{"id":17491,"date":"2015-09-21T17:25:28","date_gmt":"2015-09-21T05:25:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/?p=17491"},"modified":"2015-09-21T17:28:25","modified_gmt":"2015-09-21T05:28:25","slug":"beer-media-baseline","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2015\/09\/21\/beer-media-baseline\/","title":{"rendered":"The beer-media baseline"},"content":{"rendered":"

I spent a few hours on Saturday in the beer-bunker that is Hashigo Zake, in the company of two-dozen-or-so like-minded folks and enjoying the Brewers Guild Awards beaming at us from Auckland over a mercifully-dependable livestream. It was a properly marvellous occasion,<\/span>1<\/sup><\/a><\/span>\u00a0and the Guild (with new host, Hilary Barry) put on a great show.\u00a0It’s truly heartening to see the gradual evolution of the industry,\u00a0particularly\u00a0the maturation of the “craft”<\/span>2<\/sup><\/a><\/span> corner thereof as it becomes less of a niche or subculture and settles into being just part of the landscape. But as if on cue, two abysmal videos surfaced late last week<\/span>3<\/sup><\/a><\/span> \u2014 both from TV3’s ‘Story’ program<\/a> \u2014 to remind us how far we have to go in terms of generalised acceptance and understanding. If you can stand the cringe,\u00a0I think they’re worth watching for how instructively shallow and terrible they are.<\/p>\n

\"Screenshot<\/a>
Apples, oranges, and a silly hat<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The first is styled as a taste-off between craft beer and quote-unquote “normal beer”<\/a>, with the former signified by hats, hipsters and IPA and the latter bluntly equated with lager. Through four rounds of anonymous\u00a0beers from unidentified\u00a0styles served in a misnamed bar (“Beer Brothers”), the contestants follow their\u00a0tired generational stereotypes and spend a suprisingly long time saying not very much of substance. The comparisons, kept completely mysterious, don’t really illuminate anything: were the beers they put up against each other even trying to do similar things or was this pure apples-to-oranges time-wasting that forgot that everything is best in its right place<\/a> and something calm and friendly isn’t automatically inferior to some-other-thing attention-grabbing and audacious? Who the hell knows?<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Screenshot<\/a>
Heineken\u00a0and other nonsense<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Weirder and worse, though, is the rambling chat with Scott McCashin<\/a>.<\/span>4<\/sup><\/a><\/span> It puts the “taste-test” piece to shame in terms of its wordy emptiness, with bonus side orders of contradiction and claptrap. The website\u00a0dutifully regurgitates McCashin’s nonsense claim to being New Zealand’s first craft brewery \u2014 a boast which rings hollow whatever your definition of that contentious term<\/span>5<\/sup><\/a><\/span> \u2014 and you could easily come away from listening to the piece knowing a lot less than you did going in. It’s an absolute mess: mainstream beers are all ‘thinner’ and brewed with ‘less ingredients’ and perhaps particularly ‘less hops’, seemingly across the board \u2014 and Heineken fills a strange duel role as the name-dropped example of something flavourless and disappointing and<\/em> the hoppy interesting thing that started a revolution. Craft beer, he says, “doesn’t have sugar added” which will come as a huge shock to generations of Belgians and Brits and others \u2014 if you don’t understand that sugar isn’t an inherently evil ingredient and can be used to make certain types of beer more enjoyable (rather than merely for cost-cutting) then you need to stop “educating” the public immediately and maybe reconsider whether this is the right business for you. Scott’s\u00a0sole good point about the wide appeal of craft beer is lost under a mountain of muck and the reporter does nothing to tease out any clarity or coherence, instead belaboring a weird analogy about religion and dragging out the old “extreme beer is for hipsters” trope. His late realisation that all this uncritical dreck\u00a0amounts to a mere ad is depressingly tossed aside.<\/p>\n

Both of these pieces should’ve been spiked. There’s just no there<\/em> there, in either of them. They add precisely nothing, merely reinforcing old clich\u00e9s and (worse) muddying the water. The latter, in particular, is hopefully an embarrassment to the producer, editor, reporter and subject alike. If the brewery are delighted with it, or the Brewers’ Guild and\/or their PR firm have chalked\u00a0these up as marketing wins,<\/span>6<\/sup><\/a><\/span> then excuse me while I despair. There is a\u00a0lot<\/em> of good stuff going on in the beer-related and beer-adjacent media.<\/span>7<\/sup><\/a><\/span> Some of it, to my delight, percolates into the mainstream and is presented to diverse new eyeballs. But we all need to do more, and do it better, to break through the stereotypes and misinformation and nonsense.<\/p>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I spent a few hours on Saturday in the beer-bunker that is Hashigo Zake, in the company of two-dozen-or-so like-minded folks and enjoying the Brewers Guild Awards beaming at us from Auckland over a mercifully-dependable livestream. It was a properly marvellous occasion,\u00a0and the Guild (with new host, Hilary Barry) put on a great show.\u00a0It’s truly … Continue reading The beer-media baseline<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[55],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17491","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-interesting-finds"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":19805,"url":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2018\/09\/25\/medals-and-math-ii\/","url_meta":{"origin":17491,"position":0},"title":"Medals and math II \u2014 the numbers behind this year’s beer awards","author":"Phil","date":"September 25, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Last weekend gave us a fresh round of #BGONZAs \u2014 the Brewers' Guild of New Zealand Awards.\u00a0Continuing the new practice they started last year, the Guild has provided us not just with a list of who\u00a0won what, but a full accounting of who\u00a0tried to. So, like I did last time,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Beer awards"","block_context":{"text":"Beer awards","link":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/category\/beer-awards\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Neon signage at the ParrotDog bar, Lyall Bay","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/ParrotDog-Nice.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/ParrotDog-Nice.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/ParrotDog-Nice.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/ParrotDog-Nice.jpg?resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/ParrotDog-Nice.jpg?resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":20244,"url":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2022\/07\/21\/medals-and-math-iii\/","url_meta":{"origin":17491,"position":1},"title":"Medals and math III \u2014 a bonanza of BGONZAs","author":"Phil","date":"July 21, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"It's beer awards night back home in New Zealand. I'll be tuning in as best I can from over here in Melbourne and doubtless obsessing over various weird little details and patterns once I've got the full results. As I've tried to make the case here before, I think there\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Beer awards"","block_context":{"text":"Beer awards","link":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/category\/beer-awards\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Awards-night.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Awards-night.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Awards-night.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Awards-night.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Awards-night.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":19331,"url":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2017\/10\/11\/medals-and-math\/","url_meta":{"origin":17491,"position":2},"title":"Medals and math \u2014 batting averages at the beer awards","author":"Phil","date":"October 11, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"The latest round of the Brewers Guild of New Zealand Awards were announced this weekend and this year they've given us\u00a0more data than usual to play with. For the first time, the Guild has released information on what was\u00a0entered, as opposed to just telling us who\u00a0won, and I couldn't be\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Beer awards"","block_context":{"text":"Beer awards","link":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/category\/beer-awards\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Mural detail (Garage Project, 10 October 2017)","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Garage-Project-mural-detail-fixed.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Garage-Project-mural-detail-fixed.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Garage-Project-mural-detail-fixed.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Garage-Project-mural-detail-fixed.jpg?resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Garage-Project-mural-detail-fixed.jpg?resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":17436,"url":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2015\/09\/16\/trophies-and-truth-telling\/","url_meta":{"origin":17491,"position":3},"title":"Trophies and truth-telling","author":"Phil","date":"September 16, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Last\u00a0weekend, a small army of judges assembled in Christchurch to assess a considerably-larger army of entries in the annual round of the local Brewers' Guild Awards. We won't know the results until\u00a0next weekend\u00a0but \u2015 SPOILER ALERT \u2015 Tui will\u00a0not\u00a0win the trophy for New Zealand styles. I don't say this because\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Observations"","block_context":{"text":"Observations","link":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/category\/reports\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Brewers Guild of New Zealand 2015 Awards Guide","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/BGNZA-2015-Trophy-criteria-blur.jpeg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/BGNZA-2015-Trophy-criteria-blur.jpeg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/BGNZA-2015-Trophy-criteria-blur.jpeg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/BGNZA-2015-Trophy-criteria-blur.jpeg?resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":20585,"url":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2024\/05\/27\/medals-and-math-v\/","url_meta":{"origin":17491,"position":4},"title":"Medals and math V \u2014 close calls, clean sweeps, and other countries","author":"Phil","date":"May 27, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"So. Beer awards, again. (And belatedly, again.) The announcement that entries were open for the 2024 Brewers Guild of NZ Awards, together with the fact I was at the presentation dinner for the Australian competition last week, plus the chance to drink a bunch more New Zealand beer than usual\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Beer awards"","block_context":{"text":"Beer awards","link":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/category\/beer-awards\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"A bottle of 8 Wired's 'Wild Feijoa' on the bench out the front of my house","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/8-Wired-Wild-Feijoa-on-the-bench.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/8-Wired-Wild-Feijoa-on-the-bench.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/8-Wired-Wild-Feijoa-on-the-bench.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/8-Wired-Wild-Feijoa-on-the-bench.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/8-Wired-Wild-Feijoa-on-the-bench.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":20292,"url":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2022\/08\/19\/medals-and-math-iv\/","url_meta":{"origin":17491,"position":5},"title":"Medals and math IV \u2014 two in a row seems like it means something…","author":"Phil","date":"August 19, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"CORRECTION \u2014 the original version of this post incorrectly said that 'Chance, Luck & Magic' was the overall Champion Beer for the second year running. It wasn't; Burkes Brewing 'Unforgiven' Porter won in 2021. Thanks to Michael Donaldson for noticing and letting me know. The data here is unaffected, but\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Beer awards"","block_context":{"text":"Beer awards","link":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/category\/beer-awards\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"An opened bottle of Garage Project's 'Chance, Luck & Magic 2021', just out of focus, laying on its side on a wooden bench in front of a red brick wall. The bottle's cork is in the right foreground, in sharper focus, the Wild Workshop logo stamped onto it","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Garage-Project-Chance-Luck-Magic.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Garage-Project-Chance-Luck-Magic.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Garage-Project-Chance-Luck-Magic.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Garage-Project-Chance-Luck-Magic.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Garage-Project-Chance-Luck-Magic.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17491","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17491"}],"version-history":[{"count":23,"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17491\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17518,"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17491\/revisions\/17518"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}