{"id":3438,"date":"2011-06-16T00:01:57","date_gmt":"2011-06-15T12:01:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/?p=3438"},"modified":"2011-10-18T03:04:45","modified_gmt":"2011-10-17T14:04:45","slug":"moa-imperial-stout","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2011\/06\/16\/moa-imperial-stout\/","title":{"rendered":"Moa Imperial Stout"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Moa<\/a>
Moa Imperial Stout<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It looks rather frightful, that Moa, doesn’t it? Maybe even sufficiently angry-faced that it hardly seems like a herbivore<\/em> at all, in fact. I honestly still can’t tell if I like the kitsch of it, or if I just think it’s hideous. Something similar happens with the ludicrously-extravagant coasters — just how much<\/em> money poured into the marketing budget that embossed leather-and-felt coasters<\/em> got the green light? Like I’ve said possibly too-many times before,1<\/sup> the brandwank with Moa is relentless<\/em>, and I’m depressingly unsurprised to report that (as of the time of writing, in mid-October — I’m way<\/em> behind, I know) it continues unabated.2<\/sup><\/p>\n

Like I said with an earlier pint of ‘Black Power’<\/a>, the awfulness of the aura of ad-crap the surrounds a Moa beer and trails along behind it like an unforgiveable stench is such that it might get in the way of actually enjoying one of their beers.3<\/sup> For me, Black Power just wasn’t a worthy enough thing to pierce the fog and make itself enjoyable in spite of all that — but a stonking-great barrel-aged imperial stout? Now that<\/em> did the trick.<\/p>\n

It was helped somewhat by circumstances — not that it really needed much help — in that we had it and several of its siblings pouring at work at once, in a little version of the sort of ‘Tap Takeovers’ that happen semi-regularly at the Local Taphouses<\/a> (if that is indeed the plural) over in Melbourne and Sydney. And such things are all very fun in and of themselves, of course: excuses and occasions and theme-ifying are some of my favourite things about a night at the pub. But for me, for multiply-peculiar me<\/em>, a Tap Takeover is extra-special because it means Kegtris<\/a> —<\/em> it means a bloody-great Herculian dose of Kegtris, it does — and when it was all done, of course, someone<\/em> had to make sure that the beers were pulled through and ready to go. Oh, the chore of it all.<\/p>\n

And honestly, I really can quiet the fumingly-outraged part of my brain for a little while, with this<\/em>. It’s just stupidly fantastic: utterly enormous, but not overblown, and it doesn’t come across as trying to do everything at once in a sad one-man-band kind of attention-grabbing — in that (and in its weight, and its barrel-aged-ness — but in not much else, other than its hometown, come to think of it), it’s quite reminiscent of 8 Wired’s masterful \u2018Batch 18\u2019<\/a>. I tried some side-by-side with a little glass of the Scott Base Central Otago Pinot Noir, partially because I assumed (given the founding-family connections) those would be the barrels involved and partially because I just can’t bring the classic Pinot Noir flavours to mind off the top of my head, as ignorant in Matters of the Grape as I am. I’ve since been informed by Dave Nicholls — the brewer,\u00a0despite what their ad-men might say,4<\/sup> a (mercifully) excellent chap who just gets on with the making of the beer while largely ignoring the dissonant background buzzing of the marketing machine — that they weren’t the barrels in question, but the comparison was still instructive and I suppose you’d have to have some sort of super-palate to spot, in a 10.2% stout, differences drawn from varying vineyard’s barrels.<\/p>\n

There’s a lot of flavour left in those barrels, it seems, and it melds into the stout in surprising and delightful ways; plenty of tart<\/em> fruit notes, bordering on sour<\/em> almost, fill in the edges of the beer, taking the whallop out of some of the bitterness and booze you’d otherwise expect from a thing like this. You can’t really tell whether they achieve that through some clever complimentary-flavour trick on the brain, or if they’re just using a more low-brow “Look over here, instead!” tactic. But ultimately you won’t care about the how<\/em> of it, because the result is worryingly<\/em> drinkable for the punch it steal conceals in its multi-talented self.<\/p>\n

If Moa’s brandwank doesn’t rile you as much as it does me, then just go and get one of these, simply because it’s delicious. But even if you are<\/em> as infuriated by their ad-men as I am, consider this one worth the trouble, a nice reminder that at least\u00a0someone<\/em> there still knows what they’re doing — and a rare and philosophically-instructive example of a situation where the price you pay in conscience (since you’re giving those ad-men a not-inconsiderable sum of money — the thing which is, after all, how they<\/em> ‘keep score’) might actually be worth it.<\/p>\n

Verbatim:<\/strong> Moa Russian Imperial Stout 16\/6\/11 10.2%, Jesus. Hideous branded glass, as reward for an epic round of Kegtris for tomorrow’s takeover \/ migration, and all that Moo. The fruitiness from the Pinot barrels do massively set it apart, but are very well integrated. Not just tacked on, you know, like their brandwank. Really couldn’t resist. Enjoying their better beers is a real see-saw. Why does ‘Estate’ = bareknuckle boxing, where ‘Reserve’ = motorcycle? Oh wait. Vice, versa. Shows how superfluous + devoid of meaning, I guess. Wait. The beer. Gloriously huge, but still not overblown. Dangerously drinkable. Whole riots of fun.<\/p>\n

\n
\"Extravagant<\/a>
Extravagant Moa coaster<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\""Super<\/a>
"Super Premium Beverage"<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\"Moa<\/a>
Diary II entry #111, Moa Russian Imperial Stout<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
\n

1: Such as when writing \/ ranting \/ rambling about: the ‘Black Power’ chocolate wheat beer<\/a>, beer-and-marketing in general<\/em><\/a>, their ‘Five Hop’ ESB<\/a>, or their (two attempts at a) pale ale<\/a> — the basic point is that Moa are grossly<\/em> (but deservedly) over-represented on the ‘Brandwank’ index page<\/a>.<\/span>
\n2: Maybe, maybe<\/em> there’s a touch of irony in all this. Or an attempt at such. Alice Galletly<\/a> — of the excellent ‘Beer for a Year’ blog<\/a>, which makes an absolute mockery of my way-delayed posting schedule — mentioned (in passing)<\/a>, her assumption that their “Handcrafted Super Premium Beverage” tagline (visible on the reverse of the Scary-faced Moa Glass, pictured above) was tongue-in-cheek. I certainly hope<\/em> so. I hope they’re just rubbish<\/em> at ironic humour, rather than an actual pack of appalling wankers. Perhaps I’m all jaded and cynical, but I just can’t be that charitable.<\/span>
\n3: They are now, in this regard, the opposite of how the Stoke beers were when I first met them<\/a>. Those I wanted<\/em> to like, but I just couldn’t. They’re dipping their toes quite enthusiastically into a bit of brandwankery, themselves, but I do keep trying them occasionally to see if I can like them yet. But alas; not yet.<\/span>
\n4: Criminally, you could diligently read — on a heavy dose of anti-nausea pills — the entire corpus of Moa’s marketing materials and not have any clue who Dave was, what he did, or even that he existed at all. Presumably, a Suit in Auckland thinks that pushing the myth of Josh-as-the-man-who-still-runs-everything is more ‘marketable’. For that, and their likely-myriad other sins, they deserve a kick in the pants.<\/span>
\n <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It looks rather frightful, that Moa, doesn’t it? Maybe even sufficiently angry-faced that it hardly seems like a herbivore at all, in fact. I honestly still can’t tell if I like the kitsch of it, or if I just think it’s hideous. Something similar happens with the ludicrously-extravagant coasters — just how much money poured … Continue reading Moa Imperial Stout<\/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":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[36,6,14,8,11],"class_list":["post-3438","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-diary","tag-brandwank","tag-pages","tag-nz","tag-photogenic","tag-stout"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2773,"url":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2011\/05\/07\/moa-black-power\/","url_meta":{"origin":3438,"position":0},"title":"Moa ‘Black Power’","author":"Phil","date":"May 7, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"It really is difficult to separate the thing-itself from its surrounding fog of incidentals. This is your old-school philosophy headache, right here; what are the properties, and what are the mere relations -- and which are the essential properties, and which are just accidental? What the philosophers seem to have\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Actual Diary entries"","block_context":{"text":"Actual Diary entries","link":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/category\/diary\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Moa 'Black Power'","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Moa-Black-Power-225x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1397,"url":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2009\/03\/23\/moa-st-joseph\/","url_meta":{"origin":3438,"position":1},"title":"Moa ‘St. Joseph’","author":"Phil","date":"March 23, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Moa brewery in Blenheim is the work of Josh Scott, son of winemaker Allan Scott. And it really does have a significant \"wanky side-project of spoilt rich kid\" air about the whole thing. The beers are particularly expensive, nobbishly marketed -- and unforgivably naff all too often. I suppose when\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Actual Diary entries"","block_context":{"text":"Actual Diary entries","link":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/category\/diary\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Moa 'St. Joseph'","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Moa-St-Joseph-225x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1864,"url":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2011\/02\/28\/moa-%e2%80%98five-hop-winter-ale%e2%80%99\/","url_meta":{"origin":3438,"position":2},"title":"Moa \u2018Five Hop Winter Ale\u2019","author":"Phil","date":"February 28, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"I've railed about it before, but Moa's appalling brandwank annoys me sufficiently that it still buzzes in my brain as I enjoy something like this, one of their actually-rather-lovely offerings. Praise first, praise first; stifle the rant for a moment. \u20185 Hop\u2019 is a delicious E.S.B., richly flavoured and deftly\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Actual Diary entries"","block_context":{"text":"Actual Diary entries","link":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/category\/diary\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Moa '5 Hop'","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Moa-5-Hop-225x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1107,"url":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2011\/01\/08\/moa-pale-ale\/","url_meta":{"origin":3438,"position":3},"title":"Moa Pale Ale","author":"Phil","date":"January 8, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Hearken to a saga of two beers.\u00a0Two incarnations of one beer -- a Draft and Final, or a Beta and a One Point Oh, perhaps -- neither of which I particularly enjoyed, one of which I sufficiently non-enjoyed that it became my first Beer Diary beer in years to have\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Actual Diary entries"","block_context":{"text":"Actual Diary entries","link":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/category\/diary\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Moa Pale Ale","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Moa-Pale-Ale-225x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5189,"url":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2012\/10\/13\/the-moa-ipo\/","url_meta":{"origin":3438,"position":4},"title":"The Moa IPO","author":"Phil","date":"October 13, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"This was one of the least surprising developments in the local beer industry. Moa started out cloaked in faux-exclusivity, long before they leapt into bed with arch-brandwanker Geoff Ross (of 42 Below vodka fame). He, and much of his old team, integrated pretty seamlessly with the company's image-first approach, gave\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Rambles and rants"","block_context":{"text":"Rambles and rants","link":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/category\/blahblah\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"The 2012 Moa IPO document (cover)","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Moa-IPO-cover.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Moa-IPO-cover.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Moa-IPO-cover.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":5080,"url":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2012\/08\/26\/get-more-from-your-beer\/","url_meta":{"origin":3438,"position":5},"title":"Get More From Your Beer","author":"Phil","date":"August 26, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"I had the good fortune, this year, to be invited to present a little seminar at Beervana. Given the title\u00a0Get More From Your Beer, the idea was to help wrap up the final (Saturday evening) session with a bit of a ramble on making the most of your beer-drinking experience\u00a0with\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Rambles and rants"","block_context":{"text":"Rambles and rants","link":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/category\/blahblah\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Another catch-up session for 'Diary' entries stuck on coasters","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Beer-Diary-catching-up-225x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3438","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=3438"}],"version-history":[{"count":33,"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3438\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3479,"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3438\/revisions\/3479"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}