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...

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!

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.

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.

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.