Backbencher Beer of the Year

Traditionally, the final Cellar Vate beer tasting of the year is a "best of the best" competition where the top beers from the preceding tastings are pitted against each other. This year, nine beers were tasted. Each beer had been voted first or second at the nine tasting during 2007. The full report - and results - is here.

In the course of a long, highly entertaining report of his trip to Auckland, Will from GoNZo Freakpower blog ends up judging a - how do I put this legally? - horticultural event on a boat. This is the paragraph which caught my eye:

About a dozen entries and there's three outstanding ones. One bud, big as your fist, sits there begging to be scratched and sniffed. I feel like Neil Miller at the Beer Festival, or Jules at Toast Martinborough.

Beer Haiku - Cooking with Beer

I personally love cooking with beer. Beer can add depths of flavour to practically any dish. There are whole websites and cookbooks devoted to cooking with beer. One of my favourites is Lucy Saunders' excellent BeerCook.com

This haiku nicely sums up my philosophy on the issue.

Quietly adding
a little beer to each dish
and some for himself

Glass Tip - Beer Haiku Daily

Shakespeare pub sale brewing

Former All Black hooker Ron Urlich is selling his historic Auckland pub in a deal which some market experts say could fetch up to $5 million.

(6pm, 5th December @ The Shakespeare = Brewers Xmas Drinks + Facebook Beer Club + Professor Steven Hale (author of new book Beer and Philosophy - The Unexamined Beer Isn't Worth Drinking) come along and join in the festivities

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Breweries have only got themselves to blame for flat sales

It's no wonder that beer sales are down when bland brands dominate our public houses.

The brewers need to look at their relationships with their customers, the communities they serve and their tenants.

First of all, they are cutting their own throats by allowing volume buyers huge discounts.

Secondly, the breweries no longer serve traditional communities They have walked away from running pubs and got into the business of supplying nationally run management companies, with their blandness and branding, which have no interest in the community. This is why beer consumption has slumped by 49% since 1979.

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ADMIRALS DEPARTS NEW MUNSTER

K.E.A Brewing, home of Admirals and New Munster, closes its doors today with both Brands set to disappear.

K.E.A achieved many successes within its short life span. The creation of three new Brands covering nine products, The successful launch into Supermarket shelves and the collection of two awards in BEERNZ 2007.

It’s been a hectic and rewarding ride but health and family come first and the owners reluctantly but the business into Liquidation.

‘It’s a shame it come to this, there are many great people and brands within this industry and we were looking forward to the six events we had lined up in the summertime. We’ll miss being part of it.’ states Warren Elliott, Director.

Hawke’s Bay Locals have already stated their disappointment at the closure many siting that New Munster had become their brand of choice.

Beer Haiku Friday - The First Beer

Captain Hops has dedicated today's Haiku to the ancient who decided - for whatever reason - to drink "the first glop that was likely the result of water getting into their stash of grain or bread? Anyway… Thanks."

Thanks to the ancients
who took the first dare and drank
the wet spoiled grain

Cheers

Glass Tip - Beer Haiku Daily

Bright news for good beer

Plummeting pint sales reflect a struggle for the big brewers, but quality local ales are flourishing

The reasons for the decline are complex. Many consumers are bored with "drinking the advertising". They are looking for new tastes and drinking experiences.

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Get your Xmas beer from Limburg

Get your Xmas beer direct from Limburg Beer Co. Our award winning boutique beers include;

- Hopsmacker Best Pale Ale 2004
- Czechmate Best International style lager 2006/2007
- Witbier Gold Medal 2003

See our website for further details and to buy; www.limburg.co.nz

Our website price for December Only is $50 per case. One case = 24 bottles.

Please note; Shipping is free to major towns throughout NZ. Small towns and rural will be quoted separately

Buyers must be aged 18 years and over. Proof of ID may be required.

Link Back

Lion Nathan to build new $250m brewery

The new Auckland facility was expected to be up and running in about four years, Lion said.

It said premium beer sales grew strongly, driven by international brands, particularly Corona, and the launch of the Steinlager Pure brand.

New Zealand beer volumes rose 0.5 per cent and exports grew 14 per cent.

Volumes of the Speights brand grew 0.5 per cent but Lion Red declined 8 per cent.

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Price of a pint 'could rise 60%

The average price of a pint of beer could hit £4 after poor weather forced up the price of hops.

"It is a bleak time for everyone," said Iain Lowe, research and information manager at Camra. "These price rises have been predicted for a long time. Hop farmers have not seen any price rises for years, but the appalling summer has finally forced the prices up.

"Prices at the pump could easily go up by 60%."

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Beer O'Clock

As most people will be suffering a near terminal lack of work motivation at this time of the week, here are two quick links to beer items which may be of interest:

Over at Beer O'Clock on Not PC, a look at humorous beer advertising complete with links.

Glass Tip - Foreign Correspondent Belinda for the initial article

Secondly, a beer tasting report and results from last nights tasting at Thomson and Brooker.

Beer Haiku - Just Add Heat

This week's Beer Haiku is entitled Just add Heat and is by the seemingly tireless Captain Hops.

A bottle of beer
garlic and a pound of cheese.
Hot damn! It’s fondue.

Most New Zealand households have a fondue set tucked away. I personally have at least six, several of which are considerably older than me. Fondue is wonderfully socialable food and great with beer or great made with beer. There is a range of recipes here but I would always recommend using at least some gruyere cheese for flavour.

Glass Tip - The secret fondue-lovers at Beer Haiku Daily

NZ brewer going it alone

One of New Zealand's top beer brewers is going it alone. Multi-award winner Luke Nicholas has bought the Epic Brewing Company and with it the Epic brand, from his now former employer the Steam Brewing Company.

Nicholas is planning to take Epic worldwide, after it won best in class at last year's BrewNZ International Beer Awards. It also claimed a silver medal this year, behind another of his beers, Monk's Habit, a Steam Brewing Company product. Epic Mayhem was awarded bronze.

Nicholas says he will be taking Epic to the world in measured steps. The first is the launch of Epic Lager in February next year.

Full Story
Newstalk ZB
NZ Herald

Warm to icy beer in seconds

A young New Zealand inventor has found a solution to the unpalatable problem of a can of warm beer - a device that turns a tepid beverage into a cold drink within seconds.

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Beer Festival: The Land of Hops and Glory

The Land of Hops and Glory

Saturday November 17th 2.30-11.00pm
An oppurtunity to enjoy the quality beers of ten New Zealand Micro-Breweries.

Galbraith Brewery Auckland
Brewmoon Brewery Canterbury
Renaissance Brewery Blenheim
Townshend Brewery Upper Moutere
Tasman Brewing Company Nelson
Three Boys Brewery Christchurch
Twisted Hop Brewery Christchurch
Mussel Inn Brewery Golden Bay
Founder’s Brewery Nelson
Invercargill Brewey Invercargill

Venue: Moutere Hills Community and Sports Centre
Admission: $10 (includes glass and first drink)

Full details: Land of Hops and Glory Website

This looks like a tremendous line-up and worthy of support!

What you’re not is as important as what you are

Unfortunately, the key prop for this article is no longer available. I’m referring to the Steinlager Pure beer advert, featuring Harvey Keitel eulogising New Zealand for those things it’s rejected - e.g nuclear weapons, genetic engineering (the jury’s still out on that one) - and, by implication , endorsing NZ beer Steinlager Pure for being additive-free. I thought it would make a nice post, but, unfortunately, YouTube has made the video clip unavailable. Even the Steinlager Pure website doesn’t feature it. That weakens the branding and promotion strategy, I’d say.

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Missing the point by Bruce Holloway

DESPITE some magnificent efforts from brewery public relations people over the past six months, I haven't been able to get excited about the Speight's Great Beer Delivery.

Worse, they've dressed it up as something positive. In their PR bumf they described this move as part of "exciting new changes to the Speight's craft range" and spoke of "a renewed focus on-premise for Speight's Porter, Speight's Pale Ale and Speight's Pilsner".

Translation: "We've just made some bloody good beers impossible to buy for thousands of punters."

So here is an idea for the PR trouts at Speight's. (Don't pay me, it's free).

Why not take advantage of a gap in the market? Organise a boat trip down the Waikato River, or have a few draught horses cart some Speight's Pilsner and Porter in from the south, to the accompaniment of big- time radio promotions, CD releases, live satellite feeds, and competition to find mates willing to help out fellow mates with good beer taste who are trapped in the Waikato. This would be called the Speight's Great Hamilton Beer Delivery, in which our heroes seek to satisfy the the thirsts of beer enthusiasts jaded by the shortage of quality brews.

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Beer after sport 'is good for the body'

In a rare piece of good news for those who like a pint, Spanish researchers say beer can help someone who is dehydrated retain liquid better than water.

Prof Manuel Garzon, of Granada University, also claimed the bubbles in beer help to quench the thirst and that its carbohydrate content can help to replace lost calories.

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The 42 best beers in the world, circa 1982

Just for fun, here are the 42 beers that Jackson awarded 5 stars. (He also gave all 12 traditional Lambic brewers in the Senne Valley 5 stars “for dedication to an elusive craft,” adding “their products vary according to the good years and the bad, a greater discrimination would be illogical.”)

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Breweries fight over Summer beer

However, the judge said DB had tried, and failed, to get a trademark for Monteiths Summer Ale and he refused to ban the Sundance Summer brew because:

"DB has no right to exclusive protection of a generic phrase unless there is proof of deception."

The $60 million craft beer market is the new battleground for breweries and DB says Lion Nathan is trying to play catch up.

Full Story and Video

New Zealand's Beer Grandmaster Returns

Anyone who regularly looks in on beer website RateBeer might have come in for a bit of a shock in the last few days. A good friend of mine – Sam aka ‘TheGrandMaster’ – has just returned from what I like to call a ‘beer sabbatical’, a couple of years living and traveling through Europe with his trusty Good Beer Guides as tourist books. As of this morning, he’s got 1,135 beer tasting notes on the site - tomorrow he'll probably add Epic Pale Ale to the mix.

Before the three-month journey returning to New Zealand, Sam sent me a few of his thoughts on European beery highlights and lowlights. You can see more – under the Pubs and Beer Stuff label - at his blog.

There were so many highlights (the pic, of legendary Brugge bar 't Brugs Beertje, is somehow not one of the ones he mentioned) but to pick a few: the many beer festivals he attended in England, his 30th birthday pub crawl of St Albans, The Fat Cat pub in Norwich, Bamberg and it’s amazing rauchbier, driving around and visiting small farmhouse breweries in Belgium. And, of course, converting the odd lager drinker to real ale! From what he’s mentioned, in the brief chat we’ve had since his return, Argentina’s beer scene may end up alongside those highlights.

He tells me that Greece is the lowlight of his travels - but just by a whisker over Morocco. It was depressing to find that every fridge in Greece had nothing more than bottles of Mythos (the local brew), Heineken and Amstel. Although Morocco was essentially worse, he had no expectations to find any beer there - especially given that most of his time there was spent in the middle of the Atlas mountains or, worse, in the Sahara.

Sam picks Emerson’s Bookbinder – the beer he served at his wedding - as his desert island beer and is very eager to get into it again now that he’s back. I’ll be interested to see what his highly developed palate thinks of the Dunedin bitter, which has changed considerably in the time that he's been away. He rates Woodforde’s Wherry and Crouch Vale Amarillo up there too. So, given that he is so obviously he’s a fan of session ales, I expect he'll pop down the road to Galbraith's as soon as he gets a chance.

Sam was the Society of Beer Advocates only overseas member. Now that he’s back in New Zealand we are looking for someone to take over that role. If you're on RateBeer in the near fuure, send Sam a message and welcome him back. We need more advocates like him.

Slainte mhath

Stu

Beer Haiku: Karaoke

For some reason, this offering from Captain Hops really spoke to me. Actually, it sang to me. It is called "Friends don't let friends karaoke".

Singing Greased Lightning
At the unfortunate crowd
I blame that last beer

Glass Tip: Beer Haiku Daily

Lion Buys Boag's

DEVELOPING a new brand, particularly in beer, is an expensive exercise. Yesterday, brewing giant Lion Nathan put a figure on this exercise: $325 million.

Philippines-based San Miguel is exiting Australia after seven years, as it sells off dairy products maker National Foods and the J Boag & Son beer operations.
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NZ tourist attractions best in world

New Zealand's remotest boutique micro-brewery, two hours from Nelson is among one of the 10 best beer brews in the world.

"Apparently there is a signpost but far easier to spot by the cars parked nearby. Beer is very much an integral part of life at the inn. The owners once used it to eradicate furry pests by offering a 'beer bounty' to cull possums taking over the Onekaka countryside.

"The offer of a free handle of beer or cider for every possum tail encouraged locals to eradicate over 5000 of the critters.''

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TVNZ - Boutique Beer (2:12)

Beer - a thirst quencher that been brewed since 3500 BC. As times have changed so have our tastes in beer. Now, it's the boutique and the imported beers that have become increasingly popular. Justine Turner checks out the craft beer

Watch Video

NZer Wins Stella Artois World Draught Masters

New Zealand Draught Master Erin Carroll (Belgian Beer Café De Post, Mt Eden, Auckland) has scooped the major prize : Winner of the Stella Artois World Draught Masters 2007 in Leuven, Belgium competing against 24 other countries from Kazakhstan to Hong Kong!

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Drought adds to pressure on beer price

Australian malt supplier David Cryer, of Cryer Malt, who sources barley from Australia, Germany and Britain, said grain prices had jumped 30 per cent.

“We just had a big price rise out of Germany, I’m expecting one from Britain shortly and with the Australian crop, new pricing comes in about March next year, and it is looking like that will be up in the order of 20-30 per cent as well,” he said.

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Some light reading before beer o'clock

From the Wellingtonian, my latest column on the world's largest fair, Oktoberfest:

German beer has a deservedly fine reputation around the world. Their voluntary adherence to the world’s oldest food standard (the Bavarian Beer Purity Laws of 1516) ensures that only malt, hops, yeast and water are used in their beers. Additive-free beers were not invented by Steinlager Pure in 2007.

Continuing the Oktoberfest theme but taking it a oddly magnificent direction, a report from the latest Cellar Vate tasting:

This month’s tasting at the Backbencher had a genuinely unique theme – Moa-toberfest!

Will Moa-toberfest be the next big thing? What is Moa-toberfest anyway?

Beer Haiku Friday - Wisdom

From the delightful archives comes Captain Hops' 2006 Beer Haiku simply called "Wisdom"

Ancient man so wise.
Long before lawnmower, had
Foresight to make beer

Glass Tip - Beer Haiku Daily