Beer Haiku Friday and Mayhem Achieved, Boredom Relieved

From Beer Haiku Daily, a wonderful poem about a wonderful beer. It is called "Duvel":

Billowy white cloud
Looms over splendid sunshine
The Devil smiles

From the Malthouse Blog, this week's post covers dictionaries, imps, hops, mayhem, more hops, brewing philosophies, an inability to do subtle, more hops again, Saint Andrews Day and... free whisky? It is all in "Mayhem Achieved, Boredom Relieved":

In a revelation that ranks right up there with ‘sun rises in the morning’ and ‘Jacob Oram is injured’, Luke Nicholas confesses “I love flavours, especially hops. Subtlety isn’t something I am good at. I like to turn up the flavours.” Various entrepreneurs should consider manufacturing a range of “subtlety isn’t something I am good at” t-shirts. I would certainly buy one.

Glass Tips - Those excellent dudes at Beer Haiku Daily and the fine fellows at Malthouse dot com

Lion to close the Mac’s Brewery in Wellington

Lion Nathan has decided to relocate the Mac’s Craft Beer production capability from Wellington to the Canterbury Brewery, Christchurch and close the Mac’s Brewery in Wellington.

The Wellington Brewery is a higher-cost facility relative to our other breweries but up until now we considered this a component of our investment in building the Mac’s brand and its reputation for brewing innovation.

However the brand has developed to a point where consumer adoration for Mac’s no longer depends on the Wellington Brewery underpinning the brand’s reputation for brewing innovation. The maturity of the Mac’s brand and the introduction of the Mac’s Brewbars throughout the country have contributed to this change in consumer attitude, to the extent that we can now no longer justify the expense of operating the Wellington Brewery.

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Beerly Advertising - Nelson Beer Fete

The next Nelson Beer Fete will be on Saturday Dec 5th, 5pm-10.30pm, at the Founders Park in Nelson. This will be the eighth beer fete organised by Dead Good Beer Events.

The beer tasting bonanza features 22 craft beers from local and national breweries, a cider bar with 5 different ciders, 5 gourmet food stalls, music and the ancient game of Kubb.

Local breweries include Founders, Lighthouse, Townshends, Mussel Inn, Moa,
Monkey Wizard and Totara. National breweries include Croucher (Rotorua),
Emerson's (Dunedin), Three Boys (Christchurch) and Invercargill Brewery.
Plus, making their Nelson debuts are brews from Arrow Brewery in Arrowtown and Wanaka Beerworks.

Full event details on the Dead Good Beer Events website.

Beer Haiku Friday and Fizzy Yellow Beer Drinking Ninnies

A clever little poem for today called "The Perfect Hobby":

The perfect hobby
For people that like to clean
Must be homebrewing

Over at the Malthouse blog, my latest post covers the worst beer slogan in the world, Bud Light, geat American craft beers, a beer which gets in your face, a beer which gets 90 additions of hops and a bear fighting a lion. It is called "‘Fizzy yellow beer drinking ninnies’ need not read on":

The Dogfish Head crew make “off-centred beers for off-centred people” and Malthouse is now offering their 60 Minute and 90 Minute ales. The 60 Minute IPA is continuously hopped. There are over 60 hop additions during the sixty minute boil – a hint, perhaps, about the name. Terrifyingly, they describe this 6%, 60 IBU hop-rocket as a “session” IPA.

Which it actually is when compared to the Dogfish Head 90 Minute Imperial Pale Ale. The brewers here use both the continuous hopping process and a device they call “Me so Hoppy” (basically an inert gas fired closed loop dry hopping system – watch the video below) to create this 9% 90 IBU beast of a beer. There is also an even bigger 120 Minute ale out there but it is unclear whether it can safely travel across international waters without spontaneous hop explosions.

Glass Tips - Those wonderful tipplers at Beer Haiku Daily and the Malthouse Blog

Beerly Tasting - IRD and MAF (The Acronym Sessions)

It has been a busy month of beer tastings. Here are the latest two reports including the results of the public vote for best beer. First up is the IRD's 'Movemberfest' tasting:

Every time I begin to think that there is a finite number of themes for beer tasting events, someone comes up with a new one. In this case, the IRD Social Club wanted a “Movemberfest” tasting. It was to have a Belgian, French and German-inspired vibe though it would mainly showcase New Zealand beers. The decorations showed David Hasselhoff – for some reason. Thankfully there were no mo’s in evidence.

I also ran a fun little session for the folks at MAF:

Last week I had the welcome opportunity to return to the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry to run another tasting. Over 20 people crowded into the meeting room to sample a selection of some of the best craft beers in New Zealand. Because Wellington is such a small place, one of the tasters was my old boss from the Treasury days.

Beerly Writing - The Wellingtonian: Craft beer defies the recession

My latest column in the Wellingtonian covers the state of the beer market in New Zaland and Tuatara's debut on the Deloitte Fast 50 list. It is titled "Craft beer defies the recession":

Brewers are, in general, remarkable people. Given only toasted barley, the flowers of a vine, clean water and a single-cell organism which usually makes bread, they can manufacture delicious, quenching beers. Confronted with those same ingredients, most normal people could only produce a slushy muesli which smelt like a barnyard and tasted of a teenagers sock drawer. Or worse – Victoria Bitter.

Beer Haiku Friday followed by Blog, Tweet, Repeat

In honour of Veterans Day, Beer Haiku Daily posted "Gratitude":

Many raised glasses
Greeted the young veterans
Entering the bar

There is something quite post-modern about blogging and tweeting about blogging and tweeting. This week's Malthouse blog covers the beer industry using social media, how I personally determine when technology has gone mainstream, an exclusive guest commentary from British writer Melissa Cole, scientific proof most messages on Twitter are pointless, Ashton Kutcher (also on Twitter and pointless) and the debut of @malthousewizard and his free beer. It is all in "Blog, Tweet, Repeat":

British beer writer Melissa Cole is the author of the popular and entertaining blog ‘Taking the beard out of beer’. She is a Member of the British Guild of Beer Writers and has been described as “the thinking man’s drinking crumpet”. *

* Well, she has now.

Glass Tips - Our patriotic chums at Beer Haiku Daily and that Handsome Scotsman at Malthouse

Beer Haiku Friday and Tasting at the Backbencher

Beer Haiku Friday exposes the best way to watch the fireworks with a poem called, unsurprisingly, "Fireworks":

at my secret spot
with a wagon full of beer
watching fireworks

The October Backbencher beer tasting had the theme "Best of Brew NZ":

The October Backbencher beer tasting had a “Best of Brew NZ” theme. A number of senior MPs were spotted in the immediate vicinity though they were probably present for the filming of “Backbenchers” (TVNZ 7) rather than the beer. There were over 370 entries in this year’s Brew NZ Beer Awards and only 23% of them received medals. This month’s selection showcased a range of medal winning beers accompanied by some fine food matches from the kitchen.

Glass Tips - Beer Haiku Daily and Backbencher

Rugby and racing - Beer and brand disloyalty

Last week's Malthouse blog covered burgers, brocolli, the Lucky brewery debacle, the three greatest Canadians of all time, "Spiderman" Emerson and Chimay White. It was called "A spirited defence of brand loyalty":

We would tend to portray the person who eats only corporate burgers and fries as unsophisticated, a little odd and probably quite large. However, the person who drinks nothing but – say – Heineken is seen as a loyal and informed drinker. I simply cannot express the absurdity of this notion any better than noted beer writer and my third favourite Canadian Stephen Beaumont...

In "Rugby, racing and beer", I take at looking at the baffling appeal of the Melbourne Cup, the cultural theft of Phar Lap, the attempted shooting of Phar Lap, the alledged similarities between American lager and horse by-products, West Coast humour at the expense of DB and Monteith's Summer Ale:

At 5pm today, millions of otherwise normal and usually horse-racing agnostic Australians and New Zealanders will stop what they are doing, turn on the television, put a silly hat on their head, throw buckets of cash at the TAB and cheer wildly for a large four-legged animal who, yesterday, they had never heard of.

Glass Tip - Malthouse Blog

Beerly Tasting - Stats and Met Service

Here is the report from the recent tasting at Statistics NZ:

Over the years, Statistics New Zealand has been one of my most regular and favourite beer tasting clients. Last night, I ran my seventh tasting for their staff club. As usual, it was raining. That did not deter thirty two participants who seemed to enjoy trying a range of Kiwi craft beers. The offerings included some of the last Smokin’Bishop in the city. This year’s Three Boys Golden was also making its first appearance at one of my sessions.

That same busy week, I ran my first tasting up at the Met Service:

Last night I ran a beer tasting for the social club up at the Met Service. The venue was perched at the very top of the Kelburn hills and the room was filled with over 30 eager participants. I put together an introductory menu but it was only much later that it was (correctly) suggested to me that including Dux de Lux Nor’ Wester Pale Ale or Sou’ Wester Stout would have been both appropriate and tasty. However, this event did give me the chance to list my Facebook status as “off to run a beer tasting at the Met Service. The forecast is for ale storms.”

The results of the popular vote each night are in the reports.

Boysenbeery beer back for summer season

Invercargill Brewery’s award-winning Boysenbeery beer is back on the menu.

The colour of fine claret, Boysenbeery pours with a frothy pink head and is styled in the finest traditions of Belgium fruit beers. Its strong colour and flavor is all natural.

“We don’t use colouring or perfumes in any of our products. The art to brewing is seeing what you can achieve by using malt, hops and yeast and the brew process itself,” head brewer Steve Nally said.

“When we do use additional flavours they’re 100 percent natural too – like orange peel, Kamahi honey, herbs, spices and naturally reduced fruit concentrate – nothing that comes out of a chemistry lab.”

Boysenbeery gets its strong flavor and colour from fruit concentrate – each batch contains the equivalent of 15% berry by volume, more fruit than many branded fruit drinks sold in NZ.

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Tuatara Brewery tastes Fast 50 success

Wellington’s award-winning Tuatara Brewery has tasted double success on the latest Deloitte Fast 50 list. Last week, Tuatara was named as the fastest growing manufacturing business in the lower North Island region and the 37th fastest growing business in New Zealand overall.

Full Story

Beer Haiku Monday and the People's Blog Part Deux

While the seasons are wrong for this hemisphere, the poem still resonates. It is called "Winterizing":

Taking the sails down
could go quicker without beer
but what fun is that

Over at Malthouse blog, the popular People's blog returns with two more guest columnists and some considered reflections on bloggers and blogging. It is titled "The People's Blog Part Deux":

Ten years later, even hardened net geeks are giving up on trying to figure out how many blogs there really are. The answer is well over 100 million, almost certainly a lot, lot more. Blogging is not just for pyjama-clad Generation Xer’s who live in their parents basement anymore (though they are certainly still well represented on-line.) Now, rock stars blog. Beer writers blog. Businesses blog. Scientists blog. Even politicians blog.

Glass Tips - Beer Haiku Daily and Malthouse Blog