Thursday 6 December 2012

Changing Spaces

Yo!

Quick post, just to let you know the blog is moving.

Work, in their wisdom, has decided to hijack my hobby and turn it into - well - work.

From now on, you'll have to head to http://www.stuff.co.nz/manawatu-standard/opinion/blogs/from-drinker-to-brewer to read about my brewing adventure. You should bookmark that page. Right now would be good.

Being on a 'real' website means there will probably be no swearing, but I promise to keep things fun and topical. I'll also try eat more chili.

You can still comment (albeit through Stuff's log-on system) and haggle me on Twitter.

But for now - see you on the other side!!!

Tuesday 6 November 2012

Emerson's

So, in case you haven't heard yet, Emerson's - that brilliant small-ish brewery run by the brilliant Richard Emerson - has been sold to Lion.

I did a post a while back where I had a punt at which brewery would probably get brought out first by one of the Big Three. I didn't even give Emerson's a mention, and I don't think anyone else would have either (well, apart from Stu).

Twitter, somewhat predictably, filled up with messages along the lines of "fuck Lion" or "it won't be the same". Comments on the other news sites which covered the announcement are just as one-sided. And I can understand where people are coming from. While too young to have been a Macs drinker before that brand was sold to Lion in 1999, I've heard from plenty that the beers changed after the sale.

But I, for one, am excited. First, Lion has experience in owning successful craft breweries. They've always had a big chunk of Little Creatures' head company Little World Beverages - and got the rest earlier this year - and I very rarely hear a bad word about that brewery.

Secondly, there's a very important line in the official statement:

Emerson’s will remain as a standalone business unit within Lion and will continue to produce the same great beers from the same Dunedin brewery with the same great people. 

So, production will not be leaving Dunedin and - far more importantly - will still be run by founder/brewer/general G.C. Richard Emerson. Therefore, we should keep seeing his brilliant seasonal beers like hot-cross-bun-in-a-glass Taieri George and the stunning collaboration ale RSB.

Thirdly - and the biggest plus for me - Emerson's will become a Lion beer. So, all those pubs which have contracts with Lion (I'm looking at you The Celtic Inn) will hopefully be able to stock Emerson's without hiding it out back or behind frosted glass. And even have it on tap! Fresh Emerson's Pilsner omnomnomnom!!!

So, to sum up this short blog post - pull your bloody head in! Be excited for Richard and the team! More people will get to drink the amazing beer they make, and that can only be a good thing.

Friday 2 November 2012

The joys of lawnmowing & lager

From the time I moved out of home, there has been one thing I missed more than anything - mowing lawns.

When I was just a wee Lagoosh, it always seemed to fall to me to mow the lawns. And sure, that sometimes sucked when all I wanted to do was go hang with my mates. But most of the time, I loved it. I would look forward to tanking up the mower, nicking my brother's discman, jamming some tunes in my ears and pulling the starter chord.


Mowing lawns is repetitive - up and back, up and back, whack the corner, up and back - but there was something oddly enjoyable about that routine. You knew after so-many up-and-backs that you would be done, as long as you remembered those whack-the-corners. And the smell! There's still nothing that compares to the reek of burning mower-oil fumes mingled with freshly cut grass. To this day I still get a weird kind of comfort from that smell, something like what an ex-smoker walking past a outdoor bar - or, if you're into menthol, a raging pine forest fire - must feel.

But when you live in a student flat, people mow the lawns for you. Brilliant at first, but it gets old fast - especially early on a Sunday morning. While I still got that smell, that scent, that haze of grass still floating in the air. But I couldn't enjoy it, because I hadn't worked for it. And there is something just wrong about enjoying something for free. At least you pay for good food at a restaurant. Or you can be genuinely thankful that the pressure is off the valve after Cindy from the classifieds has been and gone, along with half a decent chunk of your paycheck.

Finally getting a place with a lawn which wasn't mowed by some 50-something bachelor was like a dream come true, if only for the grass. Lush green lawns, pimpled with whitehead-like daisies and glowing buttercups. Ready to be torn asunder by the spinning blades of my mower.

Which is awesome when The Swamp turns on a 24C day in October. Seriously, it's very rare for the sun to even think about coming out here. So rare in fact, that I've seen more girls in short-shorts this week than I ever did while at uni in Wellington.

Upon finishing work at 4pm this week, I managed to get home fairly early. And I saw the lawn, which I had not taken the mower to in a month. The green blades were looking far too smug for their own good. Blame beer, blame fireworks, blame rain, blame all those combined - either way, the grass hadn't been cut for quite some time and it needed to be taken care of.

There's something completely futile about lawns. What do they even do? At least flowers look "nice" and vegetables a productive. But lawns are just dumb. Useless wastes of space which could be take up by broad beans, onions, flowers, graveyards, anything but silly blades of grass. But yet, it is still so much fun to mow lawns - up and back, up and back, whack the corner, up and back.

And when they are chopped down to size, and matching blisters form on the palm of either not-worked-enough hand, there is nothing quite as beautiful as sitting down with lawnmower beer. That crisp, clean sweet fluid which has just enough bite to soothe any parched palette. The fizz scrubs the sweat from the tongue while the cool clean flavour refreshes like nothing else could.

The perfect lawnmower beer has to be lager. Much-maligned by plenty due to it being the style of choice for the bigger breweries, there is good lager to be had. Green Fern, brewed at West Coast Brewing in the South Island, has to be one of my favourites. A pleasant grassy nose and some great biscuit flavour from the malt washes away with just enough bitterness. Clean, sharp and cooling - the perfect lawnmower beer.

Sure, there's more interesting beers out there - IIPA, imperial stout, Belgian triples brewed with the long-lost bones of Jesus - but sometimes, especially after mowing lawns, all you want is something cool to quench your thirst. Something to soothe the bones. Some beer.

So, what's your favourite lawnmower beer? Your favourite lager? Do you have a certain beer for other activities (post-football game)?

Thursday 25 October 2012

Vlog #2: Batch #2 feat. mystery chilies

So, here's my second vlog. It all goes pretty crazy at one point, but bear with it (oh ha ha!), it's well worth the laughs.


So, the Batch #2 recipe is...

5.4kg Golden Promise
.61kg Crystal

60min mash @ 67C

20g Pacifica - first wort hopping
40g Pacific Jade - 60 min
30g Pacifica - 15 min
35g Pacifica - 5min
35g Pacifica - 4min
34g Pacifica - dry hop
66g Cascade - dry hop

Yeast = US05

OG = 1.052
FG = 1.010

All in all, pretty happy with my second brew. Should have thrown some Cascade into the boil to give some more interesting flavours, but that's something to learn from. Also should have fermented out a little bit more. I've learned to keep things going for at least three weeks now, so thing should be better from here on out.

I'm now a big fan of first wort hopping for pale ales. Just gives something different.

So, have any of you done some first wort? What were your results? Anything you would suggest?

Tuesday 2 October 2012

Batches #3 & #4 - The Brew Shop Duo

So it's been a while, mainly due to work being quite busy. We've been a few people down, so it's been all hands to the pump. But somehow, I managed to work my way into having a five-day weekend. So, naturally, a bit of brewing had to happen.
Imperial Stout kit, and a camera lens cap...
While thinking of what to brew, I got an email from BrewShop. They're now doing all-grain recipe packs; if you have the right gear, you can order yourself a "kit" for making anything from an American Pale Ale to a California Common. They even have one made up for a Black IPA (as stupid as that style name is).

With my curiosity sparked, I quickly ordered a couple - the brown ale and imperial stout.

I didn't get any pics of the brown ale brewday, but it went fairly smoothly. I overshot the target gravity, got extra wort and it was the clearest beer I had brewed yet. All in all, a happy camper.

But while planning to brew the imperial stout, I saw some tamarillos. I thought back to the amazingness that was the Epic/Dogfish Head collab Portamarillo and I had to get some to throw into the brew. I figured I already had a recipe which should work, so why not screw around with it a bit?!

Clockwise from top-left: Tamarillos, tamarillos and brown
sugar, roasted tamarillos in bag, tamarillo juice.
So, I got my ten tamarillos and quartered them before popping them in the oven with a dusting of brown sugar. What I got was some sorta-crispy, sorta-mushy, quite juicy lumps of fruit. There was also a heck of a lot of juice left in the bottom of the roasting dish. I couldn't just waste this Ribena-coloured stuff, so into a glass it went.

And here's how the rest of the day went.

Grain bill:
8.5kg pale malt
.5kg oat
.25kg black
.25kg choc
.25 roasted barley

Target mash temp = 66C
Actual mash temp = 67C

Sparge until 25L in kettle.

Knowing my kit a bit better these days, I decided to go pretty big on the pre-boil volume. I tend to lose a hell of a lot of wort when I boil (no idea why still).

Pre-boil gravity = 1060

I was a bit worried about the gravity, so I ran and grabbed a cup of brown sugar to put into the boil at some point. Nothing wrong with giving it a bit of help, am I right?!

In with the hops!
60g Hallertau - 60min
18g Liberty - 60min
40g Goldings - 30min
Tamarillos and syrup - 20min
25g Goldings - 15min
1 cup brown sugar - 15min

Final volume = 17L
Final gravity = 1093

Yeast = Nottingham ale



I'm pretty happy with how the day went. My first runnings were the clearest I've ever had, so I'm very impressed with that. However, both BrewShop kits had lots of dough-balls in the mash that I had to clear out.

It's alive! ALLLLIIIIVEEE!!
And that high gravity sure saw the yeast kick into action in a big way. The next morning they had managed to blow the top off the fermenting bucket! Talk about some intense krausen.

I'm pretty happy with these BrewShop kits. I would recommend them to people like me, who don't have a grain mill and don't want to waste those few hundred grams of grains they get sent pre-crushed.


PS: There has been a Batch #2 take place already (just another pale ale, nothing to go crazy about).

Tuesday 18 September 2012

VLOG: Batch #1 feat. chili shots

Like any good beer nerd in New Zealand at the moment, I love chili.

Therefore, I drank some of my first home brewed beer while doing something stupid with some chili sauce.

I would explain what happened, but watching is so much more interesting.


Wednesday 5 September 2012

Batch #1 - nearly there

Typing this is a mission because my hands be FREEZING! Why? Because I have just bottled about 14L of my first home brew.

Opening the lid of the fermenter to prime it was an amazing experience - HOPS! Turns out dry hopping with 100g of cascade really adds aroma. But bottling went very smoothly, up until the point I realised I had done my math wrong and hadn't sanitised enough bottles. Cue frantic cleaning/sanitising of a few 1.5L PET bottles.

But everything is done. Now just to let it chill out for a bit, and then I can start drinking some (hopefully) awesome home brew.

When I start cracking into that crate in about two weeks, I'll be a happy man. Because I made that beer. In this capitalist world, it really is nice to be able to make something yourself. If you prefer to make clothes, or preserves, or even grow some herbs - cool, and all the more chur to ya.


The beer is looking and tasting pretty good at the moment. Lots of grapefruit and orange flavour before it settles out into a big resin bitterness. If I did everything right, I should have some very drinkable IPA sometime soon.

And with that should come a review video. Until then!

The bit that didn't quite fit into any of the
bottles. Is looking pretty chur methinks!



Monday 3 September 2012

Credit to the big guys

Plenty of people who end up getting into the local craft beer scene develop a dislike for the Big Guys in the New Zealand brewing scene - DB Breweries, Independent Liquor and Lion. Sometimes that dislike is warranted and other times it is not.

When the radler fiasco dropped, plenty of people decided to boycott DB products. For me it was a bit awkward, as I worked in a bar that had - and I believe still has - a business arrangement of sorts with DB. For those that don't know, plenty of bars end up signing contractual agreements with brewers for a financial payoff. Most bars that sign these are required to only stock product from that one brewery, and possibly might have a bit of leeway.

To be fair, I didn't exactly go out of my way to drink DB products. There was far more interesting beer to drink at most bars in Wellington anyway. But since moving back to The Swamp, I've ended up at The Brewer's Apprentice - a Monteith's "Craft Bar" - quite often. Which is annoying, because the only beer of theirs I really like is the Dopplebock (even if they do serve it far too cold).

Which is why it was cool to see this message from Joseph Wood last week. This means Brewers - and the 24 other Craft Bars around the country -  has been given the chance to stock decent beer. I hope they do, and I'll bloody well badger them until they get the message. At The Celtic Inn I see more and more people deciding to get a bottle of beer brewed by a small, New Zealand-owned company instead of a Guinness or Steinlager.

In other news, I was told by the manager/owner/guy-in-charge (I'm still to establish what exactly) at my local bottle shop that Independent Liquor has apparently secured the NZ rights to BudÄ›jovický Budvar and Boston Beer Company¹. But the rights came with one condition - you cannot brew it under licence; it must be the real deal. And IL didn't argue, and - again, apparently - aren't planning to try sell Budvar for insanely-high prices².

So, we people who love to support the Small Guys and Gals have something to celebrate (even if Budvar and BBC are MAAAAASIVE). Bars should be getting better beer, and better beer should be coming here more often.

Is that a good thing? Methinks it is.

¹ - I've seen Samual Adams beers around before - same with Budvar - which is why I chuck the 'apparently' in there. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

² - I got told one of the other Big Guys tried to sell it for $80 a doz!



Monday 27 August 2012

Brew #1 - Epicish Pale Ale

So after getting Beervana, work, finances and life in general out of the way, I was finally able to put down my first solo batch of home brewed beer on the weekend.

With fear and a bit of worry, I kicked off on a beautiful Swamp day. I went in with this simple motto in mind: be methodical, be thorough, be sure.

I decided to copy a recipe posted on the RealBeer forum, touted as an Epic Pale Ale clone. As I say here, Epic Pale Ale was the beer that got me into "the good stuff" so brewing a clone of it seemed as fitting a brew as I could think of. I've just substituted NZ Cascade for US Cascade to make things easier.

I had already boiled the water two days ago and let it sit open to get all the chlorine out of it, so it was just a case of getting it up to temperature. However, I hit a snag - while I headed up my mash tun with some hot water already, it clearly wasn't enough. So the temperature dropped to well below my target for mashing in.

There was a point where I thought about just dumping in the grain and rolling with it, mainly because I was trying to figure out how to get about 15L of water back into my HLT at the top of my shed. But that voice in my head came on again: be methodical, be thorough, be sure. So I spent a good 20 minutes lugging crap around my shed to get back, essentially, to Square One. Taking in the time to heat up water again, it put another 50 minutes into my brew day - I could live with that.

So, I finally mashed in - this time pretty much hitting my target temperature - and waited.

And waited.

And waited.

And waited.

How's that for some insulation on my mash tun

Throughout the day, I quickly learned that brewing is really about sitting on your bum all day waiting for things to happen. But I tried to keep busy, mainly by cleaning.

Pots be great for recirculation.
After recirculating and sparging, I ended up with about 26L of wort for the boil. However, I lost a CRAPLOAD. I ended up with only 15L in my fermenter. There was probably about 2-3L in the kettle due to it not clearing out as much as I liked, but that still seems like a lot of wort-loss. I tried to keep things at a low rolling boil to ensure I didn't lose too much, but it seems like that didn't work.

It also ended up very murky going into the fermenter. After some post-brew Tweeting, Kieran let me know I should have added some calcium chloride to my water to help with clarity. Something to remember for next time.

Here's the recipe I ended up using and times of my brew day:

4.7kg Golden Promise
.41kg pale crystal
50g NZ Cascade @ 60 min
50g NZ Cascade @ 10 min
50g NZ Cascade @ 1 min
Dry hop with 100g NZ Cascade after krausen calms down
US-05 yeast
The total hop bill (incl. dry hopping). Omnomnom... I hope!

8am - HLT on. 45L of water @ 30C
9.35am - screw up strike water
10.25am - Mash in. Mash start temp = 67C
11.58am - begin recirculating. Mash temp = 65C
12.30pm - sparge
1.10pm - start 90min boil
2.44pm - flame out, chiller on
3pm - turn off chiller, wort = 20C
4.05pm - run into fermenter
4.15pm - pitch yeast into 14L of wort. Temp = about 18C

24hrs into fermentation - bubbling in airlock once ever 8 seconds. Temp = about 16C
48hrs into fermentation - bubble every 2 seconds. Temp = about 20C

Keeping my temperature level is going to be the hardest part from here on out. I've just scored a fridge from a mate, so I'm going to convert that into a fermentation chamber sometime soon.

But ultimately, I think I'm happy with how things are going so far. And as a way to both pat myself on the back and keep the ego in check, here's what I know I did well and what I'll need to improve on next time.

Chur:

- Recirculation: I know this is important to try get crystal-clear beer. When I did the brew with Chris and Stu, we had a pump to make life easier. At home, it was a two-pot collect-and-pour job. It took longer than I expected, but I knew I had to get it right to get the beer clear. And I did have a damn nice looking wort afterwards.

- Clearing and sterilising: Making sure everything was clean was a priority. I made sure to scrub the day before, then wipe on the day, then sterilise everything twice. I was using a no-rise formula, so I didn't worry about using too much. I reckon things were damn clean, so it should help the beer come out nice.

- No shortcuts: As I said before, I had a disaster at the beginning. For a few seconds I thought about dumping the grains on the too-cold water, but quickly got that out of my mind. I presume shortcuts in brewing usually lead to crap beer, so I took the time to lug things around a wait. I'm sure the brew should work out better for it.

Unchur:

Fermenter chilling on a bed of heat pad, upside-down
baking tray (to let the cable out) and carpet, wrapped
in a sheet for extra snuggles.

- Water: I forgot didn't add any calcium chloride to my water, which I've been told helps wort get nice and clear. I also didn't get a full analysis of the town water supply to ensure I treated it right to give myself a good base to go off. I won't be making that mistake again.

- Air: I probably didn't aerate the wort enough when I transferred it from the kettle to the fermenter. I used a hose to transfer it, but probably didn't hold the hose high enough to let it get enough air in. Next time, I'll be sure to use a smaller piece of hose to make sure the wort can splash enough on it's way to aerate properly.

- Expectations: I expected to be making crystal-clear, beautiful beer from the get-go, with no issues during brewing. I now know this is stupid, and I'll have to be patient while learning. I'm only learning and will need time to get good at doing this. But when I get good, I will know all those mistakes I made and lessons I learned will have been worth it.

So, there it is. First batch on the way. Is there anything I need to watch out for? Is there anything you would do differently to this recipe? Any brew tips I should know for next time? How can I not lose so much wort during the boil?

Hit me with your advice, because I'm a dry sponge and ready to soak it all up!

Sunday 26 August 2012

Beervana: The post-match analysis

Wellington on a good day
I started writing this the Monday after Beervana (yup, it's taken me a while because I've been working), and I feel exactly like I used to after I once played four games of football over a weekend - sore legs, slightly seedy and so glad I put myself through it.

But you have to forgive me for being so glad. When you're walking into Westpac Stadium and the weather is that good, you can't help but be happy with whatever you're doing.

For me, that doing was volunteering. I really, really, really miss bartending - but maybe not the pay - so thought I would offer my services, and promptly got told I would be serving beer alongside cool people like Richie. He ended up working every session. If he was a brewer, that would be understandable, but for a volunteer he put in a big effort. Someone should get that man a beer sometime.

But I didn't end up working at a bar at all. Volunteer maestro Jessica caught wind that I was in the media-brewer competition, and decided I could help with the tasting. Then she decided I could run the session... five minutes before it started...

It was hard yakka. No microphones, some judges who weren't very crowd friendly (sorry guys, no offence) and a lot of running around. But it was great fun, with some wacky brews offered up; horseradish pale ale, chili and marshmallow beer and ANZAC biscuit ale were there for the judges to try. The most "normal" beer was an imperial IPA.

Liberty Brewing - Rennals Toward Murawai
And I came third! Well, Stu and I came third with a lot of help from Chris Banks. I didn't really have much to do with it to be perfectly honest. I just turned up on brew day and provided the stainless. But I think Tintin and Uri's Third Wheel Spoonbender turned out great. Easy-drinking for 7-ish% but that candi sugar made from a sweet white wine still stood out. Smart! I'm looking forward to seeing what the Yeastie Boys do with it from here.

The most fun part was chilling out with people afterwards and going through the brews. I managed to meet a lot of awesome people who I had only "met" through the Twitterverse. But I spent the most time with Simon Morton and Richard Scott from Radio NZ's "This Way Up" show. It may have had something to do with the free beer (a lure to any good journalist), but it was great to sit down and talk brews and journalism with a couple people who know what they're on about and were really nice.

Naturally, having a few drinks with journalists left me in a great place to have a few more beers with journalists. I met up with a few buddies from my journalism class and proceeded to drink some of the Beervana brews.

Picking a favourite from Session 2 was tricky. Hallertau Funkonnay was absolutely everything I thought it would be - sour, wine-like but still with some awesome beer flavour going on. Emerson's Regional Best Bitter was tasting great on the handpump, as did the Cassel & Sons Milk Stout. Both nice and creamy, with the stout a rare treat for me. I even managed to fit in some Garage Project Red Rocks Reserve.

There was some great food as well. I made sure to get in on Fork & Brewer chef Anton's session about beer and food. Beer vinegar, salmon paired with Emeron's Pilsner and a chance to give Neil Miller a bit of stick - what else could a guy ask for!

Trying to check the clarity of C!tra
I had a glass of both Liberty C!tra (nicely modelled by Kerry there) and Yakima Monster (which was far too awesome) near last call, but it was their Rennals Toward Murawai which really stood out. As black as Death but really quite light for a beer that big, it showed off more than enough promise to convince me to go out and get a couple bottles sometime. Chur Joseph, chur indeed!

After a good sleep, shower and feed of McDonalds - there may have been a Tuatara Double Trouble from Fork & Brewer somewhere before that good sleep - it was off to Session 3!

For some reason, I didn't feel like high alcohol beers on Saturday. So instead, I mainly stuck to the milds. While annoyed I didn't get any of Feral's Watermelon Warhead - 2.7% watermelon sour beer - I managed to have a whole lot more awesome stuff.

Monkey Wizard's Black Mass oatmeal stout was the best of the session for me, but there were other great milds - ParrotDog Dogg, Garage Project Milk Chocolate Stout and Yeastie Boys/Lobethal Bruce ordinary bitter the ones I really remember - but there was really only ever going to be one beer of the session.

The one thing I loved about the festival was the relative lack of queues. But at 3pm, a massive line formed for 8 Wired's Bumaye. What else was going to happen for a 17% barrel-aged imperial stout?! It was tasting pretty fresh (lots of oak and alcohol notes) at the festival, but I think it'll be great in a year.

I went with the intention of taking detailed notes - I even had a notepad - but didn't get around to it. Why? Because I was simply having too much fun with people. And that's where Beervana was great for me. It was a chance to meet some people, catch up with some people, congratulate a lot of people and generally spend time with people who all shared something in common - an appreciation of beer as a drink, rather than a drug, and a want to share that with other people.
Brewers, bar tenders, photographers and people being idiots - that's Beervana in a collage.
So, until next year, cheers Beervana!

Wednesday 15 August 2012

Beervana: Pre-game 2.0

So, yesterday's post was all about the North Island bars and the festive brews. Today's shall be about the South Island beers which will be on display at Beervana.

I'm probably looking forward to these the most. Plenty never make it up this way, and there's sure to be plenty on handpump. If I could pick a bar to be placed at on my volunteer shift on Friday (hint hint) I would jump for the Real Ale bar. Handpump ales are just so damn good! Understated, but so full of flavour and omnomnomness.

Anyway, on to the bars!

Top of the South

That land of golden sun, golden beaches and hops which, after I imbibe enough brews, make the world seem more golden. It's like being a pirate, but without the sailing. I really don't know what I mean by that. Ignore me, just read!

Must have: After watching this episode of NZ Craft Beer TV, I know I have to try something from Monkey Wizard. Lucky for me, their Black Mass Stout (3.6% oatmeal stout) will be at this bar. He really has inspired me to have a bit of fun with brewing (when I eventually get going) and not worry if things may not work. Because this brewing thing should be fun! It's a creative, enjoyable, vibrant experience and I can't wait to get among it.

Also, Phil Cook passed his love of session beers on to me, so I think it's only reasonable that I have to get me a glass of this, especially given Wellington's love of being cold enough to freeze the balls of a brass monkey.

Must not: I've already made my thoughts clear here on the latest batch of Renaissance Brewing Craftsman (4.9% stout). I've had it a few times since and my thoughts haven't changed much. That should say it all really.


Canterbury

I'm always amazed at how well the breweries from Chch and co are doing, considering the catastrophic quakes which tried to place a choker hold on the city. But fear not! These brewers are made of tough stuff, and I'm glad they're sending plenty of beer up north for me to enjoy.

Must have: There is a lot from this bar I would have, but the Resolute Brewing Beechwood Bock (6.4% smoked bock) has to take the cake. I've been a fan of smoked beers since someone mispoured a Invercargill Smokin' Bishop at The Malthouse once. Any beer that tastes like smoked bacon has to be the business, ain't I right haters?!?!

Must not: Sorry Three Boys, but I've had enough Oyster Stout (6.5% stout) to drown half of Palmerston North. And probably enough to turn me into a complete horn dog if this is to be believed. I best leave that until I get back home.


Southern

Them Southerners know their brews. Richard Emerson is a titan of the New Zealand brewing scene, and I'm very glad he got some national TV attention recently (without subtitles - good work TV3!). He's helping to continually prove the point that there is more to Southern beer than Speights.

Must have: Probably the busiest brewery in the country with all the contract work they do, Invercargill Brewery also - somehow - find the time to pump out their own awesome range. But I have got to have some of their Pitch Black Boysenberry Stout (5% stout). The missus has had some lying around for a while, but won't let me drink it. This may be my only chance to have some.

Must not: I had never had tequila (in any decent quantity) until I worked at The Malthouse. As much as I love the stuff now, I still hate the Tequila Beer (5.6% fruit flavoured beer) from Green Man Brewery. But some go gaga for it. Don't be put off - at least give it a go. You can't mock it until you've tried it


Wildcards

Sure, so I said there would be only one - but bugger it. There's too much awesome beer to only pick one! So here are my three random picks for Beervana.

1) Cassels & Sons Brewery Milk Stout (5.3% sweet stout) - I've been told by many people that this is the beer I have to have at Beervana. I've not had much/any of their stuff before, but I can't turn it down with the number of people preaching praises about this brew.

2) 8 Wired Brewing Bumaye (17% experimental barrel-aged imperial stout) - anyone who knows me well enough should know I'm a sucker for an imperial stout. I've drunk an imperial pint of Moa's version before, and even made a cake out of it. I was a big fan of Søren's Batch 18, so I'm hanging out for this. I may have to make it the nightcap on Friday night, but what a nightcap it will be.

3) Liberty Brewing C!tra (9% imperial IPA) - C'mon, watch the video below and tell me you don't want to drink it - sweaty surfer armpit and all!


Tuesday 14 August 2012

Beervana: Pre-game 1.0

271 brews from 96 breweries is the official count from the organisers. If the hype is to be believed, this year's edition of Beervana will be the biggest and best yet.

But beer nerds have the usual problem. "I can't drink 271 beers in one session, so what will I drink?"

Planning is a big part of beer festivals for most beer nerds, and should be for you. Making a list of must-haves, must-nots and maybe-dos helps to cross of the beers you have already had and the ones you probably won't like, and prioritise those you can't miss.

So, in my helpful little way, I'm going to throw out there the beers I know I will and will not have. And with them split into territories, my job is easy: a must and must not from each regional, the festive stand and a random "wildcard" I can't not leave behind.

So without further waiting, the North Island regions and my pick of the festives...


Northern

Beers from the land north of The Tron. The breweries up there are the ones I have probably had the least from, so sorting the must from the must-not was tricky. To be honest, I'll probably have a few from here. However, self-imposed rules are self-imposed rules...

Must have: While sour beers are hardly my go-to, Hallertau Funkonnay (6.5% sour ale) was an easy choice. Now-retired blogger Alice Galletly did a very good job of letting me know that this is a beer I have to try. Any beer aged in chardonnay barrels has my interest after Yeastie Boys aged their Rex Attitude in some.

Must not: As nice as this beer is, I really have no need to drink Scott's Gluten Free Pale Ale (4.5%). Delicious of course, and a must-have for any of the gluten-free out there. However, I have bigger fish to fry.


Central

I'm glad that, finally, there will be some beers from #manawatumeke at Beervana! Massey University's Palmerston North-based micro-brewery is sending down a couple drops. Heck, I'm proud to say my former university brews beer. Does yours?

Must have: As excited as I am about university beer, the must have must go to the Brewaucracy Bean Counter (4.2% vanilla porter). The brainchild of Greig McGill and Phil Murray, this is bound to get me excited. I loved the vanilla from Renaissance's Craftsman last year, so am hoping for something same-but-not-but-still-good.

Must not: Croucher, I love you guys but I've had enough Patriot (5.5% American Black Ale) to last me quite a while. A great beer others should have, but one I shall miss.


 Wellington

Home-town support goes a long way, so these beers are sure to be popular. I still spend most weekends in the city, so am looking forward to making my way through some of the drops.

Must have: Most beers at the festival are looking fairly strong, so it is great that the Lobethal/Yeastie Boys collaboration called Bruce (3.5% ordinary bitter) manages to make its way in. I'm a fan of session beers, and am thinking this may be the drop to start on. Also, the tasting notes described it as looking "naked" *cue the funk music*.

Must not: Speaking of funk, I very much doubt I'll be having any of Funk Estate's Coconut Rough Stout (5% spice/fruit beer). I had some at the recent SOBA Winter Ale Festival, and think that was enough for me. If you're into your kinda-sour beer - which I remember this being -  do give it a go.


Festive

On the Beervana website, it says the beers in this category cannot be relased until after the BeerNZ Awards. But when all the tasting notes first hit the website, the festives were included. I made sure to download a copy then, so am fairly sure I'm covered on any embargo-breaking front. And if I am... well, TV One seems to be getting away with breaking this one. I'm sure a beer list is not as big as that, nor is my blog as popular as a national news channel.

Must have: Once again, it's them Yeastie Boys. This time, they've teamed up with Moon Dog to create -wait for it - Peter Pipers Pickled Pepper Peated Purple Pale Ale (9% strong fruit ale). A beer which looks like unicorns, smells like a horse and cart and tastes of clamped nipples has to be tried to be believed.

Must not: A hard choice, but it has to be the Renaissnace Brewing Great Pumpkin (6% spiced pumpkin beer). Funk Estate also have a pumpkin beer, but it was brewed at Massey - talk about bonus points!

Tomorrow (hopefully), I'll post about the South Island regional bars. I'll also pick out my wildcard brew. Until then, let me know what you are hanging out for at Beervana. Are some of my picks well off? Are there some I absolutely need to try? Any I should steer well clear of?

Until then, cheers!


Post-script: So it turns out the Yeastie Boys/Moon Dog spooning session festive will not make it to Beervana in time - unchur indeed! So, back-up festive favourite goes to Liberty Brewing's Rennals Towards Muriwai (11% festive brew). Anything which claims to absorb light while having a maximum bitterness and sweetness rating has got to be awesome.

Thursday 9 August 2012

Two Ravens walked into The Swamp...

I'm a huge fan of collaborations. Working with people tends to bring the best out of you. I've found it to be true in music, in writing and it is very visible audible clear that it is especially true in the beer world.

It is almost for this reason alone that I wish I lived in the US. Dogfish Head - one of the absolute titans of the renaissance in the craft brewing scene - recently did a series where they worked with musicians. While watching Brewing TV, I found out they did a beer with Dan the Automator which had chilies, Fuji apples and cilantro in it. If that ain't wack, I don't know what is. But I do know it was a 9% ABV IPA called Positive Contact.

There have been plenty of collaborations in the Kiwi craft beer scene as well, but arguably the most regular would be the Motueka/Yakima duos brewed by Yeastie Boys and Liberty Brewing respectively. Two beers, exactly the same, but one with NZ hops and the other with US hops.

After a couple years of doing IPAs, this year's edition sees the Ravens - two black IPAs. So, naturally, I had to get both and try them out.

I started with Yeastie Boys' Motueka Raven, mainly because I had a tot of Aberlour beforehand. Knowing Stu's fondness of whisky - if only going off Rex Attitude - just seemed right.
L-R: 1) Bottle and beer. 2) The blurb.
Correct me- someone - if I'm wrong, but I think I can pick out cascade hops. It may have to do with trying to snort the things when Stu and I did the media-brewer pro-am brew, but I'm sure I can find them in there. I also get a very dusty aroma, like the nasal texture (is that even a thing?!?!) Renasisance Craftsman had in 2011. There is also some coffee on the nose. If I had to pick it, I would say a filter coffee like a Chemex brew; sweet, but with enough bite to keep things dry, but in a sourish kind of way. There was also a bit of mint in there, but only enough to keep things zingy.

I picked up pineapple and what I think is mandarin when actually drinking it (because that is what you do with beer after all). Maybe more a mandarin version of those British chocolate oranges; like Jaffas, but slightly more exotic. It all finished up with a nice bittersweet chocolate finish, and seemed to get fresherthe longer it was in the glass. A nice hit of umami as well, along with some grass. I know what grass tastes like after being a football goalkeeper. I pretty much ate a few mouthfuls every Saturday, playing two games a day at Donnelly Park in Levin.

Things just got weird.... more beer!!!
L-R: 1) Bottle and beer. 2) The blurb.
The Yakima is instantly different. For a start, it pours with a bigger head. Then on the nose - my goodness Joseph, those hops! While the Motueka is pretty relaxed, this throws up those citrus notes US hops are so loved for, which helps to bring the chocolate to the front. Now this smells like Jaffas! It reminds me a lot of Yeastie Boys' Pot Kettle Black, but bigger.

Same kind of mouthfeel (must come from the identical malt/yeast/water profile/etc), but a much fuller hop flavour. Far more refined as well. While the Motueka had a more "across the net" division of malts and hops, the Yakima seems to fade the malt into the hops more. It's like the difference between tennis (stay on your side of the net fool!) and football (we can get together wherever we want to on this field). I've heard before that this is a common difference between NZ and US hops - am I right? Feel free to tell me I'm full of crap.

All in all, two very awesome beers. If I had to pick a winner, it would be the Yakima. While both beers are awesome, the US hops just seem to fit better.

I'm a bit gutted I didn't think ahead and blend the two at the end. But maybe that's what 3 of 3 is for - am I right?

Tuesday 7 August 2012

This station is now (almost) operational

Yes, I finally have the kit in my shed! 

 (Clockwise from left): 1) How's that for a gravity system?! 2) Base of mash tun. 3) View from HLT to mash tun

I'm still a way off brewing though. I've got to get me some essentials like Star San, a heat pad (because The Swamp is very, very cold) and ingredients. I've also been very busy at work, and have got make sure I've got plenty of money together for Beervana weekend (hope to see you there).


But I have given it a test drive of sorts. A few weeks ago, Stu McKinlay and I converged on Chris Banks' place to brew up a beer for the media/brewer pro-am competition at Beervana. It was great fun, and a good learning exercise. Chris taught me some of the little quirks my kit has, and Stu was a wealth of information on everything to do with brewing. I even learned some techniques I had no real clue about, like first wort hopping.

I probably can't tell exactly what we brewed, but I'm thinking it will turn out great. It should have enough of a difference to be interesting, without being totally wacky. I hear someone is using horseradish in their brew - seriously, what the hell?!


I also, still, have to decide what exactly I'm going to brew first on my kit. I'm wanting to do something for the autumn months, so a red or brown ale seems to be what I'm leaning towards. Do you have a good recipe, or know where I can get one? If so, please shout out!

And while giving the HLT its first test in the shed - albeit just to boil water to clean some bottles - I imbibed in one of Epic's many new offerings of late. Message In A Bottle was brewed to be paired with "Beer Nation", Michael Donaldson's brilliant biography on the history of beer in New Zealand. A big malty IPA, it comes bearing a truckload of caramel, toffee and marmalade. and leaves behind a slow-building finish which just makes you want more.

To me, it tastes like the perfect gateway from Tui to real IPAs. It has got enough sweetness to appease an orange can fan, but enough flavour and character to give them a beer which actually tastes good. And that can only be a good thing

Monday 16 July 2012

A beery weekend

First of all, this post took FOREVER for me to write. Why? Because I kept being distracted by awesome jams on YouTube.


But sweet hops and funky yeast - what a weekend! I am buggered after a huge weekend of trying beers, meeting brewers and surviving some typically disgusting Wellington weather. The pull of two beer events falling on and around my birthday was too great, so I just had to get to them both.

First up was Malthouse's annual West Coast IPA Challenge. It's 5th incarnation saw a crap-load (yes, that's a technical term) of beer on offer. Heading there straight from work in Palmerston North without a meal stop may not have been the best idea, especially with one of the weaker IPAs on offer weighing in at 6.7%

But goodness there was some great stuff. Blending Epic Hop Zombie and Garage Project's Super Angry Peaches together was the thing dreams are made of. Big, swirling, odd dreams, but dreams none the less. The stonefruit of the Peaches and the lychee from the Zombie really did make a great drink, which I believe was given a name worth of the beverage - Super Angry Zombie.

Naturally, having a blend of an 8.5% IPA and a 10.1% IPA - both with huge hop flavours - blew my tastebuds to smithereens. So I afraid I couldn't taste much of the Yeastie Boys Motueka Raven. A black-IPA brewed with Kiwi hops, it was... nice... I think. I honestly couldn't taste much, and it more served as a palette cleanser than anything else. I'll have to try find some to have again sometime.

The weirdest beer I had was something from Brewery Britomart called Nessie’s Conundrum. While it made Neil Miller's nose curl from across the table, I was a bit of a fan. The peat-smoked IPA was just wacky enough to be a bit of fun and cut through the hops, which were well and truly stinking out the bar by then.

But the beer which impressed me the most would have been Black Dog's Unleashed IPA. A DB-owned brewery, the beer brewed just a side-street away from the debauchery of Courtenay Place, I've had mixed feelings about their beer before. Their Rich Bitch chocolate cherry porter was a let down, while the Chomp IPA was a bit underwhelming. So it's nice to see the brewers unleashing the flavours. I know I wasn't the only one impressed with the beer, which won plenty of fans on the night.

So after chowing down a monster of a breakfast at Cafe Polo in Miramar on Saturday morning and walking around the city in some shocking weather, I headed to The Boatshed for the SOBA Winter Ale Festival.

Confession time: it was only the second beer festival I have ever been to. I went to the last version of Beervana to grace the great dame that is the Wellington Town Hall, but since then it has been a dry run.

But what a festival! Plenty of beers of all manner of styles. IPAs, porters, plenty of handpulled ale, and even a 13% imperial stout. However, I did have far more beer than I did the night before. Something about it being my birthday meant I got a few beers shouted for me, as well as five free beers from my former boss. All in all - it was a long day.

But! Highlights from SOBA WAF - Garage Project's Cherry Bomb porter was great! Chocolate notes from porter + cherry juice = omnomnom. I really liked Funk Estate's coconut stout as well. It had some weird sour thing going on which I had never found in a stout before, but it worked.

I also finally had a beer from Kereru - a Silverstream-based brewery. I have a soft spot for The 'stream - as I called it when I went to school out there - and I'm glad the beer from there is great. The rye ale I had from hand pump was delicious and I'll be sure to grab some bottles of beer sometime soon.

And after THAT, I went to The Local out in Strathmore for some dinner and a beer. And what better way to end the evening, than with a beautifully cooked lamb shank and a bottle of Tuatara Porter. Seriously, grab the lamb shanks out there - well worth the trip/money/whatever excuse you make not to go.

So all in all, a big beery weekend. I'm having a dry week to let the liver bank balance body recover a bit, but I think it was well worth it.

Brewery update: It has been paid for (which I'm sure Chris appreciates) and I am planning on picking it up this weekend. But there's also something else special coming up on Saturday, which remains secret-ish... for now...


Thursday 12 July 2012

In Pursuit of Un-hoppiness

While I worked with a myriad of amazing people at The Malthouse, I learned the most from two people - Phil and Tom.

While Phil has an amazing way of imparting his knowledge of beer, Tom came from a different background. Before starting at the bar, he knew not-very-much about beer. However, he was very well versed in the dynamics of wine. And the one thing I remember the most from his vino-speak was his talks about chardonnay and oaking.

IPA Challenge poster 2012
According to Tom, wine makers caught on to aging chardonnay in oak barrels to impart flavour into the grape-juice. But somewhere along the line, one winemaker decided to make their wine oakier than the rest. Then another tried to out-oak the first. And so on and so forth, until their was some chardonnays which just tasted too much of oak for their own good. But, naturally, some wine drinkers just tried to find oakier and oakier chardonnays.

This is particularly relevant to the New Zealand beer scene at the moment, with the fifth edition of the West Coast IPA Challenge about to take place at The Malthouse. The idea is this: make a hoppy IPA in the style of those which are made on the west coast of the USA.

This started out well enough, with Epic and Hallertau facing off against each other with fairly hoppy IPAs. But half a decade down the track we now have 10 brewers taking part. And largely, they are trying to out-hop each other, with many making IIPAs at a gazillion IBUs to try take out the title of "best beer" on the night.

Original IPA Challenge poster
And I'm sick to death of this macho crap.

The behaviour is hardly surprising. It doesn't matter if it is hot sauce, running or vegetable growing, people are always wanting to outdo each other. There is something about being a human which just makes us competitive. I see no problem with a bit of friendly competition, but there comes a point in time when people just need to chill out and just simply be good.

Tom told me this is happening in the wine industry. Drinkers are getting sick and tired of over-oaked chardonnay and are heading for other styles. I'm looking forward to beer doing the same. Give me a smooth, balanced IPA over a hop explosion any day. Or even something completely different - a sour, an imperial stout or a pilsner.
 
But despite my rant against hoppy IPAs, I'm still heading to the West Coast IPA Challenge tomorrow. I'm most looking forward to Croucher Brewing's Zythosed version of their Croucher black-IPA. I'm also hoping to get in a pint of Townshend's BlitzGrieg on handpul, mainly because you can't get a pulled ale here in The Swamp. And I'm hoping to catch up with plenty of people I haven't seen in quite a while.

I also happen to be drinking Emerson's limited edition American Pale Ale. Like anything Richard Emerson brews, it's bloody lovely. It's probably the most balanced APA I've ever had as well; a thick malt sweetness balances out the chinook, centennial and amarillo hops beautifully. I got the first bottle from the liquor store, and I'm sure it won't be the last I grab.

Back to the topic of beer events this weekend - I'll also be at SOBA's Winter Ale Festival on Saturday. I'm only there thanks to Steph Coutts sorting Dad and I out some tickets, so no doubt I owe her big time. It'll be good to spend my birthday hanging around fellow beer nerds while eating as much salt and pepper squid I can. Hopefully I'll see you there!

Sunday 8 July 2012

Galuszka Brewery (under construction)

A shed - how bloody boring, right?!
I'm very glad I decided to start home brewing when I moved back to The Swamp, rather than trying when I lived in Wellington. Why? Because every place I lived in had either no garage, or a garage full of crap. Brewing in the back yard would not have been as much fun without some tin to keep the elements out.

So, I'm absolutely delighted to say that I now live in a place with a space I can dedicate to being my man cave brewery.
Under-and-over of the hot water cylinder + water source

By the state of the vegetable patches and shed when I arrived at my current residence, the person who lived here before me was old and Irish. I say that because the shed was filthy and cluttered, and all I got from the vege patches when I dug them up was potatoes.

But I thank the old Irishperson - who will now be known as Paddy - because somewhere along the line they decided to undertake some home improvements and hook up the shed with water. While Paddy's plumbing is creative to say the least, I have running water to the shed - that's the main thing.

There is also a hot water cylinder in there, if I ever need it. Paddy also left me plenty of shelving, draws, and a random set of old school lockers. I even got some panes of glass wrapped in newspapers - Evening Standards, just for a connection to my current occupation. I'm not sure if any of the random stuff will come in handy, but it's nice to know that it's there if I ever do need it.

Old school lockers and an Evening Standard from exactly 35 years ago.
Paddy also left me something else - dust. Lots of dust. While some may say you can have as much dust as you like, it's a bad thing for brewing. Have you ever heard of dusty beer? Yeah, I thought so.....


So, I spent a good Saturday morning cleaning out the shed. I swept up the cobwebs, beat the mats and even vacuumed the floor. Yes, i vacuumed a concrete floor. I'm mad. I'm crazy. I'm nuts. But I'm being thorough, because the last thing I want to have to do is throw out a batch of beer because a spider/speck of dust/piece of shed dropped into something without me noticing.

There's still plenty of cleaning to do. I know I need to give it another going over with the broom, and I plan on giving every surface a good dose of bleach. I also need to figure out where to put all the random pieces of wood that Paddy left me. But most important of all, I need to to some measuring to see if I'll be able to fit my drums in the man cave brewery as well. I am going to need something to do while I wait for wort to boil after all!
Pic 1 - the view. Pic 2 - some shelving/benches
 So, while I have plenty of space, shelving and random stuff (seriously, does anyone need some old high school lockers?) I have no idea how to properly get myself set up for brewing. Which is where you come in!

How would you set this up? Anything I should knock up? Knock down? More shelves? More draws?
 

Also - should I hook up the bathroom so it actually works? 


Yup, through that door is a bathroom (da-daaa!) currently out of order.

Wednesday 4 July 2012

Yeastie Yankees

Happy 4th of July people! While plenty in America will just be waking up, those in the Shaky Isles have been either honouring, acknowledging or ignoring Independence Day for the last 20-odd hours.

Like most beer nerds here, I had to get myself some US beer to enjoy. Luckily for me, the local liquor outlet stocks a great range of Rogue beers. And while I picked up a bottle of their OREgasmic Ale for today, it's a different beer of the Oregon brewery's which I've really taken to - their Yellow Snow IPA.

With Green Flash opener in the shot
 I've got a bit of a joke at work with our emergency services reporter over the shenanigans going on at the temporary ice rink installed in the middle of The Swamp. People have - in typical Swampish student fashion - been taking to the rink in the middle of the night, usually while drunk, and causing all sorts of malarkey. I'm waiting for someone to succumb to a bodily function while on the ice, and have therefore dubbed any police-related activity to do with the rink "Operation Yellow Snow". But I digress.

While I may have first purchased Yellow Snow IPA for the name, I've quickly taken to being a big fan of the beer itself. For one, it comes in those great 650ml/6oz bottles which can be easily shared among many, or greedily hoarded into a single belly. It's got a brilliant sweet-orange flavour which I just adore in beers like this, but still keeps things nice and balanced with a nice hop tang. It manages to have a good mouthfeel as well; it's big and creamy enough to distinguish it from other IPAs, while not being fluffy like an unfiltered wheat. I've already drunk a few bottles of this and I'm pretty sure I'll be drinking the rest of the stock at the store.

With the pretty lady lurking through the bottle
And for the record, the OREgasmic Ale is great as well. Rogue have called it a Grow Your Own ale - in short, they grew the hops and barley for the beer. In semi-weird fashion, they've put on the bottle the exact longitude and latitude of the hop and barley farms. While I found it wanky for Monteiths to do the same with their Single Source, it seems just that bit nicer here. Maybe it has to do with the fact they are an actual craft brewery, or because they have their own hop and barley farms - I don't know, but I do know the beer taste a hell of a lot better than some super-brandwanked lager. It's dark amber in colour, fruity on the nose and hold a nice balance fruit-malt-hop profile which makes it very easy to drink. It makes me think of a tighthead prop in rugby who is comfortable enough in his own skin to wear a pink shirt; it's solid, but not afraid to be colourful.

The beer also has this awesome earthiness to it. It nearly tastes like dirt, but I like it. I've only caught it this prominent once before, which I found in the closer-to-home Tuatara American Pale Ale when brewers changed the hop profile at some point.

I hope most of you raised a glass of something American and thanked them for great things. What did I thank them for? Great beer, spare ribs, American-style pizza and Bob's Burgers. And what better way to thank, than to imbibe them all.

Monday 2 July 2012

When bad things go good

"You learn from your mistakes" - The Optimist.

That saying is probably one the most hated sayings, for me anyway, which has ever been said. I'm one of those people who would rather be told and taught how to do things right the first time. That way, I shouldn't have to learn from mistakes purely because there won't shouldn't be any. Makes sense, right?

Well, sometimes life just isn't that fair to you. Mistakes happen for a variety of reasons. Sometimes you're careful and someone else isn't, other times you just have no idea that something was going to go wrong and it just did. Life sucks like that, and you just have to swallow a concrete pill and deal with it.

"Mistakes" have also happened in the beer world to spawn some pretty amazing products. The story of how beer came about is, probably, built on a series of fortunate mistakes. I once heard beer writer Neil Miller explain it (sort of) like so:

*Bread gets left oustide (big mistake)
*Bread gets rained on (bigger mistake)
*Bread ferments (definitely a mistake)
*Teenage boys find fermented bread (probably a mistake)
*One dares the other to drink bread-juice (should have been a mistake)
*The other accepts, drinks and gets drunk (the impending hangover, a mistake)

But my favorite mistakes in beer both involve Yeastie Boys, the self-described first ultra cool, postmodern brewers of leftfield ales. Made up of Wellington brewer Stu McKinlay and Auckland beer hunter Sam Possenniskie, this brewing company really does make some of the most interesting beers which come out of this wee little country I call home. I'm a huge fan of their black IPA/hoppy porter Pot Kettle Black, and have recently fallen in love with their tea leafed IPA Gunnamatta. The bergamot from the earl grey tea leaves gives the most amazing aroma and puts a whole new spin on the old saying "there's always time for tea".

Arguably their most popular well-known beer is Rex Attitude, the 100-per cent peat-malted golden ale. The beer which wants to be a whisky caused many bars problems, from trying to sell pints of what some people described as burnt bicycle tires, to getting the smell of the stuff out of the beer lines. Turns out Steve Nelly at Invercargill Brewery had the second problem, but instead of in beer lines it was in his brew kit.

For those who don't know, Yeastie Boys' beers are brewed down in Invercargill. So is the Pink Elephant range. So, when Mr Nelly went to brew Pink Elephant's Mammoth after brewing Rex, the coelurosauria managed to get down with the proboscidea and create an entirely new beast - Men’nSkurrts.

To put it as simply as I can, MnS is Mammoth, but with the leftover smokiness from Rex giving it a bit of a twist. And I'm so glad they didn't take the easy (albeit expensive) option of tipping it down the drain. It has a huge rich aroma tinged with that peat smoke from the Rex, and the fruitiness of the leftover golden ale really punches through the solid malt backbone of the Mammoth. It really is the best of both worlds.

So while Yeastie Boys managed to screw up a brew of Steve Nelly's, it only seems fair he got one back on them. While brewing the strong amber ale Hud-a-wa' for the Yeasties, someone at the brewery accidentally pitched in the wrong yeast. Instead of getting a smooth English ale yeast, this batch got a funky Belgian yeast.

While brews may contain kilos of grain, litres of water and handfuls of hops, yeast is by far the least-added ingredient in beer. However, it is the most important. Without yeast, beer would just be a sweet liquid bittered up with some hops - but it would have no alcohol without yeast. But aside from eating sugar and turning it into alcohol, yeast also has another very important job - imparting flavour. Different yeasts can completely change how a beer turns out. I like to think of it like drummers - they all do the same job, but can give totally different feels to songs.

Like with MnS, this beer was also saved from the drain, and was dubbed Red Rackham. While having the huge caramel backbone and stonefruit flavours of it's brother, Rackham has that nose which can only be described as funky and typically Belgian. The great thing about this beer is the mouthfeel - so thick! While drinking it I actually felt my teeth clenching together, like I was trying to chomp my way through some kind of genetically engineered dried apricot-orange.

What am I trying to say? I'm not really sure. I guess I'm just glad mistakes happen and, instead of brewers only learning from them, we get to experience them - warts, funky yeasts and all.