as part of a ‘Great Brewers Cask Ale Series’; Liberty and Mike’s made a neighbourly project in the form of a ‘Taranaki Pale Ale’; what the Epic-led ‘Mash Up’ lacks with its loosely-defined sense of “collaboration” it more than makes up for with its relatively-massive scope; and at this year’s IPA Challenge at the Malthouse alone, damn-near half the beers were collaborations to some degree or other.¹

They seem like such a characteristically beer industry thing, too. I’m not sure if the wine folk are too snobbish to ever put their heads together and make something in the ‘rising tide lifts all boats’ spirit of a collaboration — perhaps they consider their boat sufficiently risen, or perhaps I usually just stay far enough away from grape juice that I don’t hear of such projects, if they do exist. Whatever; they’re a wonderful thing, and it’s great news that the trend (a very North American thing, it’d be fair to say) has crashed upon our shores. Long may it, and the spirit that propels it, continue.

And so here with are with ‘Rescue Red’, as it eventually came to be known, after a flurry of potential titles. A three-party project from Renaissance, 8 Wired and Yeastie Boys, it was brewed as a fundraiser for relief efforts in Canterbury and Queensland. Brew day was documented by Jed Soane, and the official write-up is well worth a read (and not merely by the usual standards for press releases). It’s a suitably multi-faceted thing; a sessionable, hoppy amber ale, fermented with a saison yeast. I like all of those features — in descending order, essentially — but it kept throwing enough curveballs that even after several decent-sized tastes, I wasn’t sure if I liked it. I continued to go back to it, though, which probably entails that I did like it — or at least I was a) fascinated, and b) non-repulsed.

Entirely fittingly, then, its actual appearance in my notes reigns supreme as the Grand Champion Distracted Diary Entry Of All Time; I entirely abandoned my first attempt, unfinished, and had to start afresh the next day. On the night of the initial datestamp, Jillian — her the Newfoundlander of the cigarette-lighter sign-writing — showed up at work just as I was finishing a round of Kegtris. It wasn’t long until she was due to continue her overseas explorings and head over the Big Country, so we took that as a fair-enough excuse to make a bit of a night of it — which involved borderline-gatecrashing a house party at which neither of us really knew anyone, dancing like lunatics to a fucking-marvellous and entirely-random ragtime band,² and some generally-enjoyable wandering-around-town. Awesome fun. Hence the ‘Nope; I’ll write about this later’.

In the end, I’m fairly sure I did enjoy ‘Rescue Red’, although it probably picked up a few Circumstantial Bonus Points — not that I ever object to those; hardly-relevant surrounding happenings are always going to colour your opinion of a thing, and you’d be a fool to try and stop them entirely doing so. It was definitely quirky and interesting, without being obnoxiously so in that awful trying-too-hard kind of way. The saisonny funk, conspicuous hops and rich red malt all got along together very well, however much they might look clashy on paper — after all, it might appear that organising a fridge, someone else’s party, and a chance encounter with swing music wouldn’t work well together, either; these things can surprise you occasionally. And you’d do well to let them.

Verbatim: Yeastie Boys / 8 Wired / Renaissance ‘Rescue Red’ 26/5/11 4.8% on tap @ MH $10, but not so bad, because proceeds go to Queensland & Canterbury. “Hoppy red saison”, they say, with typical disregard for… everything — 27/5/11, restarting, with another. I was too distracted last time. Not in a bad way. I keep trying this, because I’m not sure if I like it — but I guess this kinda means I do. It’s enjoyably peculiar, but not overly or flashily so. Gorgeously red, too. Faintly berry-ish, the funk making it like cranberries on the turn.

1: i.e., Yeastie Boys and Liberty, twice; Townshend and Greig McGill of Brewaucracy; Moa’s Dave Nicholls with some help from Malthouse Overboss Colin Mallon; and a ‘Four Horsemen’ hophead supergroup collaboration in the shape of Luke Nicholas & Kelly Ryan of Epic, Steve Plowman from Hallertau, and Liberty’s Joseph Wood, again.
2: Namely, the Roseneath Centennial Ragtime Band. They play pretty-regularly around Wellington, it seems, and there are sample tracks available on their MySpace page.^a
— a: Meanwhile, Myspace still exists?

Actual Diary entries

Invercargill ‘Pitch Black’

May 23, 2011 Phil 5 Comments

The aforementioned ‘St. Bernard’ was proving a popular guest, and comparisons to ‘Pitch Black’ (made, unprompted, by quite a few people) had kept up enough that a couple of circuits of my ever-skeptical brain had started to fire up and crackle with the question of whether we were all just being nostalgic for that weirdly-long-lost (on tap, at least) old favourite. And I never really get annoyed with those careful, questioning bits of my brain — because they provide a damn-good excuse to retry something, you know, for Science!’s sake.¹

Nostalgia, and its opinion-inflating effect, can be fairly problematic in the beer world — as much as it can be anywhere else, I suppose. People often seem overly-fond of something they discovered on holiday, or think something isn’t as good as it used to be, or swear that something imported is always “better back home”. None of those are nonsense scenarios, of course: the enjoyment of beer is an ineliminably circumstantial thing, some recipes really are sacrificed over time (given the need to make ever-increasing quantities, or in an attempt to chase a more mainstream drinker — or both), and — all else being equal — something probably is better close to its source than after a long journey. Memory in general is problematic, of course. Mine, particularly so — hence the Diary itself.

But no, on this occasion, we’re all good. Every positive thought that lingers in your mind about Invercargill’s sessionable little stout is probably bang on. I tried this again, after probably more than a year, and after a relative boatload of delightful little somethings-similar — and it was still crackingly fantastic. There is some serious wizardry involved in cramming such dense deliciousness into such a small four-point-five-percent frame. That’s cleverness, that is; artistry, even. It’s got the flavour of a much-heavier thing — big, smooth, coffee-milkshake smoothness. In its own terms, in its own weight division, it is damn close to perfection — and you have to suspect that, in a head-to-head, it could beat the tar out of a fair few members of the heavyweight classes. If Pitch Black started liberally quoting classic Muhmmad Ali smack-talk, there’d be no cause for complaint — on the simple (and also-very-Ali) grounds that it ain’t braggin’, if it’s the truth.

And once you pause for a minute — hell, take six-minutes-forty-nine-seconds, and watch the relevant episode of NZ Craft Beer TV — to consider the dizzying range that they release under their own name and the stuff they brew for Yeastie Boys and the Mussel Inn and others, you really have to be a little bit in awe of Steve Nally and his little brewery near the end of the World. If you happen to be wearing a hat, take it off to them — if you’ve not got one on your noggin right now, go get one; they deserve the gesture.

Verbatim: Invercargill ‘Pitch Black’ Stout 23/5/11 330ml 4.5% Speaking of which! $8 @ MH Worried we were just being nostalgic, but inspired to test after Jono had one earlier. And no, we’re good. This stuff is delicious. Big flavour on a lightweight thing, and very well balanced. Coffee milkshake kinda smoothness to it, with a nicely cocoa-powder bitter fizzle at the end.

1: I’ve always had a bit of a case of science-envy. I mean, I have a humanities degree. I never get to do actual science, though I have plenty of friends who do (in some very impressive ways), so I tend to overstate things when I do anything properly experimental.

Actual Diary entries

Townshend ‘St. Bernard’s’ Oatmeal Stout

May 19, 2011 Phil Leave a comment

I bloody loves Oatmeal Stout, I do — especially in the winter; it’s basically the off-season equivalent of my recurring summertime Golden Ale obsession. There is just something absurdly comforting about a good one, and I’ve been blessed by more than a few fine examples, lately, ranging from sessionable ones like this or my recent Little Creatures ‘Single Batch’ Oatmeal Stout, to crazy-big things like Liberty’s ‘Never Go Back’ (coming up in a few entries’ time, spoiler alert).

Delightfully, also, just as I was scanning this batch of Diary pages and uploading a fresh chunk of photos, my house was filled with the ridiculously-promising aroma of an oatmeal stout brewing. My flatmate has one on the go — it’s currently in the cupboard under the stairs, happily burbling away and fermenting, and is yet another reminder that I really should get back to brewing, myself. (Although if I start taking photos of and writing notes about beers I’ve made myself, everything might collapse into a singularity of weirdness — however necessary the note-taking will be, given my rubbish memory.)

A sessionable-or-nearly-so handpulled stout is a brilliant thing on a cold evening, and this one is the closest we’ve ever come to placating our one regular who has never quite forgiven us for no longer having Invercargill’s ‘Pitch Black’ as a permanent fixture (or even as an occasional guest; it’s been ages since we’ve had it on tap, mysteriously). I’m entirely unsure whether we’re supposed to go with the -nerd or -nard pronunciation, but that might be down to my general dislike of dogs and non-membership of any sort of tradition that gives a damn about “saints” — come to that, I’ve no real clue whether it’s named after the dogs, one of the eponymous saints, or any of the other various candidates.

Martin Townshend himself was at work not long ago, in town for our ‘West Coast I.P.A. Challenge’. He seemed a properly lovely chap, and that moment where you get to wander up to a brewer, shake their hand, and say “you make great beer” is always a great one. I do love that beer remains like that; you can still do that without seeming strange or fanboyish, and you’d be hard-pressed to find a brewer who’d give you a “and who the fuck are you?” look in return — they all seem genuinely chuffed to know people like what they make.

And Townshend really can be relied upon to make lovely and likeable beer, and their old-school authenticity appeals to a good number of our English / formerly-English / just-a-lot-of-time-in-England regulars. This stout was no exception; dry, fresh and light (with a cleanness that my weird-seeming “licking the inside of a used instant coffee jar” note attempted to convey), but still possessed of a very satisfying presence and bitterness. It didn’t last long on our taps, victim of its own success and all, but hopefully it’ll be back soon.

Verbatim: Townshend ‘St. Bernard’s’ Oatmeal Stout 19/5/11 pint on tap @ MH. From Nigel, with Kevin et. al.. Second only to Pitch Black, we say, as a sessionable black beer. Dry, powdery — like licking the inside of a used instant coffee jar. Not at all stodgy (which isn’t to imply that stodgy is always bad, of course); surprisingly light but still rich. Satisfyingly bitter.

Actual Diary entries

Monteith’s ‘Single Source’

May 13, 2011 Phil 5 Comments

Once more unto the brandwank, dear friends, once more.

— Not quite Henry V

This one positively reeks of being a project out of the marketing department rather than one with its origins in the brain of a brewer, beer drinker, or normal person. At the time I’m putting this post together (in early July), a cursory Google search still more-readily produces write-ups concerning the beer’s branding (such as its packaging and website) than it does things which address, you know, the beer itself. The ‘pitch’ is simple: a beer produced using ingredients from just one barley farm, and just one hop farm.

But immediately, of course, there’s a snag. That’s not “Single Source” at all. I’ve mentioned two farms already. And then there’s a brewery in Timaru — not at either farm, and not anywhere near the home of Monteith’s in Greymouth on the West Coast. The water is from the area around the brewery, but the yeast is from god-knows-where and doesn’t actually rate a mention. So that’s four sources for a modern beer’s four canonical ingredients, two (i.e., half) of which aren’t really discussed, and a muddling of a historic (small-town) brewery with a modern (national) ‘brand’. If they were talking about an estate beer, made with barley and hops grown at the brewery, it might be worthy of the title — and such things do exist.¹ Here, they’ve gone 1) catchy name, 2) half-assery.

Their precious Latitude / Longitude references don’t even make any damn sense. The location given for the origin of the hops — with its six decimal places — traces them to the grower’s front garden, rather than his fields. There’s some mention of the hop-farmer thinking his Southern Cross hops were particularly suited to the ‘microclimate’ in his garden in the official writeup, but there don’t appear to be any actually growing in that part of his property, and if they are just from his front yard, how ridiculously few have they used? Then, the coordinates for the barley — with their even-more-insane seven decimals — appear to point to the farmer’s driveway, or at least the hedgerow that runs along it. Something’s amiss; given their relative proportions in the brewing process, there’s just no way you could be more precise about the source of your barley than of your hops. And I called attention to their decimal places for good reason: six digits narrows you down to a tenth of a metre, seven digits basically gets you within a single centimeter. It’s an utterly stupid degree of “accuracy”, one that is just bursting with wank and ironically so “precise” it’s just obviously wrong. Three decimal places would pinpoint an area of roughly a hundred-or-so metres, and would thereby count as information rather than just bullshit.

On top of that, as Matt Kirkegaard pointed out (when he held his nose and read their over-inflated press release), it’s an absolutely bizarre kind of self-undermining bullshit if you stop to think about it for more than a second. It accidentally implies all sorts of terrible things about the beers in the same range: that they’re made without any real care or attention paid to the quality of their ingredients, that they’re utterly divorced from their roots (fitting for ‘Radler’, perhaps, but hardly inkeeping with the story for their ‘Original Ale’), and they’re not really worth protecting from getting lightstruck and skunked. If you go to conspicuous lengths to emphasise something apparently-worthy about one of your products, it starts to look rather odd that you aren’t really worried about that allegedly-serious concern when it comes to your others.

This isn’t remotely unique to Monteith’s and “Single Source”, of course. The same thing happens with the aggressively ‘all-natural’ marketing of Steinlager “Pure” — just what the fuck sort of witchcraft and chemical buggery and radioactive goo are they telling me is lurking in regular Steinlager? It’s probably partially a by-product of different projects being farmed out to different ad agencies, but it’s in particularly stark relief with this black-bottled, relentlessly brandwanked beer — especially given the fuckups the execution of its ‘story’, and the incredible sameyness of the product. And they have the unmitigated gall (amidst a fancy-pants website that tries desperately to be Down Home and simultaneously Ultra Modern) to describe their goal as:

A beer that didn’t need to rely on hype to be appreciated. A beer for the love of beer, if you like.

To which I have two-and-a-half responses: 1) like balls — and 2) if that was the plan, then a) you failed, and b) why all the, you know, hype? The beer isn’t terrible, at least. It’s the usual kind of basically-faultless but basically-featureless sort of thing we’ve come to expect from this corner of the market. It felt a bit like the label copy had been written in advance, or by someone who’d never met the beer (or perhaps a dictionary); it definitely wasn’t “aromatic”, though it did have a funk-free and pleasant mild nose, and it was certainly more in the realm of what normal people would call “smooth” than “crisp” (the lager-advertiser’s fallback adjective).

If we put it in its proper context of overly-marketed mild-to-flavourless lagers with delusions of grandeur, then I suppose I’d rather have one of these than a Budweiser. In that sense, and in that sense alone, it’s alright. But, to borrow the masterful conclusion from Hadyn Green’s piece on the subject:

In the end the fakers always lose, or run off following some other trend… Craft beer is like comic collecting, antiquing, cave diving, wine drinking or any other hobby — the interest for the enthusiast is the story. But the story can’t be tacked onto a paper-thin attempt. No one cares about the director’s commentary on a terrible film.

The beer itself is a non-disaster, and yet everything about “Monteith’s Single Source” is a clusterfuck of awfulness. Each word literally fails; the ad-man’s version of the world requires that you 1) ignore “Monteith’s”, lest you think less of their other products for lacking the prized black bottle, 2) not understand the word “single” or have any idea what goes into a beer or how many varieties might be used, and 3) not actually look up the “source” using the coordinates provided, in case you realise that their absurdly long string of digits is rather hollow and stupid and possibly some peculiar sort of geographical / mathematical equivalent to the kind of large, flashy (and, you know, overcompensatory) cars some men feel the need to be seen driving.

Verbatim: Monteith’s ‘Single Source’ Lager 13/5/11 330ml 5% @ MH Some 30th Birthday resonance with my Steinlager Edge, and a nice reminder that Moa aren’t the only local brandwankers. The ‘pitch’ is offensively daft, overwrought and ironically-damning of their main range. And it’s not single source, is it? The beer is freakishly pale — maybe the black bottle blocks out too much sun… Faint nose, mercifully funkless. Certainly not “aromatic”, though. Nice intial feel (though it’s more smooth than “crisp”), but the flavour, such as it is, is quickly tied to a piano and pushed off a bridge. It’s very nothing. A sad, wasted opportunity.

Monteith's 'Single Source', wanky ramble

1: So no, marketing division, this isn’t “a revolutionary new beer”. Even if you had made something genuinely “single source”, you wouldn’t have been the first.

Actual Diary entries

Epic ‘Hop Zombie’ IIPA

May 12, 2011 Phil 10 Comments

This must be the most-launched beer in recent memory. There was a first launch at Pomeroy’s in Christchurch, and then another at the Malthouse in Wellington (occasionally referred to as the “North Island launch”, in a weirdly straw-clutchy way). A week later, during Good Beer Week in Melbourne, at the delightful Cookie (a former occasional haunt of mine), there was an erroneously-billed “world premiere”, at which the beer itself was accidentally referred to by its in-house project codename: “One Trick Pony”. Then, back in the Little Country there were release parties in Auckland and Hamilton — a full calendar month after its first “first appearance”.

That’s not really a criticism; it’s more (or at least also) a nod to the tireless promotional efforts and getting-among-the-people that the Epic boys are willing to do. And they always throw a good party (as much as Luke may wind up inevitably whinging for more head-bang-worthy music), and manage to grab headlines without any manipulative or deceptive bullshit¹ — as I said when I was rambling about beer and marketing, a certain amount of brashness and swagger may be their m.o., but it’s unquestionably authentic and genuine. Unlike, you know, some people. And that, I think, counts for a whole bunch.

Malthouse couldn’t match Cookie’s astonishing record of a keg emptied in 40 minutes — one pint every twenty-four seconds, on average; that’s pretty-much just a tap left open, with glassware conveyoring along beneath it — but we blammed through four-and-a-bit kegs on the night and four more over the next five days. That’s 400 litres in a touch under a week. Which translates (for those not in the business / lacking a head for numbers / both) as rather a lot. Epic’s devotees are always eagerly awaiting a new release (or even just the return of a seasonal), and this one was pitched cleverly enough that it seemed to lure a whole heap of other people in, too. Masses of them obviously liked it, and in the gap between it running out and its any-day-now reappearance,² it’s probably been our most-asked-after absent beer (with Yeastie Boys ‘Rex Attitude’ in second place, I’d guess).

Most of us were expecting a straightforwardly embiggened ‘Armageddon’ — especially after the product codename somehow made its way out of the brewery. I think One Trick Pony is a fucking excellent name for a big-hoppy-something from Epic, though I perhaps have a conflict of interest, here: I’ve personally levelled that phrase at them in the past and been quick to congratulate them for ducking out from under the shadow of their own stereotype. When NZ Craft Beer TV (i.e., mostly-Epic-but-with-collaborators-of-a-sort) ‘Mash Up’ came out, the Spectre of the Pony was clearly on their minds, and people like little old me might’ve helped put it there. But, to their credit, they just keep doing their thing; the fatal point against O.T.P. as a beer name is probably just the simple truth that, as funny as they can be, self-deprecating humour just isn’t quite their style.

Returning to the beer itself, it’s definitely not just Armageddon Plus. It’s fairly radically different, actually; as I poured the first pint of it — with Rob Zombie up loud on the Malthouse sound system at about 3a.m., just for the occasion — the gorgeous pale gold of it was striking enough to induce a cartoonish double-take. On paper it’s bigger and wallopier than Armageddon, but in person it’s much sneakier than that. It’s officially more bitter, but the extra booze brings with it an undeniable sweetness that compensates — and while the hops-per-litre have gone up, in this the best word for them is lush. The varieties used and the sheer freshness of the local ones, make for an intense-but-gorgeous aroma of fruit salad shoved forcefully up the nose. The surprising deftness of it made it quaffable, but the booze provided a warning warmth, politely hinting that you probably shouldn’t down it as quickly as you happily could.

Hop-forward as the beer definitely is, that pale malt body was perfectly put together and matched to the other components, and since that’s a quality it shared with its ‘Mash Up’ brother, it probably has a lot to do with the relatively-recent hiring of Kelly Ryan. It’s way too simplistic to think of Kelly as the Malt Guy balancing out Luke the Hop Nut, of course — you can see Luke paying better attention to his malts way back in June 2009, if you know where to look — but something excellent is happening as a result of having those two brains working on the same problem, even as they stick within the confines of the Pony Enclosure, for now.

Just-about the only thing you could say against it, I thought — since I do think like that — is that it was too unexpectedly nice for a beer carrying the name Epic Hop Zombie. People were expecting a proper hop-resin-stained axe handle to the brain, and instead they got charm and something bordering on gorgeousness. Hearing the pitch — 8.5%, 80 IBU IIPA — they expected a rhinoceros but got a unicorn.³ But later occurred to me that it totally works, if you have the right kind of zombie in mind; you need the classic, shambling sort — more Shaun of the Dead than Resident Evil, you want to be picturing the ones from something like ‘Left 4 Dead’ (seriously, if you haven’t played it, you should; it’s a fucking masterpiece of the genre, cheap as chips, and will even run on your accursed Mac — if you’re one of them). Those zombies — just like Hop Zombie — are individually basically entirely harmless, but if you’re silly enough to take on a group of them on your own and underprepared… Well, then you might just be in trouble.

Verbatim: Epic ‘Hop Zombie’ IIPA 12/5/11 8.5% launched (North Island) here @ MH tonight, and the absurd busy-ness relaxed the New Staffie Regime. Unexpectedly pale gold, really. Lush fruitiness; some inevitable sweetness, with a little bit of building boozewarmth. I still prefer the ‘other name’, but this works in old-movie terms; individually harmless — but if you get a group, you’re dead. Worryingly quaffable, you’d have to say.

1: Naturally, I’m assuming (provisionally) that the multiple “launches” weren’t a case of deception. Wellington, Auckland and Hamilton were locally-true “release parties”, and I’d imagine that the “first ever public tasting” language of the Melbourne announcement was a case of communication breakdown / crossed-wires / changed timing / overzealous or carried-away promo writers, rather than trickery.
2: He says, writing this up on 6 July 2011. I am very gradually closing in on the value of t.
3: An easy confusion to make, if you think about it. Older-school myths reference unicorns as beasts of strength and power and terror, rather than sparkly foresty bordering-on-Twilighty things of wussiness.

— Epic ‘Armageddon’ (Auckland, NZ, 6.66%)

— Sierra Nevada ‘Hoptimum’ (Chico, California, 10.4%)

— Hallertau ‘Maximus Humulus Lupulus’ (Riverhead, NZ, 6.8%)

— Russian River ‘Pliny the Elder’ (Santa Rosa, California, 8%)

— Mike’s Organic Double India Pale Ale (Urenui, NZ, 9%)

— Dogfish Head ‘90 Minute’ IPA (Milton, Delaware, 9%)

Tastings and ramblings and whatnot