{"id":18637,"date":"2017-01-12T09:58:53","date_gmt":"2017-01-11T20:58:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/?p=18637"},"modified":"2017-01-12T09:58:53","modified_gmt":"2017-01-11T20:58:53","slug":"2016-overview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2017\/01\/12\/2016-overview\/","title":{"rendered":"2016: That was the year that was"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_18650\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-18650\" style=\"width: 1000px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016-Overview.jpg\" rel=\"lightbox[18637]\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"18650\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2017\/01\/12\/2016-overview\/2016-overview-2\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016-Overview.jpg\" data-orig-size=\"1000,337\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;2.5&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;Phil Cook&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;Canon PowerShot G16&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;1483804627&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;Creative Commons\\nAttribution-NonCommercial 3.0 NZ&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;18.534&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;100&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0.0005&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;1&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"&lt;p&gt;Caption&lt;\/p&gt;\n\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016-Overview.jpg\" class=\"wp-image-18650 size-full\" src=\"http:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016-Overview.jpg\" alt=\"'Overlooked Middle Child', from the Beer Diary Brewing Department, shortly before its abandonment. (Wellington, 8 January 2017)\" width=\"1000\" height=\"337\" srcset=\"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016-Overview.jpg 1000w, https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016-Overview-300x101.jpg 300w, https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016-Overview-768x259.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-18650\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">How very metaphorical: a nice vantage point, a weird climate, and a neglected personal project<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>So, that was 2016. It was&#8230; <em>interesting<\/em>. As you perhaps noticed. Plenty happening in the beer business, but no shortage of distractions in the wider and weirder world. Despite working on various of beer&#8217;s front lines, I felt a little disconnected from it all last year. And so rather than trawling through my notes looking for particular favourites (such as I&#8217;d do when preparing for a Year In Review episode <a href=\"http:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/podcast\/\">of the podcast)<\/a>\u00a0I took some time for a more-general contemplation of the year gone by, and its heroes and villains \u2014 or at least those who are\u00a0<em>not helping<\/em>,<span id='easy-footnote-1-18637' class='easy-footnote-margin-adjust'><\/span><span class='easy-footnote'><a href='https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2017\/01\/12\/2016-overview\/#easy-footnote-bottom-1-18637' title='&lt;span style=&quot;font-size: small;&quot;&gt;Not that anyone in particular is obliged to help the beer industry\u00a0&lt;em&gt;in general&lt;\/em&gt;, of course.&lt;\/span&gt;'><sup>1<\/sup><\/a><\/span> and those who are. Here, I present three loud\u00a0<em>boos<\/em> and three cheerful\u00a0<em>hurrahs<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<h3>The Broken Social Media Scene Award<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li><em>Winner<\/em>: Twitter<\/li>\n<li><em>Simultaneous runners-up<\/em>: Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and (ha!) Google+<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<figure id=\"attachment_18651\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-18651\" style=\"width: 1000px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016-Twitter.jpg\" rel=\"lightbox[18637]\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"18651\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2017\/01\/12\/2016-overview\/2016-twitter-preview\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016-Twitter-preview.jpg\" data-orig-size=\"1000,333\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"&lt;p&gt;Twitter&amp;#8217;s sadly-retired but never-more-apt Fail Whale&lt;\/p&gt;\n\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016-Twitter-preview.jpg\" class=\"size-full wp-image-18651\" src=\"http:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016-Twitter-preview.jpg\" alt=\"Twitter's sadly-retired but never-more-apt Fail Whale\" width=\"1000\" height=\"333\" srcset=\"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016-Twitter-preview.jpg 1000w, https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016-Twitter-preview-300x100.jpg 300w, https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016-Twitter-preview-768x256.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-18651\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Twitter&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/technology\/archive\/2015\/01\/the-story-behind-twitters-fail-whale\/384313\/\">sadly-retired but never-more-apt Fail Whale<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Masses of beer commentary and community happens on Twitter\u00a0\u2014 and social media more broadly. They&#8217;re great tools for sharing (of both the among-friends &#8220;I found this&#8221; and the to-the-public &#8220;I made this&#8221; kinds), and a nicely democratising force. As a blogger-from-way-back, it&#8217;s a little frustrating to see\u00a0&#8216;Tweetstorms&#8217; take off when they&#8217;d often be more useful as full posts somewhere and it&#8217;s easy to lament the decline of comments as they&#8217;re taken over by replies on social media \u2014 which are great at facilitating discussion, but also ephemeral and undiscoverable from the post that prompted them.\u00a0I&#8217;ve got little time for the usual complaints about these things, though: every gripe\u00a0about the perils of &#8220;groupthink&#8221; or &#8220;pile-ons&#8221; overlooks the fact they can be synonyms for &#8220;subculture&#8221;\u00a0and &#8220;calling out bullshit&#8221;, respectively. Beer isn&#8217;t politics;\u00a0we don&#8217;t need to worry about a bubble of fans talking among themselves. And there&#8217;s real power in seeing people add their +1 when someone makes a cogent swipe against a bit of sexism or other nonsense.<\/p>\n<p>The real problem is that every damn one of these networks survive by selling my activity and attention to advertisers, and it leads them into a murk of mangled timelines, antifeatures, spambots, marketing-in-drag &#8220;influencers&#8221;, and worse. Twitter are busy making changes\u00a0no-one seems to want while dragging their feet on their infestation of actual Nazis; Facebook seems to show me more ads than posts from people I specifically asked to see posts from (so they&#8217;ll pay for ads, one assumes); Instagram is interesting but mysteriously sealed away from any &#8216;social&#8217; functions like sharing or linking-out; Snapchat barely makes any damn sense; and Google+ started out looking like a good idea and quickly ended up a wasteland. It gets harder and harder to find the good stuff. But there&#8217;s an easy solution, and it&#8217;s embarrassingly old-fashioned: sell me the service. Look at Untappd\u00a0\u2014 free to use with no hassles, but businesses and ultra-nerds can pay for extra features and data. Let me do that. Or y&#8217;all are gonna go broke, disappear, and I don&#8217;t know I can feel confident you&#8217;ll be replaced with anything\u00a0better.\u00a0<em>Boo<\/em>.<\/p>\n<h3>The Homework-Flubbing Money-Grubbing Award<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li><em>Winner<\/em>: ANZ Bank<\/li>\n<li><em>Co-conspirators<\/em>:\u00a0Various media and banking organisations<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<figure id=\"attachment_18642\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-18642\" style=\"width: 1000px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016-ANZ.jpg\" rel=\"lightbox[18637]\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"18642\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2017\/01\/12\/2016-overview\/2016-anz-preview-border\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016-ANZ-preview-border.jpg\" data-orig-size=\"1000,333\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"&lt;p&gt;Disinfographic&lt;\/p&gt;\n\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016-ANZ-preview-border.jpg\" class=\"size-full wp-image-18642\" src=\"http:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016-ANZ-preview-border.jpg\" alt=\"Disinfographic\" width=\"1000\" height=\"333\" srcset=\"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016-ANZ-preview-border.jpg 1000w, https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016-ANZ-preview-border-300x100.jpg 300w, https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016-ANZ-preview-border-768x256.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-18642\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Disinfographic \u2014 READ WITH CAUTION, CONTAINS NONSENSE<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Pretty much\u00a0every news article about the New Zealand beer industry for the last three years has cited the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/comms.anz.co.nz\/barometer-reports\/article\/detail.html?id=21365&amp;name=Craft0Beer\">&#8220;Craft Beer Industry Insights&#8221;<\/a> report from ANZ Bank. It&#8217;s an upbeat little thing with a smattering of graphs and pull-quotes, full of good news about growth and easily-overcome hurdles to more of the same. And it is, to be frank, hot liquid garbage. It&#8217;s so flawed as to be anti-information; if you aren&#8217;t very careful indeed, you come out of it knowing <em>less<\/em> about the state of the local beer business than you did going in.\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/theliquorladder.blogspot.co.nz\/2016\/08\/craft-beer-industry-and-insights.html\">Dominic Kelly gave it a good thrashing<\/a>, and I&#8217;d be inclined to be even less kind to it than he is.<span id='easy-footnote-2-18637' class='easy-footnote-margin-adjust'><\/span><span class='easy-footnote'><a href='https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2017\/01\/12\/2016-overview\/#easy-footnote-bottom-2-18637' title='&lt;span style=&quot;font-size: small;&quot;&gt;I have a draft post I keep returning to whenever another mention of the fucking thing surfaces, but it&amp;#8217;s always proven to depressing to actually finish.&lt;\/span&gt;'><sup>2<\/sup><\/a><\/span> To put the problem shortly and clearly, it&#8217;s a report on &#8220;craft breweries&#8221; which doesn&#8217;t say what it means by &#8220;craft&#8221; and plays fast and loose with the meaning of &#8220;brewery&#8221; \u2014\u00a0<em>and<\/em> which doesn&#8217;t even keep its sense of\u00a0<em>either<\/em> consistent from report to report. It&#8217;s an\u00a0<em>ad<\/em>, a way to inject the name of a bank into the news for free publicity, and so a silver-medal pox on the head of every lazy journalist or penny-pinching editor who enabled them to do it so easily.<\/p>\n<p>To make matters worse, ANZ are the loudest peddler of PayWave \/ Apple Pay \/ contactless payment gizmos, which are increasingly doing my head in, as a bartender. They&#8217;re no real improvement over the EFTPOS cards that New Zealanders already overwhelmingly use and come at the cost of a 1% commission,\u00a0for no justifiable reason at all. Bars are narrow-margin operations as it is, and we&#8217;d all rather spend a percent of our takings on anything else \u2014 like a few hours&#8217; wages \u2014 than on cutting a couple\u00a0seconds off transaction time. That the bank quietly pings the <em>bar<\/em> and not the customer for the privilege is a good sign that very few people would actually pay for the convenience of not having to remember four digits and makes this a particularly odious kind of pickpocketing from a company who&#8217;d have you believe they were here to help.\u00a0<em>Boo<\/em>.<\/p>\n<h3>The Clumsy Stumble Onto The Nearest Passing Bandwagon Award<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li><em>Archetype<\/em>: Birkenhead Brewing Company<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<figure id=\"attachment_18644\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-18644\" style=\"width: 1000px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016-Birkenhead.jpg\" rel=\"lightbox[18637]\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"18644\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2017\/01\/12\/2016-overview\/2016-birkenhead-preview\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016-Birkenhead-preview.jpg\" data-orig-size=\"1000,333\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;2.8&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;Phil Cook&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;Canon PowerShot G16&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;1483909233&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;Creative Commons\\nAttribution-NonCommercial 3.0 NZ&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;24.34&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;200&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0.005&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;1&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"&lt;p&gt;A perfectly fine beer; an even better standard-bearer&lt;\/p&gt;\n\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016-Birkenhead-preview.jpg\" class=\"size-full wp-image-18644\" src=\"http:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016-Birkenhead-preview.jpg\" alt=\"A perfectly fine beer; an even better standard-bearer\" width=\"1000\" height=\"333\" srcset=\"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016-Birkenhead-preview.jpg 1000w, https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016-Birkenhead-preview-300x100.jpg 300w, https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016-Birkenhead-preview-768x256.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-18644\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">A perfectly fine beer; an even better standard-bearer<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Note, first, that Birkenhead are just the &#8220;archetype&#8221;, here. I&#8217;m not saying they&#8217;re the <em>worst<\/em>, merely that they embody something annoying a little too well \u2014 and well enough that I kept thinking of them in thinking back on the year. And let me also say that I&#8217;ve had precisely <em>one<\/em> of their beers (pictured, above), and it was\u00a0<em>fine<\/em>. And finally let me applaud them for\u00a0acknowledging (imperfectly, but\u00a0better than most) their contract brewery status and their beer&#8217;s actual origin (Steam, so no surprises on the technical merits).\u00a0<em>But<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>I don&#8217;t believe for a minute that we have &#8220;too many breweries&#8221; \u2014 but I often suspect we <em>do<\/em>\u00a0have too many companies with a shortage of anything-much interesting to offer and an oversupply of confident opportunism that leads them to gracelessly try to\u00a0run before they know how to walk. Birkenhead started out by\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.birkenheadbrewingcompany.com\/logos-and-media.html\">shamelessly lifting the logotype<\/a> of the more-familiar-BBC and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.maoritelevision.com\/news\/regional\/hinemoa-beer-leaves-bad-taste-mokoia-trustee\">awkwardly dressed their beers in M\u0101ori imagery<\/a> before equally-awkwardly removing it. The labels are full of clunky historical and geographical irrelevancies that talk up a heritage they don&#8217;t have and only mention the beer itself in agonisingly shallow terms. The whole business model seems to hinge hugely on leveraging\u00a0&#8220;brand NZ&#8221; and flogging beer in China, so when bottle-manufacturer O-I came up with its <a href=\"http:\/\/recycleglass.co.nz\/theprovider\/\">cringe-inducingly pandering &#8220;Provider&#8221; model<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 888ml! Because 8 is lucky in China!<span id='easy-footnote-3-18637' class='easy-footnote-margin-adjust'><\/span><span class='easy-footnote'><a href='https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2017\/01\/12\/2016-overview\/#easy-footnote-bottom-3-18637' title='&lt;span style=&quot;font-size: small;&quot;&gt;They&amp;#8217;ve now launched two more-vaguely-standard sizes, but shoe-horned them to 328ml and 518ml, for fuck&amp;#8217;s sake.&lt;\/span&gt;'><sup>3<\/sup><\/a><\/span> As\u00a0if they were naming a goddamn poker website\u00a0\u2014\u00a0<em>of course<\/em> Birkenhead were the first (and I believe still the only) company to go for it.\u00a0And again: it\u00a0<em>was<\/em> a nice beer.\u00a0But that doesn&#8217;t make up for a year of eyerolling so hard I damn near sprained my face.\u00a0<em>Boo.<\/em><\/p>\n<h3>The Commentariat Has Nothing To Lose But Its Chains Award<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li><em>Winners<\/em>:\u00a0Matt Curtis, Luke Robertson, Martin Craig<\/li>\n<li><em>Evergreen honorable mentions<\/em>: Boak &amp; Bailey, Matt Kirkegaard<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<figure id=\"attachment_18645\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-18645\" style=\"width: 1000px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016-Commentariat-preview.jpg\" rel=\"lightbox[18637]\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"18645\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2017\/01\/12\/2016-overview\/2016-commentariat-preview\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016-Commentariat-preview.jpg\" data-orig-size=\"1000,333\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"&lt;p&gt;A throwback to when keyboard warriors had actual steel&lt;\/p&gt;\n\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016-Commentariat-preview.jpg\" class=\"size-full wp-image-18645\" src=\"http:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016-Commentariat-preview.jpg\" alt=\"A throwback to when keyboard warriors had actual steel\" width=\"1000\" height=\"333\" srcset=\"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016-Commentariat-preview.jpg 1000w, https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016-Commentariat-preview-300x100.jpg 300w, https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016-Commentariat-preview-768x256.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-18645\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">A throwback to when keyboard warriors had actual steel (<a href=\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:Brother_typewriter_by_awdean1.jpg\" rel=\"lightbox[18637]\">Photo<\/a> by <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/awdean1\">Andrew Dean<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Beer writing is a weird business. Especially when it&#8217;s not a business. It&#8217;s usually a meta-hobby; a sub-subculture of people with a\u00a0sideline in talking about their pastime. We&#8217;ve often got ambitions to proper journalism and history, but that reach is usually\u00a0undone by the fact that so much semi-professional work is just marketing in disguise. But still some people stick at it, and try to be transparent, and tell their stories, while also doing enough work to stave off starvation. Much of my reading last year came from three people who recently left their day jobs to do this thing full-time. And that impresses and inspires me, as much as it makes me envious and slightly nauseous in that way you might get while standing next to someone doing something skilful and dangerous, like shucking oysters or juggling chainsaws.<\/p>\n<p>Matt Curtis in the U.K. (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.totalales.co.uk\/\">Total Ales<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/goodbeerhunting.com\/\">Good Beer Hunting<\/a>), Luke Robertson over in Australia (<a href=\"http:\/\/aleofatime.com\/\">Ale Of A Time<\/a>, and its similarly-named podcast) and Martin Craig here in Wellington\u00a0(<a href=\"http:\/\/beertown.nz\/\">Beertown.NZ<\/a>) are all doing in it in their own ways and on their own terms.\u00a0I wouldn&#8217;t trade places with any individual one of them,\u00a0and \u2015 if you absolutely pushed me \u2015 I could have my quibbles with each of them, but I&#8217;m utterly bloody delighted that they&#8217;re out there doing what they do and glad it can be their actual job \u2014 proudly and openly \u2014 rather than something they have to fit around their job. More professionalism, more actual professionals, and maybe we&#8217;ll keep on the right track. This is a good time to be reading about beer.\u00a0<em>Hurrah<\/em>.<\/p>\n<h3>The Trans-Tasman Rising Tide Of Closer Economic Relations Award<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li><em>Winners<\/em>: Steve Jeffares &amp; Guy Greenstone<\/li>\n<li><em>Crowding the podium<\/em>: Their many volunteers and employees at GABS, <em>etc.<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<figure id=\"attachment_18646\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-18646\" style=\"width: 1000px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016-GABS.jpg\" rel=\"lightbox[18637]\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"18646\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2017\/01\/12\/2016-overview\/2016-gabs-preview\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016-GABS-preview.jpg\" data-orig-size=\"1000,333\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;8&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;Phil Cook&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;Canon PowerShot G16&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;1466268195&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;Creative Commons\\nAttribution-NonCommercial 3.0 NZ&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;10.789&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;200&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0.8&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;1&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"&lt;p&gt;Apologies if this causes a vintage-Simpsons earworm&lt;\/p&gt;\n\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016-GABS-preview.jpg\" class=\"size-full wp-image-18646\" src=\"http:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016-GABS-preview.jpg\" alt=\"Apologies if this causes a vintage-Simpsons earworm\" width=\"1000\" height=\"333\" srcset=\"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016-GABS-preview.jpg 1000w, https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016-GABS-preview-300x100.jpg 300w, https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016-GABS-preview-768x256.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-18646\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Apologies if this causes <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=ub6LGfFTnmc\">a vintage-Simpsons earworm<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>One of the biggest boosters of the New Zealand beer scene is actually an Australian outfit: the little tangle of companies headed-up by Steve and Guy of The Local Taphouse(s)\u00a0and\u00a0their\u00a0spun-off festival\u00a0GABS \u2015 The Great Australasian Beer SpecTAPular.<span id='easy-footnote-4-18637' class='easy-footnote-margin-adjust'><\/span><span class='easy-footnote'><a href='https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2017\/01\/12\/2016-overview\/#easy-footnote-bottom-4-18637' title='&lt;span style=&quot;font-size: small;&quot;&gt;And, most recently but also least relevantly (for present purposes), Stomping Ground Brewery.&lt;\/span&gt;'><sup>4<\/sup><\/a><\/span> They took that word\u00a0&#8220;Australasian&#8221; seriously from the get-go and welcomed a host of NZ breweries to their\u00a0festivals in Melbourne, and later Sydney. In 2016, they expanded to include Auckland, filling the gap created by the demise of another event, and giving back a suitably\u00a0<em>big<\/em> beer show to our biggest city. I went along, and it was a highlight of my beery year\u00a0\u2014 even through my unreliable memory. Just recently, too, they <a href=\"http:\/\/gabsfestival.com\/kiwi-hottest-100\/\">expanded their longrunning &#8216;Hottest 100&#8217; poll to include NZ beer<\/a>. Not by lumping us in with the Australians and forcing a playoff doomed to be skewed by population differences, but by just replicating the whole damn system for our beer. It&#8217;s an excellent idea, and a nice gesture.<\/p>\n<p>Private, profit-making enterprises are literally under no obligation to do good for its own sake. But it&#8217;s nice to be reminded that a business\u00a0<em>can<\/em> do well by doing good. If you talk to Steve or Guy \u2014 or any one of their small army of helpers, paid in money and\/or in kind \u2014 after a festival, you&#8217;ll hear the exhausation in their voice, but still excitement and elation.\u00a0<em>Hurrah<\/em>.<\/p>\n<h3>The We Really Could Be Heroes (But It&#8217;ll Be Fucking Hard Work) Award<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li><em>Winner<\/em>: Kerry Gray of Choice Bros. \/ HUSK<\/li>\n<li><em>Lifetime achievement award<\/em>: The Mussel Inn<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<figure id=\"attachment_18648\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-18648\" style=\"width: 1000px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016-Husk.jpg\" rel=\"lightbox[18637]\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"18648\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2017\/01\/12\/2016-overview\/2016-husk-preview\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016-Husk-preview.jpg\" data-orig-size=\"1000,333\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;2&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;Phil Cook&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;Canon PowerShot G16&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;1480624414&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;Creative Commons\\nAttribution-NonCommercial 3.0 NZ&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;8.071&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;80&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0.125&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;1&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"&lt;p&gt;Well, this is a good sign&lt;\/p&gt;\n\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016-Husk-preview.jpg\" class=\"size-full wp-image-18648\" src=\"http:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016-Husk-preview.jpg\" alt=\"Well, this is a good sign\" width=\"1000\" height=\"333\" srcset=\"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016-Husk-preview.jpg 1000w, https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016-Husk-preview-300x100.jpg 300w, https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016-Husk-preview-768x256.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-18648\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Well, this is a good sign<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Kerry nicely encapsulates basically every damn thing worth applauding in this industry at the moment. As <a href=\"http:\/\/www.choicebros.co.nz\/\">a beer-maker<\/a> he&#8217;s inventive, savvy, and scrupulously honest about what he&#8217;s doing. Reet Petite (Red IPA with ginger) and Strung Out On Lasers (raspberry and lime gose) were recurring favourites of mine last year,\u00a0and it pleased me no end to see the production brewery credited on contract-brewed batches. He also gave the most endearingly frank and humble acceptance speech so far to grace the Brewers&#8217; Guild Awards, when the former quite-rightly picked up a trophy. As <a href=\"http:\/\/huskbar.co.nz\/\">a venue-owner<\/a> he&#8217;s doing marvellously as well; HUSK opened at the end of 2016 and is fast becoming part of the landscape \u2014 once the on-site brewery and coffee roastery are fully operational, it&#8217;ll be formidable indeed, but already there&#8217;s great food, lovely beer, and a nice vibe to be had. And while busy with all that, he was a regular of ours at Golding&#8217;s, and never once let the stress of it all stop him from being a thoroughly decent fellow.<\/p>\n<p>Too many contract brewers enter the market with entirely too much swagger and far too little to offer\u00a0(see above) and you just couldn&#8217;t say either of Choice Bros.. I&#8217;m sure the prognosticators are right that 2017 will be the year of (the resurgence of) the brewpub, but never forget the inevitability that many of them will be shit \u2014 bland little me-too bandwagoning operations, if not outright fabrications thanks to crap like <a href=\"http:\/\/www.williamswarn.com\/The-WilliamsWarn\/BrewKeg50#.WHY6h_l96Uk\">the WilliamsWarn homebrew-for-pubs<\/a> and companies that&#8217;ll sell you wort you can ferment in your own bar\u00a0so you look like a real brewery.<span id='easy-footnote-5-18637' class='easy-footnote-margin-adjust'><\/span><span class='easy-footnote'><a href='https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2017\/01\/12\/2016-overview\/#easy-footnote-bottom-5-18637' title='&lt;span style=&quot;font-size: small;&quot;&gt;And I do hope some enterprising gang of beer writers make damn sure the people who pull those tricks are paying their proper excise taxes&amp;#8230;&lt;\/span&gt;'><sup>5<\/sup><\/a><\/span> HUSK <em>isn&#8217;t<\/em> one of them. It&#8217;s legit, and it&#8217;s lovely. Kerry did it the hard way, he kicked its arse, and he retained his humanity while he was at it.\u00a0<em>Hurrah<\/em> indeed.<\/p>\n<p>Onwards, then, to the New Year. Let&#8217;s see what it&#8217;s got, shall we?<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>So, that was 2016. It was&#8230; interesting. As you perhaps noticed. Plenty happening in the beer business, but no shortage of distractions in the wider and weirder world. Despite working on various of beer&#8217;s front lines, I felt a little disconnected from it all last year. And so rather than trawling through my notes looking &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2017\/01\/12\/2016-overview\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">2016: That was the year that was<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/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":[71,55,47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18637","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bartending","category-interesting-finds","category-reports"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":25201,"url":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2025\/03\/27\/collingwood-churn\/","url_meta":{"origin":18637,"position":0},"title":"Churn \u2014 on life, death, and rebirth in (and around) Collingwood","author":"Phil","date":"March 27, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"(...of beer venues, I mean.) For the six years I lived in Melbourne I worked within a surprisingly-tight area; a two-kilometre circle centered somewhere in Collingwood, in the inner-North-East. That part of town saw a few high-profile closures in 2024, further datapoints for the general sense of doom that haunts\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Location notes&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Location notes","link":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/category\/locations\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"A collage of the signage outside three recently-closed beer venues in Melbourne; Range Brewing's taproom, The Craft & Co., and Fixation's 'Incubator'. Each has simple greyscale styling of the building and lettering","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Churn-3.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Churn-3.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Churn-3.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Churn-3.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Churn-3.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":741,"url":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2010\/09\/08\/yeastie-boys-pot-kettle-black\/","url_meta":{"origin":18637,"position":1},"title":"Yeastie Boys &#8216;Pot Kettle Black&#8217;","author":"Phil","date":"September 8, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"'PKB' -- as it quickly became known; the full version of the name is meant to highlight the seeming-contradiction in a beer being both hoppy and dark -- was the first Yeastie Boys release. It also -- appropriately enough -- went on to contradict their usual modus operandi by returning\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Actual Diary entries&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Actual Diary entries","link":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/category\/diary\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Yeastie Boys 'Pot Kettle Black'","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Yeastie-Boys-Pot-Kettle-Black-bottled-225x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":285,"url":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2007\/09\/12\/het-kapittel-watou-abt-tripel\/","url_meta":{"origin":18637,"position":2},"title":"Het Kapittel Watou Abt \/ Tripel","author":"Phil","date":"September 12, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Verbatim: Kapittel Watou Tripel. 330ml, $6 or so, 10%, 12\/9\/07. Random find at Rumbles. Funny cartoon monks on the front. Bottle conditioned, nice bubbles to show it. Amber, but smells and tastes darker. Nice low fruitiness. Afterthoughts, October 2010: Correctly listing \/ categorising these things sometimes gets quite tricky, when\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Actual Diary entries&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Actual Diary entries","link":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/category\/diary\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Het Kapittel Watou Abt","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Diary-1038-Kapittel-Watou-Tripel-300x177.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":539,"url":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2008\/11\/01\/founders-generation-ale\/","url_meta":{"origin":18637,"position":3},"title":"Founders &#8216;Generation Ale&#8217;","author":"Phil","date":"November 1, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Verbatim: Founders Generation Ale. An all-organic brewery, and organic farming\/whatever is something about which I could not give a toss. So: no points on for that, from me. But: indifference also means no points off. Provided the beer is good. And the beer is good. Straight up and down nutty\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Actual Diary entries&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Actual Diary entries","link":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/category\/diary\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Founders 'Generation Ale'","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Founders-Generation-Ale-225x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1936,"url":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2011\/03\/11\/flying-dog-gonzo\/","url_meta":{"origin":18637,"position":4},"title":"Flying Dog &#8216;Gonzo&#8217;","author":"Phil","date":"March 11, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Good people drink good beer. So sayeth Hunter S. Thompson on the label, and for what it's worth I concur.1 I bloody loves this beer. I loves it for its intrinsic goodness and for the circumstances in which I've had it -- and I'm a mad keen Hunter S. fan,2\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Actual Diary entries&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Actual Diary entries","link":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/category\/diary\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Flying Dog 'Gonzo'","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Flying-Dog-Gonzo-again-225x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":532,"url":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2008\/10\/17\/renaissance-stonecutter\/","url_meta":{"origin":18637,"position":5},"title":"Renaissance &#8216;Stonecutter&#8217;","author":"Phil","date":"October 17, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Verbatim: Renaissance 'Stonecutter' Scotch Ale. Partially because of a long day, partially because it'd go well with sitting and finishing off a couple of books, partially because of the easier-going one I had in Melbourne, and partially because I didn't yet have a photo of it, I had another one\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Actual Diary entries&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Actual Diary entries","link":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/category\/diary\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Renaissance 'Stonecutter'","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Renaissance-Stonecutter-225x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18637","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=18637"}],"version-history":[{"count":53,"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18637\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18702,"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18637\/revisions\/18702"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18637"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18637"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18637"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}