{"id":6151,"date":"2013-11-23T22:01:11","date_gmt":"2013-11-23T09:01:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/?p=6151"},"modified":"2013-11-24T08:41:31","modified_gmt":"2013-11-23T19:41:31","slug":"everything-in-its-right-place","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2013\/11\/23\/everything-in-its-right-place\/","title":{"rendered":"Everything in Its Right Place"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Crafty<\/a>
Crafty Beggars ‘Wheat As’, in context<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In this, as in all things, context is king. Perfect circumstances can rescue the naffest of beers \u2014 and mismatchings of time and\/or place could equally ruin the most otherwise-charming. Today, Wellingtonians were rightly beside themselves with the sheer loveliness of the weather out there, seizing upon this as the first real Saturday of the summer by pootling around in boats, sitting in the warm sunshine, or hurling themselves off a pier and into the still-actually-rather-brisk-now-you-mention-it harbour.\u00a0Myself, I was gardening.<\/a>1<\/sup><\/a> My deeply-ingrained nocturnality is slowly and awkwardly (but painlessly enough) giving way and I’m becoming a little more ambitempstrous<\/a>2<\/sup><\/a> as I slowly discover worthwhile things about the daylight hours the Normals inhabit.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, there was a Crafty Beggars ‘Wheat As’ in my fridge, thanks to its \u2014 potentially ironic \u2014 inclusion in a little Thank You parcel the Brewers’ Guild gave me after I helped go over the Beer Writer Of The Year nominees earlier this year. Since I was\u00a0hugely<\/em> not a fan of it the first time I had it<\/a> \u2014 as an inherently-underwhelming thing as well as because of its annoying halo of brandwank \u2014 I resolved to give this “bonus” bottle its best-possible go. A few hours of serious hack-and-slash dig-and-heave garden rehabilitation provided exactly the right opportunity to climb the goat-track to the Thinking Chair in the back corner of the property to take in the view,<\/a>3<\/sup><\/a> eat some delicious cheese, and have a beer.<\/p>\n

\"Crafy<\/a>
Crafy Beggars ‘Wheat As’; part of your complete breakfast<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

And it was, I’ll cheerfully admit, fucking\u00a0glorious<\/em>; properly\u00a0refreshing, flavourful but not distractingly so, it went gangbusters with the cheese (and its surroundings), and had the added benefit of being a sessionable four-point-zero percent. Given the price-point these things seemed to be pitched at \u2014 doubtless to serve as a bulwark against Independent \/ Asahi’s rather-aggressive (and successful!) attempt to carve out some market share \u2014 it could prove one of the bargain buys of the summer.\u00a0If<\/em> \u2014 always a crucial “if”, and always up to the individual \u2014 you can bring yourself to hand over your money to its producer.<\/p>\n

If you’ll forgive the loose extrapolations from a single (but sublime) moment, this impossible-to-overstate element of\u00a0context<\/em> is a good part of the reason why I can never bring myself to push the “ratings” buttons in Untappd<\/a>, and a strong element of my ongoing leeriness of beer awards. What would I be rating any particular beer\u00a0against<\/em> \u2014 my assumptions of what it was going to be like, its reputation, its “style” (defined by its marketing department, or someone more “objective”?), or how it fit the particular occasion, no matter how little thought I gave to my selection? And likewise, what hope can any number of potentially-bloody-marvellous beers have of being at their best in a little tasting glass, among scores of broadly-similar relatives, at a table full of weary judges?<\/p>\n

I would happily stand up in any beer geek support group and say “Hi, my name is Phil Cook and, just the other day, I acutally bloody loved a Crafty Beggars ‘Wheat As'”. Hopefully, this is part of what separates the enthusiasts from the\u00a0snobs<\/em>. I won’t be rushing out to buy more<\/em> \u2014 Lion aren’t in boycott territory,<\/a>4<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0but I think there always plenty of more-deserving candidates for a dose of my<\/em> meagre monies \u2014 but, in context, it was great. If you need me, I’ll be up in my Thinking Chair, mulling that over.<\/p>\n

\"Contemplating<\/a>
Contemplating context \u2014 and garden layout, and sunburn, and how my life has changed<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\n

<\/a>1:<\/strong> And then<\/em> I hurled myself off a pier.\u00a0\u2191<\/a><\/span>
\n<\/a>2:<\/strong> Apparently the actual word is “cathemeral”<\/a>.\u00a0\u2191<\/a><\/span>
\n<\/a>3:<\/strong> Caveats: 1) it’s a rental, not “mine” (nor even “my bank’s”) in the ownership sense, 2) there’s a seriously perilous goat-track to get to this spot; it’s not even vaguely representative of the rest of the place. I hope my Middle Class credentials are unsullied after you’ve seen my Harbour Views.\u00a0\u2191<\/a><\/span>
\n<\/a>4:<\/strong> Unlike, you know, some people<\/em><\/a>.\u00a0\u2191<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In this, as in all things, context is king. Perfect circumstances can rescue the naffest of beers \u2014 and mismatchings of time and\/or place could equally ruin the most otherwise-charming. Today, Wellingtonians were rightly beside themselves with the sheer loveliness of the weather out there, seizing upon this as the first real Saturday of the … Continue reading Everything in Its Right Place<\/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":[4],"tags":[36,14,8,42,58,10],"class_list":["post-6151","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blahblah","tag-brandwank","tag-nz","tag-photogenic","tag-sessionable","tag-tasted-november-2013","tag-wheat"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1172,"url":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2010\/12\/22\/croucher-hef-et-al\/","url_meta":{"origin":6151,"position":0},"title":"Croucher ‘Hef’, Burleigh ‘Hef’ and Red Hill Wheat Beer","author":"Phil","date":"December 22, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm not crash-keen on wheat beers. I mean, I do like several of them very much (Three Boys Wheat is a stand-out example), but I'm rarely quite in the mood -- if I want something this light, I usually reach for a golden ale. But that's just me. It was\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Actual Diary entries"","block_context":{"text":"Actual Diary entries","link":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/category\/diary\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Croucher 'Hef', et. al.","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Croucher-Hef-et-al-300x225.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":128,"url":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2004\/08\/20\/carlow-curim-golden-celtic-wheat\/","url_meta":{"origin":6151,"position":1},"title":"Carlow \u2018Curim\u2019 Golden Celtic Wheat","author":"Phil","date":"August 20, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Verbatim: Curim Gold Celtic Wheat Beer. 12oz, 4.3%, <$5, 20\/08\/04, at home. Dark-gold, slightly cloudy. Bubbles gone already. Nice, lightly yeasty nose. Smooth, with just a bit of sharp to stay interesting. It's Irish, so not the wheatiest, but none too bad. Afterthoughts, October 2010: Here's a good \/ terrible\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Actual Diary entries"","block_context":{"text":"Actual Diary entries","link":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/category\/diary\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Carlow 'Curim'","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Diary-1013-Curim-Gold-300x187.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":131,"url":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2004\/04\/11\/jamieson-mountain-ale\/","url_meta":{"origin":6151,"position":2},"title":"Jamieson \u2018Mountain Ale\u2019","author":"Phil","date":"April 11, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Verbatim: Jamieson Mountain Ale. 330ml, 4.9%, $3ish, 11\/4\/04, at home. \"Dark wheat beer\". Brown-black. Weird. Seems stuck halfway. Not bad, per se, but not wheat and not dark. Can't see it winning friends. Stick with La Rossa. Afterthoughts, October 2010: Oh, so very far to go until proper Beer Nerdery,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Actual Diary entries"","block_context":{"text":"Actual Diary entries","link":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/category\/diary\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Jamieson 'Mountain Ale'","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Diary-1012-Jamieson-Mountain-Ale-300x201.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":259,"url":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2006\/05\/07\/emersons-weissbier\/","url_meta":{"origin":6151,"position":3},"title":"Emerson’s Weissbier","author":"Phil","date":"May 7, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Verbatim: Emerson's Weissbier. $5, 5%, 7\/5\/06, 500ml. Not too shabby a wheat at all. As you'd expect. Nicely cloudy, a little bit of fruitiness, but none too strong. So: everyone's wheat beer, really. Afterthoughts, October 2010: See what I mean by patchiness? A six-week gap, then a new entry the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Actual Diary entries"","block_context":{"text":"Actual Diary entries","link":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/category\/diary\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Emerson's Weissbier","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Diary-1032-Emersons-Weissbier-300x181.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":97,"url":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2004\/01\/12\/holgate-brewhouse-white-ale\/","url_meta":{"origin":6151,"position":4},"title":"Holgate Brewhouse \u2018White Ale\u2019","author":"Phil","date":"January 12, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Verbatim: Holgate Brewhouse White Ale. 5.0%, 330ml, $16\/6pk, at home. Bottle conditioned, but the tiniest amount of sediment. Wheat beer, very mild taste. Refreshing on a 40\u00b0 day. Not gold, light, cloudy. Like flat L&P or some random chemistry set piece. Matches our couch. Bubbles don't stay. Afterthoughts, October 2010:\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Actual Diary entries"","block_context":{"text":"Actual Diary entries","link":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/category\/diary\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Holgate Brewhouse 'White Ale'","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Diary-1006-Holgate-White-Ale-300x234.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":415,"url":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2008\/10\/02\/grand-ridge-natural-blonde\/","url_meta":{"origin":6151,"position":5},"title":"Grand Ridge ‘Natural Blonde’","author":"Phil","date":"October 2, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"I visited the Grand Ridge brewery (in a poky little Victorian town called Mirboo North) when I was in Australia for my birthday a few years ago (2006?) and had a fantastic time there, so I was pleased to see their stuff in the local corner shop upon my return\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Actual Diary entries"","block_context":{"text":"Actual Diary entries","link":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/category\/diary\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Grand Ridge 'Natural Blonde'","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Grand-Ridge-Natural-Blonde-225x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6151","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=6151"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6151\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6183,"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6151\/revisions\/6183"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}