{"id":4762,"date":"2012-07-18T01:49:34","date_gmt":"2012-07-17T13:49:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/?p=4762"},"modified":"2012-07-18T01:49:34","modified_gmt":"2012-07-17T13:49:34","slug":"boundary-roads-the-resident","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2012\/07\/18\/boundary-roads-the-resident\/","title":{"rendered":"Boundary Road’s ‘The Resident’"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Spike's<\/a>
Spike's portrait on theresident.co.nz<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

First, let’s just go ahead and stipulate that Brian \u2014 ‘Spike’ \u2014 Buckowski is a totally stand-up dude and a talented brewer. I’ve heard absolutely nothing<\/em>\u00a0to the contrary and it was pretty clear from the blog of his travels<\/a> that he was an open-minded and enthusiastic traveler to our little country at the bottom of the World and I’ve had Terrapin<\/a> (his home brewery) recommended to me rather highly. I genuinely wish I’d bumped into him and been able to share a beer. Second, I’ll emphasise that I haven’t \u2014 yet \u2014 tried the beers that resulted from his ‘residency’ at “Boundary Road Brewery” \/ Independent Liquor. Maybe they’re great. I sure hope<\/em>\u00a0they are, because my curiosity simply won’t let me not<\/em> try them.<\/p>\n

For now, the brewer and his beers aren’t the point. I’ll even readily concede that the ‘residency’ itself<\/em>\u00a0was a good idea. Boundary Road’s beers are pants<\/em>; on their best day they’re bland and uninteresting mega-scale buckets of cheap swill \u2014 and at their worst, they’re weapons-grade vileness of the sort you’d hurl at the footsoldiers of an oppressive regime<\/a>. Maybe the whole project started in the mind of someone with sincere and genuine intent. But it doesn’t look that way anymore, after the marketing department had their way with it. The problem here \u2014 say it with me now \u2014 is brandwank<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The "Brewery" blurb on theresident.co.nz<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It’s not even a real brewery, for fuck’s sake. The “Boundary Road Brewery” is a recently-developed imprint of Independent Liquor, an outfit for whom I think the phrase\u00a0Industrial Alcoholic Beverages Manufacturer is a far better fit than “brewery”, given that they also make a bewildering array of RTDs and will sell you some in a three litre box<\/em>\u00a0\u2014 among other reasons I chronicled in my ‘Chosen One’ write-up not so very long ago<\/a>. They’ve also got some pretty-amazing gall if they can straight-face the claim that “here the great tradition of independent New Zealand brewing continues…”, given that they’re now a subsidiary of Asahi \u2014 a buy-out which is the only reason they’ve got the scratch to fund<\/em>\u00a0this kind of stunt in the first place. They’re on a well-resourced mission to take up a seat beside Lion and D.B. in the local market (in more ways than one), but they’re trying to pretend they’re just another humble-and-battling little guy.\u00a0Hell, there’s even a small suggestion that\u00a0Spike<\/em>\u00a0didn’t realise the real nature of the “brewery” until he walked in the door<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And then it’s all introduced with a surprising degree of wank and implied insult to the already-existing and honestly-independent parts of the local scene with a slickly-produced video that’s well worth a close viewing:<\/p>\n