New Zealand – A Good Beer Blog

The Woooooooooo Scariest Hellbound Beery News Notes Ever Unleashed From The Bowels Of Hell!!!

Ha-ha! I wrote bowels. If you’re not born of Scots, that might not be daily dinner table language so I apologize as I refer you in the alternative to the basso loco of Dante’s Inferno for a clearer sense of the reason for the season. But if you are Canadian of a certain age, however, there is only one true representation of the hellscape of pure evil – SCTV’s Monster Chiller Horror Theatre from around forty years ago. Wooooohooo. Scary. Lots of beer content on SCTV: Biller Hi-Lite, Moose Beer and twist off beer caps on American beer bottles. Not at all horrible is my new plan for Halloween… which I can’t believe I have not come up with before… a plan to buying candy I like, keep it to myself and eating it as I hand out the crap candy I don’t like so much to the kids. Except I don’t like candy all that much. More extreme measures will not be necessary… unlike apparently in Japan:

In other news, Tokyo’s Shibuya district has banned public drinking, hiring 300 private security guards and urging local stores to stop selling alcohol to ward off revelers this Halloween.

What? That’s some sort of crazy. Are nutty Halloween pub crawls a thing where you live? They seem to be a thing in Buffalo, NY, Milwaukee, Wisconsin and Lexington, Kentucky. I like it. Pack the streets. We did a similar thing in the Halifax of my 1980s youth at Halloween – but we called it Mardi Gras for some reason. Tens of thousands of us. Once I went as junk mail (my best costume ever if I am going to be honest with you) with a buddy who went as a breakfast nook – that could actually toast toast. Out there. On the street. Street toast. Class.

Anyway, have you ever seen a lede buried as deep as this one was in GBH? In a neat and tidy piece on a rebranding at the Chicago Brewseum this little bomb is dropped in the middle of paragraph ten:

Theresa McCulla, curator of the American Brewing History Initiative at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, will leave that post in early November, and the role will no longer exist after her exit.

The Smithsonian program, largely funded and framed in terms of narrative by the Brewers Association’s involvement, started up in 2016. While I was disappointed in the periodic press releases highlighting things like Papazian’s paddle from the great white male hero era of craft, I trust that records and objects from throughout the over 435 years of brewing in the what are now the United States have been protected. Wonder why the Brewers Association gave up on their affiliation? A special thanks to all those beer journalists getting on that story even as I type these very words.

Speaking of endings, Stan discussed the piece in VinePair on the declining influence of US craft beer in Europe, asking if “the story totally supports an assertion that beers from America aren’t influencing change” which I get but, still, I like the arguments set out in this well thought out piece by Will Hawkes:

California-founded Stone’s failure in Europe is symbolic of a wider issue. Craft beer has made a huge splash across the Atlantic, but American breweries, for the most part, have not prospered as they might have expected — and things don’t appear to be getting better. Extrapolating from Brewers Association (BA) figures published by the organization and in Forbes, the overall craft beer volume exported to Europe declined from 78,994 barrels in 2021 to 63,755 in 2022. The reasons for this are complex, but they get to the heart of Europe’s beer market and the limitations of American craft breweries in a place where their economic power has rarely matched their cultural cachet.

TL;DR? Reasons not so much complex as just numerous… BrewDog being everywhere, other Euro brewers holding branding rights, uncompetative pricing and the botch by Stone diluting the value. Brutal line: “[at] this year’s Berlin Beer Week, Stone beers featured in a tap takeover at a pizzeria.” Perhaps relatedly, things are also not going well for brewers in New Zealand:

“I was talking to a brewer recently and he said: ‘It’s all just beer now.’ The problem with craft is it’s always been ill-defined. Does it mean small scale? Does it mean independent? Does it mean flavoursome?” Without that clear definition, the territory was ripe for major beer companies to step into – and all the big breweries have done exactly that. “You now have Lion with their Mac’s brand, DB with Monteith’s and Asahi with Boundary Road. Those are the three main ones in that area, and what they’re doing is just pumping up the flavour in those brands. They’re making great beer at a more affordable price.”

I know that this is all a bit of a downer – even though this is the “scary” season – but at least things are not as bad as they are in Rioja according to the newsletterist Jason Wilson of Everyday Drinking who includes this summary of recent findings:

I was shocked to read Tim Atkin’s piece about serious problems in Rioja — “Rioja on the Rocks” — a couple of weeks ago. I knew that Rioja had issues, but Atkin (the foremost English-language expert on Rioja) paints a dire picture of a region in crisis. As Atkin reports, the regional governments of La Rioja and the Basque Country plan to detroy 30 million liters of surplus wine to try to balance supply and demand. Another 150 million liters, unwanted by the market, is sitting in cellars. The 2023 harvest has been terrible, and grape prices are at unsustainable lows—in fact, many growers cannot sell their grapes. Reportedly, one major co-operative is on the verge of bankruptcy, two large bodegas are in administration, and Campo Viejo, Rioja’s largest winery, is allegedly up for sale. There are threats by large groups of growers and producers to leave the consortium altogether as they argue over whether to focus on quantity or quality.

Yikes! Just last year things were looking up.

Better news? How about the best big brewery marketing of the moment? Heineken making fun of its own name and using Plastic Bertrand for the soundtrack. That good. And The Brewnut has proven once again how he is the best commentator on what’s actually in the glass, illsustrated by this review of the offerings by Wicklow Wolf:

This year’s twist on the all-local ingredients spec is the inclusion of Kilmacanogue raspberries in a sour ale. Shame they didn’t have a go at spontaneously fermenting it, for extreme local character. Regardless, it’s very nice. The raspberries taste fresher and realer than they do in most raspberry beers, almost bursting on the tongue the way the fruit does. There’s no sugary, syrupy jam here, just a cleanly medium-pitched tartness, again similar to what you’d get from actual raspberries, building to a slightly puckering finish. While it’s only 4.2% ABV, I can’t see this working well as a refreshing summer beer — it’s too intense, with lots going on it. While I definitely liked it, I’m glad I waited until a dull day in October to drink it.

See that: not fawning, explains how it stands out, explains what might be done to improve. I’d buy that beer. Speaking of buying beer, David Nilsen wrote an homage to “Brouwerij Van Steenberge’s Tripel Van De Garre” in Pellicle this week and how it illustrates a few trends:

“In today’s market, imports are struggling against the locavore movement,” says Michael, noting the plethora of local options. “We have 97 breweries in the city limits [of Chicago].” Sara Levin, the package beer buyer for The Barrel House, a beloved beer bar and bottle shop in Dayton, Ohio, has been a professional beer buyer for close to a decade and says the current attitude toward Belgian beer among many American craft devotees had already begun to take shape when she started in the industry in 2014. “Before me it was a little different, but in my time I feel like Belgian beer has always been the old money craft beer,” Sara says. “It’s been the OG beer geeks who really respect the old school styles.”

That right there is one of the sadder things about the craft beer movement’s rush to chase the tale of novelty, the loss of interest in hounouring Belgian styles. Got an opinion on that? You can explain how you feel about such things if you take part in this week’s study on the habits of craft beer and real ale drinkers? Do you have habits? They want to study you. In a similar note, Gary came across a study of real ale drinking in England from 1866… with some very and sadly familiar themes:

Less than one-half of it is drunk in perfection, or at its best condition, the larger percentage becoming more or less flat, hard [tart], and unpalatable, or even sour before it is consumed. From the day of the tapping of the cask, with the gradual entrance of atmospheric air, the liqour undergoes progressive deterioration, first becoming flat and unpalatable, from the loss of its carbonic acid, and then sour from having its spirit converted in acetic acid by the absorption of oxygen. In fact, day by day, as the palate unplesantly detects, it may be said to advance one step further on the road to vinegar.

Yik. Too much OG old school right there. And sorta samesies [h/t] at the blog run by Triskele Heritage, an archaeological consultancy, there was a sweet disassembling of the claim made by an Irish pub as to its status as the world’s oldest tavern:

The problem here is that the fabric of the building is claimed to date to the ninth century, and this is repeated from one website to another, but no archival or archaeological evidence is ever offered as the root source of the information. Instead, the listed entry for Sean’s Bar on the National Inventory of Architectural Heritage… notes that the current standing building was constructed c 1725 as a coaching inn which was known as The Three Blackamoors Heads by 1738. The record goes onto confirm that renovations were indeed carried out c 1970 but, instead of finding ““wattle and wicker” dating back to the ninth century”, the walls in question were dated to the seventeenth century. That is a potential exaggeration of at least seven centuries.

Speaking of even more not quite right, perhaps that green bottle of Tsingtao isn’t just skunky:

In the clip which appeared online on Thursday, a worker, dressed in uniform with a helmet on, can be seen climbing over a high wall and into the container before urinating inside it. The location tag of the clip reads “Tsingtao beer No.3 factory”, local news outlet The Paper reported on Friday. Business outlet “National Business Daily” later cited an internal source as saying both the person who took the video and the person appearing in it were not direct employees of the company… Shares in Tsingtao Brewery fell sharply when the Shanghai Stock Exchange opened on Monday morning but were trading broadly flat by the afternoon.

Boo-tastic. Now we have pee in the stuff. In other scary health news, the Time of Londinium shared a story on the problems with a certain sort of stress drinking and had this very interesting fact:

A recent study… found that women with high levels of cardiorespiratory fitness are between 1.5 to 2 times as likely to drink moderately or heavily as those who are sedentary. Charlotte considered herself to be healthy. “I’d go running on Saturday at 8am with my friends after drinking two bottles of wine on Friday. Parker tried all the right things to manage stress. “I went to a meditation teacher, I was looking at my diet, I ran a lot” — everything except quit drinking.”

That is interesting. Fact filled and interesting. And scary.

Enough!!! I leave you there for this week. As per always and forever, you can check out the many ways to find good reading about beer and similar stuff via any number of social media and other forms of comms connections. I have yet another update on the rankings. TweX is now really starting to drop in the standings. I am deleting follows there more and more in favour of mirroring accounts set up by favourite voices elsewhere. Now, for me Facebook is clearly first (given especially as it is focused on my 300 closest friends and family) then we have BlueSky (74) rising up to sit in a tie with Mastodon (899) then the seemingly doomed trashy Twex (4,344) hovering somewhere above or around Instagram (167) with Threads (41) and Substack Notes (1) really dragging – and that deservedly dormant Patreon presence of mine just sitting there. Seven apps plus this my blog! That makes sense. I may be multi and legion and all that but I do have priorities and seem to be keeping them in a proper row. All in all, I still am rooting for the voices on the elephant-like Mastodon, like these ones just below discussing beer, even though it is #Gardening Mastodon that really wins:

Anyone else? And, yes, we also check the blogs, podcasts (barely!) and even newsletters to stay on top of things including the proud and public and certainly more weekly recommendations from Boak and Bailey every Saturday and Stan at his spot on those Mondays! Here’s a new newsletter recommendation: BeerCrunchers. And get your emailed issue of Episodes of my Pub Life by David Jesudason on many Fridays. And Phil Mellows is at the BritishBeerBreaks. Once a month, Will Hawkes issues his London Beer City newsletter and do sign up for Katie’s now much more occassional but always wonderful newsletter, The Gulp, too. Ben’s Beer and Badword is back with all the sweary Mary he can think of! And check out the Atlantic Canada Beer Blog‘s weekly roundup. There is new reading at The Glass. Any more? Yes! Check to see the highly recommended Beer Ladies Podcast. That’s quite good. And the long standing Beervana podcast . There is the Boys Are From Märzen podcast too and Ontario’s own A Quick Beer. There is more from DaftAboutCraft‘s podcast, too. All About Beer has introduced a podcast… but also seems to be losing steam. And there’s also The Perfect Pour. Plus follow the venerable Full Pint podcast. And the Craft Beer Channel on Youtube and remember BeerEdge, too, and The Moon Under Water… if you have $10 a month for this sort of thing… I don’t. Pete Brown’s costs a fifth of that. There was also the Beer O’clock Show but that was gone after a ten year run but returned renewed and here is the link!

The Absolutely Final No Returns Accepted News Notes Of April 2023

OK, so what’s going on. I am still a bit stunned from the residual effects of da ‘Vid but I also got my taxes done last weekend as opposed to my usual next weekend deadline date with the docts. I have no idea why I didn’t wait for the last minute like usual. To celebrate or maybe just to get me through the filing process, last weekend I finally found a way to get a kick out of a fruity kettle sour. Eat cookies with them. Specifically, the coconut laced Voortman Strawberry Turnover known throughout Ontario when chased by a Left Field Strawberry Rhubarb Sour. YOWSA!!! Any bar that doesn’t stock up the $3.25 grocery store find and then resell to aspiring drunks for $6 is NUTSO!!! Candy. Baby. Boom.

9:20 AM Update: David Jesudason has published another teaser for his much anticipated book on Desi Pubs called Desi Pubs (to be published BTW in a few weeks on May 17th) this time in the newsletter Brown History:

“I must admit I’m a bit nervous. There will be a few difficult customers, no doubt, but I think I shall be able to manage.” Few remember the modest man who spoke these words about the Leicester business he was about to take over in 1962, but unknowingly he was to become a British-Indian trailblazer who paved the way for many others. His name was Soham Singh and he was being interviewed by local newspapers because he was deemed Britain’s first “coloured innkeeper” after he started running the Durham Ox pub with his wife Janet (described as an attractive 28-year-old English woman, “whom he married in a Sikh Temple five years earlier”).

I have to admit I find these writings of his torturous to the point of being tortious – but never, of course, tortuous – as I have no access to a good Desi Pub but expect I would love having access to a good Desi Pub.

First up, Pellicle published an interesting article on a not very hot topic – the effect of a closure of local brewery:

I grew up in weather-beaten pubs like these, as did my father and his father before him. If you were local, you would say we were hefted to the land, such is our family’s connection to this obscure north-western part of this obscure north-western English county. Until recently, when it was closed by parent company Carlsberg Marston’s, there was a brewery hefted to this land too. A brewery called Jennings.

Semi-spoiler: “…the disastrous rebrand…”

And, Stan is back from the Antipodes and reported on the New Zealand hop scene in his latest edition of Hop Queries – including on one matter I might not have noticed myself:

Equally surprising was to see that most often the hops are strung to 4.8 meters (less than 16 feet) on 5.4 meter trellises, so not as high as in other hop growing regions. Farmers in the American Northwest grow hops on 18-foot-high trellises, while in Europe seven meters is standard outside of the Tettnang region of Germany. In Tettnang, older varieties are strung to eight meters and newer ones to seven. I heard several suggestions about why New Zealand farms have lower trellises, and will report back once I sort out if there is a definitive answer.

The Beer Nut undertook a bit of market research by studying the JD Wetherspoon Spring Fest 2023 so you don’t have to and seems to have appreciated the experience as…

then, instantly, all the festival beers disappeared from the Dublin branches a day before the event was due to end. Maybe they bought exactly the right amount of beer, though I would be surprised. Overall there was enough decent stuff in the above to keep me happy, and no outright disasters. I still miss the token 7-8%er that used to lurk at the bottom of every programme. Bring that back.

And, like The Beer Nt, as we look forward to the Coronation next weekend, when 17 million extra pints will be downed, this story in the Scotsman about the role one pub played in the protection of the Stone of DESTINY!!!

According to pub legend, the real Stone of Destiny resides in the historic bar, The Arlington which has been operating since 1860, as this was where the students who stole it hid it. The story goes that the Stone of Destiny that was returned was a replica that had been fashioned by the students. The Arlington bar, which is located on Woodlands Road, displays the ‘real’ Stone of Destiny prominently in a glass case on the bar.

Speaking of Scotland, this tweet was maybe interesting. Apparently, at least on the books, BrewDog is losing money… well, lost it in 2021 when, you know, everyone was losing money. They ended up with almost £14m less in year end cash after taking in almost £20m in share sales… ie non-earned income. All on an net operating cash flow of £12.5m. But they spent £21m on property and equipment which is usually good. But then lent £20m to subsidiaries… which is… perhaps speculative. Maybe.

Speaking of 2021, stats for alcohol use on the isle of Jersey were released and the societal effects are a bit staggering even if drinking is down 25% since 2000:

…in 2021, there were 725 hospital admissions specifically related to alcohol per 100,000 population, similar to the English rate of 626 per 100,000. Two thirds of alcohol-specific hospital admissions were men, the report showed. The report said alcohol played a role in almost one in six of all crimes recorded in Jersey in 2022, with 32% of assaults and serious assaults, 11% of domestic assaults and 23% of offences in the St Helier night-time economy.

I have a pal named Dave who is the CBC afternoon radio guy in Yukon. This week he had an interesting interview with sake importer Patrick Ellis which helpfully unpacks a lot of the basics of the drink.

Did you know that Brazilians over a certain age can now buy decade specific beer brands? I read about it on the internet, myself:

Beck’s 70+ offers a chance to start “a dialogue with the pro-aging culture movement, which understands that age does not limit people’s desires and aspirations,” he says. Well, that’s probably aiming a bit too high. Still, it’s a smart nod to an oft-marginalized audience, a welcome respite from the think/act/feel/dress/drink young ethos that’s getting so darn old already.

Jeff speculated on the implications of the “not at all news” that craft beer has become incredibly boring. We know that because appartently the Brewers Association says sales are flat… which really means they really are BZZZZZzzzzzmmmm….(….’fssst…)…zzzblubt……flpt… KABOOM! Regardless, Jeff suggests a few things including:

With so much excess capacity in the industry, contract brewing is an attractive way to launch a brand cheaply. A slightly different model gaining traction is the alternating proprietorship—basically, a shared brewery. The two or more separate companies schedule time on one brewhouse and then have devoted tanks on the cold side. I’d never heard of this until Ruse launched their brand that way at Culmination. Some time later, Pono did the same with Zoiglhaus. Both Ruse and Pono had their eyes set on using these arrangements to bootstrap up to their own breweries and taprooms, and both have since done so.

I have known contract brewing where there is an expansion. Where there are hopes and dreams. And, in a way maybe, brewing co-operatives where the best stout known to humanity was made. Who knows? Could be.

What else is going on? Lisa‘s off being a weirdo again this time sharing her very own 2023-esque and rather dramatic Guinness story:

Glances were exchanged all around the bar – after all, many of the tourists were here specifically to try other local beers – but she wasn’t done yet. ‘Are you SERIOUSLY SUGGESTING I cannot get a Guinness – IRELAND’S NATIONAL DRINK – at this so-called Irish pub?’ There was a pause, as she looked around for support, and she continued, at a further-increased volume, ‘do any of you here find this AT ALL ACCEPTIBLE?’ To the credit of absolutely everyone in the pub, not a single person responded directly, though there was a light chuckle toward the back of the room. After another dramatic pause, she tried once more to garner some kind of support – once again, upping the decibels: ‘I cannot BELIEVE that a business like this can exist, in this day and age, calling itself an IRISH PUB without Guinness.’ And with that, she turned on her heel and flounced out of the pub.

You know, Lisa really needs to get me interviewed on that podcast. I nkow it’s a group decision but I really could answer questions like “seriously, Al, what the hell?” and “when does the song ‘Time the Avenger’ start meaning different things?” and stuff like that.

What else… Miller cans crushed in Europe? Don’t care. Heineken not caring about poor widdle cwaft beer’s feelings? Who cares? But, hey, what’s that? Could that be true? The white lab-coated nerds at the Brno University of Technology in the Czech Republic are at it again… with ROBOTS FILLED WITH YEAST:

Millimetre-sized robots made of iron oxide and packed with yeast speed up fermentation of beer by swimming around in the fermenting container and can be removed with a magnet, eliminating the need for filtering out yeast

That’s extra nutso. Here’s a 2020 paper published by the Europeans Chemistry Society explaining the process. Egg. Heads.

That’s enough from me. Back to social media scrolling and fretting over the risk of frost. BTW… fine. Mastodon not taking off like you expected? Do what you like. But here’s your Masto-newb cheat sheet. Because… because… things work best when folk get tucked in… Substack notes ain’t anyone’s saviour. I’m getting t-shirt made that says that. You wait… I will…

Anyone else? And, yes, we also check the blogs, podcasts and newsletters to stay on top of things – including more weekly recommendations from Boak and Bailey every Saturday and now definitely from Stan at his spot on those Mondays! Get your emailed issue of Episodes of my Pub Life by David Jesudason every Friday. Once a month, Will Hawkes issues his London Beer City newsletter and do sign up for Katie’s wonderful newsletter, The Gulp, too. Ben’s Beer and Badword is back! And check out the Atlantic Canada Beer Blog‘s weekly roundup. There is new reading at The Glass. Any more? Yes! Check to see the highly recommended Beer Ladies Podcast. And the long standing Beervana podcast . There is the Boys Are From Märzen podcast too and check out the travel vids at Ontario’s own A Quick Beer. There is more from DaftAboutCraft‘s podcast, too. Ben has revived his podcast, Beer and Badword. Still gearing up, the recently revived All About Beer has introduced a podcast, too even if it’s a bit trade… and by “a bit” I think mean not really just a bit. There’s also The Perfect Pour. Plus follow the venerable Full Pint podcast. And the Craft Beer Channel this week on Youtube. And remember BeerEdge, too, and The Moon Under Water… if you have $10 a month for this sort of thing… I don’t. Pete Brown’s costs a fifth of that. There was also the Beer O’clock Show but that was gone after a ten year run but returned renewed and here is the link!*

*And finally the list of the departed newsletters and podcasts or those in purgatory. Looks like both Brewsround and Cabin Fever died in 2020, . We appreciate that the OCBG Podcast is on a very quiet schedule these days – but it’s been there now and again. The Fizz died in 2019. Plus Fermentation Radio with Emma Inch seems done and the AfroBeerChick podcast is gone as well! The Fingers Podcast packed it in citing, umm, lack of success… as might have been anticipated, honestly. Did they suffer a common fate? Who knows?

Your Beery News For A Yuletide Thursday

Ah, December 21st. The kids’ Christmas pageant at church was already a few weeks back now. Gifts are bought and parcels have been mailed. Mainly. I will go out for a pint after work tonight but generally this is the time of sweet sherry and cups of tea. Times are a bit too Dad-ly to get overly tinseled. I’ll take a moment to think of Zimbabwe. Play a few tunes. Then I’ll check in with the news.

Starting on a very cheery note, there is nothing better than accusations of marketplace corruption and political underhandedness in Canada’s tiniest jurisdiction – not that I’d have any idea of why this would be the case.:

Now you take your kid’s to a grocery store, and not only can adults purchase Gahan beer, they can even sample it. Why not sell Gahan beer in the emergency waiting rooms across the Island. Also, a keg of beer (Gahan) would be nice for patients in the back of an ambulance to take their mind off their issues. I am only using Gahan, since they are currently the only ones allowed to sell privately here on the Island. Maybe the other brewers never thought of this idea or are not Liberal donation givers

Frankly, I blame them getting rid of the bootleggers in 2004.

Next, apparently elsewhere in this fine nation the Canadian craft brewer alert status about the impending implosion of their entire industry has been raised to an alarming all time high: concerned. Let that give you pause, global brewing industry.

South of the border, it’s funny watching the brewing trade groups go on and on about the tax cut benefits the ownership class has received without any apparently awareness that these savings are built on relieving 13 million of their fellow citizens from access to health care. Andy has the right take as does Jason: a gratuitous three and a half bucks a barrel back in the owners’ pocket. Forbes has the extraordinary details on the windfall that has fallen in the laps of the brewery ownership class. Just in time for Dunkin’ Donuts beer.

Antipodeanly speaking, you will be please to know that one retail business in New Zealand considers non-alcohol beer a gateway drug. Reminds me of how, as an undergrad in a college half-run by clerics, we learned how High Anglicans thought the danger with stand up… relations are that they could lead to dancing. Fabulous. Remind me to never shop there.

I love how one farming publication seems to suggest we set the birth of Jesus aside at this time of year to remember… the farmer. Friggin’ farmers.

One last thing. You really will have to pardon me. I really don’t care about the best beers for Christmas. I don’t. Not for me. Not for you. I hope you find something else to do like being happy, annoying little nieces and nephews, doing something good and not telling anyone, staring at the conifer in the living room and eating unfamiliar poultry. Or find a 45. Or listen to this. And, for God’s sake, don’t do this. Try this. Have a holly. Have a jolly. But enjoy yourselves and don’t fret about the beer.