Beerly Tasting - But, wait, there's more

The June session of the Cellar Vate beer tasting club looked at New Beers:

The June session of the Cellar Vate Beer Club took a look at a range of new beers. These were beers which have been recently arrived or have just arrived in New Zealand. No errant politicians interrupted the tasting this month which was a great relief.

I also ran a tasting at a company with a rapidly improving beer fridge, the famous Studio Pacific Architecture:

I’ve run beer tastings in breweries and board rooms, on top of a hill and around a pool but probably my favourite venue is still Studio Pacific Architecture in Wellington. Yet from the street, all that is visible is a door and some stairs.

Finally, some sad news for those us with a secret fondess for those bus stop beers, British MPs are looking to clamp down on super-strength lagers:

Fifty MPs have now signed an Early Day Motion (EDM) urging the Government to impose higher excise duty on super-strength lagers.

Beer Haiku Friday - Just a Quick Lunch Break

This week's Beer Haiku is one of the best ever. It is called "Just a Quick Lunch Break" and is written by the aptly named Mr Home Office Blues:

when your liquid lunch
bumps into happy hour
it’s a small scandal

Glass Tip - As ever, Beer Haiku Daily

Nelson: One beery blonde moment

Resisting the urge to use both hands, I am grasping a slender and statuesque glass brimming with a golden liquid named Straw Beery Blonde.

Like a chocolatier in an abattoir; a land-lubber all at sea, I am so very far out of my comfort zone.

Tiny bubbles languidly rise in pearly streams to the surface of my Straw Beery Blonde. Like champagne. Only, this is beer.

"Go on - come over to the dark side," one of the organisers of Nelson's quarterly beer fetes, Mic Dover, had urged me a few weeks earlier.

"Craft beer is the new wine."

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NOTE: tomorrow is the 4th Nelson Beer Fete, Friday June 27th 2008 at Founders Heritage Park, Nelson, from 5 to 10.30pm. For More

[VIDEO] OMG - I think you added too many hops!?!

These are the hops left in the tank from the Epic Armageddon IPA, part 2 of the West Coast (USA) IPA Challenge - Epic vs Hallertau.

This is what 9.5kg of hops look like when added loose to a fermenter half filled with 1000 litres of American style IPA.

Scholarship Deadlines Approach - Siebel Institute

Course Scholarship Deadlines Approach

Each year, our scholarship programs provide world-class educational opportunities to several deserving recipients. The deadline for two of our most important scholarships is approaching, so now is the time to prepare and send your submission for consideration towards these offerings:

* WBA Diploma Course in Brewing Technology Scholarship

The World Brewing Academy is providing 50% tuition ($6,950) in the Winter 2009 12-week WBA International Diploma Program in Brewing Technology (starts February, 2009).

· AB Vickers Scholarship

AB Vickers, a world leader in clarification and stabilization products for the brewing industry, has generously offered to provide a fully paid scholarship towards tuition in our fall WBA Concise Course in Brewing Technology in Chicago (Oct. 27 – Nov. 7, 2008).

This could be your opportunity to get the training you need to accelerate your brewing career. You can see the full range of scholarships on our web site at http://www.siebelinstitute.com/registration/scholarship.html and if you have any questions regarding any of our scholarship offerings, please contact Keith Lemcke at klemcke@siebelinstitute.com .

Beerly Writing - Around the Traps

From The Wellingtonian, the Malthouse gets Captain Cooker and Chimay White on Tap:

Captain James Cook was a sailor, a navigator, an explorer, a cartographer and a brewer. He personally made the first batch of beer in Australasia at Dusky Sound in 1773. The production of beer, which was safer and healthier than water on the ships, was considered so important it was common for the Captain himself to do the brewing. Cook’s recipe is recorded in voluminous detail in his log which also modestly notes the resulting beer was “exceedingly palatable and esteemed by everyone on board.”

From Beer and Brewer magazine, a profile of the one and only Mr Richard Emerson:

I a cruel twist of fate, award-winning brewer Richard Emerson threw away most of the best beer he ever made. He made a beer with Vierka Munich yeast but says it "was terrible to ferment and didn't taste that great after two months in the bottle." Needing the bottles, he dumped virtually all the beer down the drain. The two dozen he kept sat forgotten for a year.

The Air New Zealand in-flight magazine Kia Ora has rated Wild about Wellington's Boutique Beer Tour one of the fifteen coolest short tours in the country.

Beerly Tasting - Recent Tastings

The May Cellar Vate tasting was all about Winter Warmers and Imps:

It was appropriately freezing for the May Cellar Vate Beer Tasting which involved sampling a range of Winter Warmers. On the whole, winter beers tend to be darker, relatively robust and can have spices added for warmth and flavour. Often labeled “Winter Warmers”, English beer writer Michael Jackson rightly reminded us that winter beers “are as much a state of mind as a style.”

Next was a great little tasting at Thomsons:

On Thursday, I was delighted to return to the Thomson Corporation to present their second annual beer tasting to a great crowd. The quality of their beer fridge had dramatically lifted after the 2007 session and this time they wanted to try an even wider range of beer styles.

Finally for today, a tasting at The Treasury:

The theme of the tasting was a broad sample of styles but, given the date, a State of Origin twist was considered. Unfortunately, this was hampered by the distinct lack of quality beers available here from New South Wales and particularly Queensland.

Beerly Writing - As Salient as Ever

In a recent beer column for Salient magazine, I profiled the Founder's range of beers:

Finding a beer which is environmentally friendly, certified organic, vegan, GE-free and kosher is not quite as hard as it may sound. The entire Founder’s range of beer from Nelson fit the bill perfectly.

There is also a survey of New Zealand's growing Lager Frenzy:

While we may claim to have had “a few quiet ales” the night before, the chances are that most, if not all, of those “ales” were really lagers. Even Speight’s Gold Medal Ale and Tui East India Pale Ale are lagers.

Finally, a visit to the Wellington Show revealed several New Beers:

The Food Show was the first time I’d ever even heard of the Storm Brewery in Bali. While most Asian breweries focus exclusively on light lagers, Storm makes a wide range of ales, many of them are bottle conditioned. The Storm Pale Ale (4.2%) was surprisingly fresh, fruity and refreshing.

Beer Haiku Friday - One Man's Fight

Captain Hops has written about a blogger battling some of America's most stupid liquor laws. The haiku is called One Man's Fight:

With stubborn reason
He tackles hypocrisy,
politics, and greed.

Glass Tip - Beer Haiku Daily

If you added in humor and a priceless quest to find the pub Bodie drank at in the Professionals, these words would also be a great description of Pete Brown's excellent blog. Pete is the author of "Man walks into a pub" - one of my favorite books about beer.

Glass Tip - Me!

Patrons find alcohol price rises hard to swallow

If this is as bad as things are in Southland then this is a great reason to move there. - Maybe these guys should get into homebrewing

"The main areas of pressure are global commodities, such as fuel, aluminium, sugar and malt that are utilised in many other sectors." The cost of malt has increased up to 50 percent, transport fuel by 50 to 60 percent and sugar and aluminium by 30 to 40 percent."

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BrewNZ - Updated on Eventfinder

Eventfinder.co.nz

Neil Miller on Radio about his Beer Tours

Neil Miller on Radio about his Beer Tours, well not much more to say, go to 2 mins in.

Listen Here

4TH NELSON BEER FETE WELCOMES MORE NEW BREWERIES AND BEERS

'New beers galore' is the theme of the latest Nelson Beer Fete, which takes place on Friday 27th June at Founders Heritage Park, Nelson, starting at 5pm.

To tickle the taste buds of ale aficionados, event organisers Dead Good Beer Events have sourced 20 different beers and ciders from 10 New Zealand breweries including the new Riwaka (near Motueka) brewery Monkey Wizard, which will be giving a sneak preview of its tasty Belgian-style Strong Ale. Another local brewery featured in a Nelson Beer Fete for the first time is Lighthouse, based in Stoke, and officially New Zealand's smallest brewery. From further afield, there will also be tasting debuts for Christchurch Brewery Wigram and the North Island's Epic Beer, voted New Zealand's best beer in 2007.

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120,000 NZ men applied to go on Speight's boat - WTF

"6% of all New Zealand men applied online to accompany the working Speight's Alehouse on its journey to London."

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WTF - can this be true, and if so what kind of country do I live in where this many people of this intellect have access to a computer. Maybe they should all be offered a boat trip to London

BrewNZ Announces World Class Festival Plans

The Brewers Guild of New Zealand today announced major changes to the official festival for the brewing industry, BrewNZ, to be held in Wellington from 2-6 September 2008.

Entering its 7th year, BrewNZ is set to become a world class beer event kicking off with the judging of over 200 beers from NZ and around the world and culminating with 2 days of tasting the best beer brewers have to offer under one roof at the Overseas Terminal.

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Oz limits on binge drinking not for NZ

New Zealand looks unlikely to follow tough new Australian guidelines aimed at curbing "binge drinking".

Associate Health Minister Damien O'Connor said last night that the Government was not looking at changing its guidelines that men should not drink more than six standard drinks or women more than four in a single session.

The head of Australia's National Health and Medical Research Council, Professor Jon Currie, told Australian media at the weekend that the council planned a new "top limit" for men of four standard drinks.

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International Brewers Day - 18th July

Ever since I saw this “Have You Hugged A Brewmaster Today?” sticker on the door to the brewery at San Francisco’s 21st Amendment Brewery & Restaurant, the idea of starting a holiday to honor the men and women who make the great beer we love has been percolating in my brain. So I’m proposing now that we set aside a day as International Brewer’s Day, a day to raise a toast and honor all the brewers in the world. For the date, I’m proposing July 18, which is the feast day for St. Anou of Metz (also known as Arnulf, Arnould, and most famously as St. Arnold), one of the patron saints of beer. This is the way holidays begin, just by a group of people deciding to start one and spreading it from there. The real trick is acceptance as a holiday. So I suggest we start out small and on July 18, similar to the Sessions (but only once a year), as many who are interested write about a brewer you feel is worthy of recognition.

See the website here

Beer Haiku Friday - The Regular

Captain Hops returns with this ode to The Regular:

His favorite beer
Is waiting for him before
He gets to his seat.

Glass Tip - Beer Haiku Daily

Wassailing History

On the bitter cold and frost of a January night, with the stars sparkling overhead in a clear sky, small groups of people, muffled against the chill, process down darkened paths into orchards or to lone apple and pear trees. Some may process in silence, others with as much noise as they can muster. Some may carry torches or burning brands, others drums and shotguns or pots and pans. In each case, one of their number will be carrying a ceramic vessel filled with a steaming brew of beer or cider, carefully trying not to spill it, the steam from the bowl mingling with the cloudy breath of the participants

This is the popular image of the traditional folk custom of wassailing fruit trees - a ceremony intended to begin the process of waking the fruit trees from their winter slumber and the first fertility festival of the folk calendar.

Pulling on the web for the perfect pint

Three beer lovers are hoping the pulling power of the internet will lead them to the perfect pint - Danis Roberts, 24, Dan Phillips, 29, and Tim Tregonning, 24, have used social networking sites to recruit 400 thirsty Kiwis for their "Our Brew" experiment.

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Beer Haiku Friday: High Gas Prices

Dave Undis has penned this topical masterpiece called High Gas Prices:

I can’t afford to
buy both gas and beer. So I
have to stop driving.

Glass Tip - Beer Haiku Daily

Czechs no longer brew top pilsner

If you want to taste the world’s best Bohemian-style pilsner beer, you’re going to have to go a long way from Bohemia.

At this year’s World Beer Cup in San Diego, California, the largest competition of its kind, the gold medal for “Bohemian-style lager” did not go to a Czech brewery for the first time since 2000, when the competition was smaller by nearly half and dominated by North American brewers.

Rather, the world’s best pilsner beers can be found in two unlikely places: Portland and Sydney.

Australia’s James Squire Pilsner and Oregon’s Hopworks Urban Brewery Lager won the gold and silver awards, respectively, for their pilsner beers at the competition, which was held in late April. Coming in third was Gambrinus Premium, brewed by Plzeňský Prazdroj, the legendary Czech brewery that first invented the pilsner style of beer in 1842.

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ABB plans malthouse development

ABB also plans to invest $45 million in developing an integrated supply chain in New Zealand to support growing importing and distribution opportunities.

ABB said at the release of its first half results last month that its malt division, Joe White Maltings, was performing strongly and that demand for malt was being boosted by increasing consumption of beer in Asia.

In New Zealand, which is an importer of grain, ABB is looking to invest $24 million in feed mill and storage facilities in South Auckland, $10 milliom in storage facilities in Tauranga and Taranaki and $11 million on acquiring NZ Grain and Seed, maize drying and marketing.

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Beer fit for a Queen

Australia has sent one of its strongest signals yet that it intends to become a republic by sending the Queen a bottle of Fosters.

Marking the 55th anniversary of Queen Elizabeth's coronation, Foster's has sent her a gift-wrapped bottle of Crown Ambassador Reserve lager, the first from a limited release of 5000 champagne-style bottles to be sold at $60 each.

Glass Tip - South East Asian Correspondent Belinda