{"id":4476,"date":"2012-07-03T00:00:30","date_gmt":"2012-07-02T12:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/?p=4476"},"modified":"2012-07-03T18:54:14","modified_gmt":"2012-07-03T06:54:14","slug":"funk-estate-launch-black-ipa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2012\/07\/03\/funk-estate-launch-black-ipa\/","title":{"rendered":"Funk Estate Launch \/ Black IPA"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Funk<\/a>
Funk Estate Black IPA<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Tuesday, for the vast majority of four long years at the Malthouse, was my standing night off. Which is the kind of predictable-planning luxury that, in the bartending business, is quite a rarity indeed. They were originally granted so that I could go to pub trivia and eventually grew to include a fortnightly and shamelessly-nerdy Dungeons & Dragons night. And somewhere along then way, back when ParrotDog and Garage Project had their Official Launch Shindigs (and the latter went on to make recurring appearances with their 24\/24 phase<\/a>), Tuesday at Hashigo turned into Beer Geek Church.<\/p>\n

They’ve kept something<\/em>\u00a0going each week for nearly a year now, and there’s always a good crowd of friendly beer nerds in attendance. And \u2014 just occasionally \u2014 there’s a colossal heaving throng<\/em> of people, both nerdy and newb, crammed into every inch of available space, beery cheek by beardy jowl. The launch night of Funk Estate was definitively one of those<\/em>, in the tradition of the aforementioned P.D. and G.P. premieres before it. Like those, this was the d\u00e9but of a new locally-based brewing operation,1<\/sup> with the added magnetic effects of their main brewing-brain being a Hashigo bartender<\/a> and<\/em> a first-keg-goes-out-free launch policy, which shouldn’t ever be underestimated as a method for causing H. sapiens<\/em> to congregate in dense numbers.<\/p>\n

They’ve already got other brews fermenting \/ conditioning away, but this first release was an as-yet-unnamed Black IPA,2<\/sup> picking up on a relatively-recent trend in craft brewing that’s only had a few touchdowns in New Zealand so far \u2014 notably in Yeastie Boys breakout single3<\/sup> ‘Pot Kettle Black’<\/a>\u00a0and Croucher’s ‘Patriot’<\/a>. I’ve struggled (in a curious and nerdy way rather than one that caused any real<\/em>\u00a0stress) with this whole “Black IPA” lark<\/a>, and whether it’s really a thing<\/em>\u00a0or if there’s any real reason not to just say hoppy porter<\/em>,\u00a0forgoing making up a new Capitalised Style Term in favour of just using an adjective. If anything, Funk’s beer was instructive \u2014 in that I think it’s the latter.<\/p>\n

Maybe I’m being pedantic \u2014 that does<\/em>\u00a0sound like something I’d be \u2014 but I’d say that a Modified IPA needs some<\/em>\u00a0kind of aggressive \/ assertive hop presence, be it up the nose or<\/em>\u00a0on the palate (or, of course, both). There are<\/em>\u00a0mild IPAs, to be sure, but those aren’t the ones you’d be talking about were you to pick up the term and transplant it onto a hybrid style. You’d be better off referencing the classic, the archetype, the ur<\/a><\/em>-IPA, when you plonk those three letters somewhere new. Shaun of the Dead<\/a><\/em>\u00a0deservedly labelled itself a “RomZomCom”<\/a> because it had genuine romance, full-on zombies, and proper comedy \u2014 not vague flirtation, unspecified undead things somewhere in the background, and occasional subtle wordplay. Similarly, Braid<\/a><\/em>\u00a0is a ‘puzzle\/platformer’<\/a> because it really is absolutely<\/em>\u00a0and full-throatedly both, at the same rewardingly mind-bending, joy-migraine-inducing time.4<\/sup> So no matter how perfectly-hilarious the hero’s one-liner when he dispatches the villain, the movie’s not automatically transformed \u2014 by that alone \u2014 into an “Action Comedy”; likewise, no matter how deft your hop addition, your black beer doesn’t necessarily<\/em> slot into the weirdly-shaped and still-forming “Black IPA” box.<\/p>\n

If this wasn’t<\/em>\u00a0black, nothing about this would make you instantly reach for the IPA label,\u00a0but there’s room for a hoppy-and-black thing to not<\/em>\u00a0be a “Black IPA”, and still be worthy and wonderful. And this was their first<\/em>\u00a0release, perhaps it fell short of the bitterness and punch they intended and maybe it’ll change \u2014 but ultimately I genuinely don’t care much for labels and taxonomy (as much as they’ll very-happily distract me a while). This was delicious<\/em>; rich and sumptuous with metric oodles of chocolatey malt layered with fruity and gorgeous hop flavours. Launch night was a cracking success and I’ve had several tremendously-enjoyable pints around town since, often happily one after another. Shiggy (the aforementioned main brewing-brain) is a passionate and talented homebrewer<\/a>\u00a0and is sure to come up with some gems. The local market is increasing in population at a formidable rate, but it still doesn’t feel crowded<\/em>\u00a0or even very “herd-ish” at all; everyone’s doing their own thing, and there’s still plenty<\/em>\u00a0of room \u2014 though I am starting to wonder how soon I’ll need a third<\/em>\u00a0notebook.<\/p>\n

Original Diary entry:<\/strong>\u00a0Funk Estate Launch \/ Black IPA 22\/5\/12 @ a jam-packed Hashigo. Although I’m writing this much later, such was the jam-packed-ness. Parrot \/ Garage syndrome, plus buildup + bartender + free beer factors = people all up the stairs. The debut beer is a Black IPA, sufficiently far from the big boom that it doesn’t just seem an act of fashion. Here with Pete + Tim + George, crammed by the wall with no room for notes. The beer is delicious, rich + black with lovely fruity hop notes. But, if anything, not BIPA. Which is weirdly presumptive, for a non-thing, but maybe this is instructively “hoppy porter”. If it were non-black, it’d be closer to ESB \u2014 no hop punch<\/span> or brutality. IPA \u2014 to me \u2014 need[s] some<\/span>, whether up the nose or on the tongue. And this is heaps less roasty than PKB (confirmed in-between the tasting-and-writing, for this). But who gives a fuck about style? Not me, other than for positioning. It’s lovely<\/span>, several-pints-able, and everyone’s having a grand old time.<\/p>\n

\n
\"A<\/a>
A veritable throng of people at the Funk Estate Launch<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\"Diary<\/a>
Diary II entry #220.1, Funk Estate Launch \/ Black IPA<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\"Diary<\/a>
Diary II entry #220.2, Funk Estate Launch \/ Black IPA<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
\n

1:<\/strong> Contract brewing, for now, at Aotearoa Brewery<\/a> (home of the Mata beers)a<\/sup> and with what looks like a few side-batches on the go on the little (i.e., 200L) kit at Massey University. In the local scene at the moment, the “for now” in the previous sentence is pretty-much mandatory, given how frighteningly \/ surprisingly \/ inspiringly fast ParrotDog<\/a> have made the jump to a concrete-and-steelb<\/sup> brewery of their own. Denise Garland<\/a>, having returned to blogging a little while ago, wrote a great little backgrounder on Funk Estate<\/a> and also filed a report from Launch Night<\/a>.<\/span>
\n\u2014 a:<\/strong>\u00a0Weirdly, I’ve never enjoyed a Mata beer, though I’ve now enjoyed plural beers to be contract-brewed on their kit. Their own range, in my experience, has always fallen foul of naffness or faultiness. Or, unforgiveably, both. And I know<\/em>\u00a0I’m always quick to whine about marketing, but theirs also has an off-puttingly clunky, fudge-and-booties at the market kind of air about it, somehow \u2014 with a genuinely awkward sideline of gender politics: a giant banner on their website currently blares “Truth Be Told \/ Mata Ales & Lager \/ Passionately Brewed & Handcrafted \/ By A Woman”, in an apparent collision between buzzword-marketing and some kind of broken haiku.<\/span>
\n\u2014 b:<\/strong>\u00a0I’ve learned, with my recent high doses of in-brewery time, that the traditional English idiom “bricks and mortar” (to denote a proper physical thing in business terms) is massively<\/em>\u00a0outmoded.<\/span>
\n2:<\/strong>\u00a0‘Blaxploitation’<\/a> was floated as a suggestion by several people \u2014 including myself<\/em>, I believe \u2014 which does seem to fit the branding and the beer, although I can’t help but wonder whether four boys of European and Asian descent will ever run into strife with that aesthetic.<\/span>
\n3:<\/strong> Given the multitude of musical references in Yeastie Boys beer names, it’s hard not to make an analogy in kind; and it really does fit nicely with their yearly ‘remixes’ and re-imaginings<\/a>. It wasn’t their first<\/em>\u00a0release, but you could think of it as the first recorded single<\/em>\u00a0of a buddingly-famous live-jam band (since it was the first of their range to be regularly bottled), and it was certainly the first to emerge into very-many peoples’ attention with its stunning success at Beervana, like\u00a0Elbow’s ‘Seldom Seen Kid’<\/a>c<\/sup>\u00a0winning the Mercury Prize in 2008 after they’d been making albums for years.<\/span>
\n\u2014 c:<\/strong> Which, probably-not-coincidentally, I’m listening to right now<\/em>. I should see if I have any funk<\/em>.<\/span>
\n4:<\/strong> I’m probably safe in assuming most of you have seen Shaun<\/em>. To those likely-very-many of you who’ve never played Braid<\/em>: seriously, try it. It’s a stunning piece of work, and will ruin your brain in tremendously enjoyable ways \u2014 imagine if Darren Aronofsky had made Super Mario Bros<\/em>..<\/span>
\n\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tuesday, for the vast majority of four long years at the Malthouse, was my standing night off. Which is the kind of predictable-planning luxury that, in the bartending business, is quite a rarity indeed. They were originally granted so that I could go to pub trivia and eventually grew to include a fortnightly and shamelessly-nerdy … Continue reading Funk Estate Launch \/ Black IPA<\/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":[6,14,30,48],"class_list":["post-4476","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-diary","tag-pages","tag-nz","tag-porter","tag-2012-05"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":4513,"url":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2012\/07\/06\/left-coast-the-wedge\/","url_meta":{"origin":4476,"position":0},"title":"Left Coast ‘The Wedge’","author":"Phil","date":"July 6, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"It appears I might have \"Black IPA\" on the brain. Or hoppy porter, at least \u2014 the question of whether the one is the other is an enjoyable piece of modern beer taxonomy for me to ponder as I have a nice glass of something-dark on a wintery evening. I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Actual Diary entries"","block_context":{"text":"Actual Diary entries","link":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/category\/diary\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Left Coast 'The Wedge'","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Left-Coast-The-Wedge-225x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5513,"url":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2013\/05\/05\/666-black-se7en-ipa\/","url_meta":{"origin":4476,"position":1},"title":"666 ‘Black Se7en’ IPA","author":"Phil","date":"May 5, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"The days are just packed. There's a mixed-blessing over-abundance of wonderful beery stuff in my life at the moment; much of which I'd love to be writing about, but I'm finding \u2014 for the moment1 \u2014 it's all jostled up in my brain and forming a bit of a tangle.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Actual Diary entries"","block_context":{"text":"Actual Diary entries","link":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/category\/diary\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"666 'Black Se7en' IPA","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/666-Black-Se7en-IPA-225x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2208,"url":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2011\/03\/26\/golden-bear-black-magic\/","url_meta":{"origin":4476,"position":2},"title":"Golden Bear ‘Black Magic’","author":"Phil","date":"March 26, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"The night before writing this up, I was going through the neglected second half of Diary One and getting it all scanned. I found my first mention of Golden Bear in the entry for Beervana 2009. It's hardly auspicious; a pale ale of theirs is down as the day's only\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Actual Diary entries"","block_context":{"text":"Actual Diary entries","link":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/category\/diary\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Golden Bear 'Black Magic' IPA","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Golden-Bear-Black-Magic-IPA-225x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4187,"url":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2012\/06\/15\/gabs-paddle-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":4476,"position":3},"title":"GABS Paddle #2: Random Favourites","author":"Phil","date":"June 15, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"The final Sunday-afternoon session of GABS was considerably lower-key than the ones which came before. There were fewer attendees (a shade less than the Friday afternoon session, perhaps would-be visitors were off being dutiful offspring for Mother's Day), and the whole machine of the thing was running with now-practiced smoothness\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Actual Diary entries"","block_context":{"text":"Actual Diary entries","link":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/category\/diary\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Tasting Paddle #2","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/GABS-2012-Tasting-Paddle-n2.1-300x225.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":697,"url":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2009\/01\/27\/peak-brewery-monkey-point-ipa\/","url_meta":{"origin":4476,"position":4},"title":"Peak Brewery ‘Monkey Point’ IPA","author":"Phil","date":"January 27, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"My payment for helping George and Robyn (mostly Robyn, actually, since George was wounded) move their furniture around in readiness for renovations. It's basically a ruthlessly traditional IPA. Originally, IPA was what happened when the English over-hopped and strengthened up their ales, so they'd survive the commute out to the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Actual Diary entries"","block_context":{"text":"Actual Diary entries","link":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/category\/diary\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Peak Brewery 'Monkey Point' IPA","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Peak-Brewery-Monkey-Point-225x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":767,"url":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2010\/09\/16\/brew-moon-hophead-ipa\/","url_meta":{"origin":4476,"position":5},"title":"Brew Moon ‘Hophead’ IPA","author":"Phil","date":"September 16, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm still kicking myself that me and my friends didn't know about the Brew Moon Cafe when we were on our South Island roadtrip a few years ago. They're in the charming-enough little town of Amberly, in North Canterbury, and we stopped there (we stop a lot, on our roadtrips)\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Actual Diary entries"","block_context":{"text":"Actual Diary entries","link":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/category\/diary\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Brew Moon 'Hophead' IPA","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Brew-Moon-Hophead-IPA-225x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4476","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=4476"}],"version-history":[{"count":34,"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4476\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4548,"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4476\/revisions\/4548"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}