Another brewery in liquidation

Cowabunga, which closed last year, call in liquidators to wrap up business. Sawmill to brew Emerson's Pilsner tribute organic beer — will we see more? Tasting paddles fall out of favour.

Greetings Beer Friends and welcome to Friday Night Beers,

First the good news: It’s milestone of sorts here, with this being the 100th published edition of Friday Night Beers! I’ll be toasting that tonight.

Now the bad news: It’s a common refrain these days: “craft brewery goes into liquidation” and the latest to officially wear that tag is Cowabunga, who were based in Morningside, Auckland.

The official liquidation is largely a tidy-up from a decision made in November last year.

As we reported back then, Cowabunga had gone into a joint venture with newcomer Batsmen Brewing to share a brew space and taproom, The Tapping Room.

But no sooner had that been set up, than Cowabunga decided to close shop and leave it to Batsmen founders, Suemalo Faga and Wayne Sao, to push on with their Samoa-inspired operation.

“We learnt a lot from Cowabunga and now we’re excited to see where it takes us,” Suemalo said then. “We wouldn’t be here without them.” 

The almost flippant tone of liquidator Damien Grant in an interview with the New Zealand Herald was a little surprising but perhaps talks to the perfunctory nature of the liquidation, with owner Stuart Nichol retreating from the beer scene and back to teaching.

“They should have succeeded. How can you not want to drink a beer called Cowabunga? I mean, Bart Simpson, c’mon,” Grant told the Herald.

“This is an orderly wind-up. They had a crack at creating a craft brewery. It’s a crowded market. They were unable to make a go of it. We’ve been asked to look after this. From our investigations, we are confident that no creditors will lose any money.”

Batsmen Brewing — Tapping Into Diversity | Pursuit of Hoppiness

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Emerson’s Organic Pilsner gets a reboot

Last night I was up in Matakana, north of Auckland for a fantastic dinner at Sawmill Brewery’s Smoko Room. The food was outstanding and each course was matched with a pair of beers, one from Sawmill and one from Emerson’s.

The dinner was a prelude to a brew that was put down today, with the Emerson’s crew joining the Sawmill brew team to create a tribute to the original Emerson’s Organic Pilsner.

There’s been no commercial organic beer brewed in New Zealand for around 15 years, with Emerson’s forced to drop “organic” tag in 2009 when it became impossible to get organic malt. Mike’s in Taranaki was also originally “organic” while Green Man in Dunedin made organic beer as well.

For this organic reboot brew Gladfield Malt produced a crop of organic malt, and Sawmill went to Oldham’s hop farm in Nelson — the original supplier of organic Riwaka hops to Emerson’s — and came away with organic Motueka and Wakatu hops.

So the Sawmill Organic Pilsner won’t be a precise replica of Emerson’s … but as Richard Emerson noted last night, the current Emerson’s Pilsner recipe has changed numerous times over the years anyway.

But I’m hoping this might be a door-opener to some more organic beer — I believe the market is there for it, but it would require several brewers to commit to the idea for barley growers to invest in organic crops.  

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Beer of the Week No 1

Nearly two years into penning this dispatch and I can’t believe this is my first time posting about Brave Brewing Tigermilk! I know I’ve mentioned it before and certainly I’ve drunk it many times in the past two years, but often there’s a compulsion in the beer world to be on the lookout for the “new”. But it’s also worthwhile remembering flagship beers too. And Tigermilk, to me, has not only become a Brave Brewing icon, but it’s almost a flagship for IPA in New Zealand, a crown previously worn by Epic Armageddon. I know it’s a big call, but Tigermilk is a definitive expression of great (and superbly balanced) IPA.

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One Drop celebrate 5 years

One Drop brewery in Australia has made a similar kind of splash over the ditch as Garage Project did here when they started up. There’s so much talk about One Drop it’s easy to forget they’ve been going only five years.  Admittedly the strong Kiwi connection via owner Clay Grant and brewer Nick Calder-Scholes gives them extra profile on this side of the Tasman, but largely it’s the beer that does all the talking. Such is their impact on Australia’s beer scene, the Crafty Pint team celebrated their fifth birthday with this story:

One Drop: Five Years In Five Beers - The Crafty Pint

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Carlsberg can historic British system

From the ultra-modern to the soon-to-be-lost olde world.

Carlsberg Marston’s Brewing Company (CMBC) has announced it is retiring the four remaining Union Sets at Marston’s Brewery in Burton-on-Trent, Staffordshire, because using them as fermentation vessels is no longer viable, according to the company.

The Oxford Companion to Beer, describes the Burton Union System as follows (I’ve changed the present tense to the past where applicable):

“[A] wood barrel fermentation system that was used predominately by the brewers in and around Burton-on-Trent, England, in the mid-to-late 19th century. It is also referred as a ‘Union set.’ Among the notable brewers who employed this system [were] Bass Brewery and Marston’s Brewery. Marston’s [was] the last brewery in England who still utilise[d] this system. A Union set is an amazing and strange brewing anomaly, consisting of large wood barrel casks, each 150 imperial gallons in size (about 7 hl), ranging from 24 to 60 in number, which are positioned on their sides in rows, typically suspended off the floor in a wood or metal frame by large metal axles. The barrels are spaced evenly and each is fitted with a bottom valve that leads to a bottom trough. An attemperator cooling coil is installed in each barrel to control fermentation temperature with chilled water. The barrels are linked together by a series of side rod pipes so that liquid can be evenly dispersed throughout the Union from a feeder vessel. A swan neck pipe leads from the top of each the barrel to a top trough, which is suspended over the barrels and is slightly pitched to one end. Connected to this trough, at the lower end, is the feeder trough.”

Jeff Alworth from the Beervana Blog had a good commentary on the loss of this brewing system in terms of collective knowledge.

This is sad, because any time an old type of brewing process passes into extinction, we lose a little bit of our collective memory. But the news should have been expected. Many people, not really understanding what a union set is, chalked this up to soulless corporate penny-pinching. Carlsberg didn’t help matters by turning to an AI-like corporate explanation. ‘We take great pride in the quality of our brews and by moving cask Pedigree to stainless-steel fermenters, we will be able to deliver consistent, strong quality for our customers and consumers going forwards.’ Yet translated into normal-speak (‘We’ve spent decades preserving this system at some cost even while it disappeared everywhere else, but given the realities of brewing today, we had to make the difficult decision to shift to a modern process’), this would have been both true and undeniable.

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Beer of Week No 2

Staying with flagship beers, it’s been around for five or six years, but Duncan’s Raspberry Ripple is still the standard bearer for dessert-style sours. There’s been plenty of bigger and bolder ice cream sours since the advent of this beauty (including many from Duncan’s) but the simplicity and cohesion of this beer makes it one of my favourites and I’m always happy when I open a can.

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Non-alc’s high level secret

When Craig Cooper of Bach Brewing released New Zealand’s first craft non-alcoholic beer, All Day IPA, he was quite coy when I asked him about the techniques involved. He’d scored a jump on his competitors, notably Garage Project, and wanted to gain as much market edge as possible.

And fair enough, given how hard it is to make non-alc beers — protecting what you’ve learned is a big advantage.

However, when I saw the following story, with the headline suggesting secrecy around non-alc techniques was holding back innovation, I found it hard to agree, because the sector appears to moving ahead in leaps and bounds. That said, it’s a very good read on a fast-growing segment that looks at how non-alc, as a category, fits into a craft ethos of collaboration and sharing.

The Nonalcoholic Beer Industry's Secrecy Stalls Innovation | PUNCH (punchdrink.com)

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Dusty’s Beer of the Week

Beer Baroness have summer covered with the aptly named Slice of Heaven —a 6% NZ Hazy IPA hopped with Nelson Sauvin. Plenty of fresh passionfruit jumping out initially with additional peach & grape notes, juicy thickish mouthfeel, a greeny bitterness to offset and balance out all of the above. Finish is drying! Built for beach days.

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Sport & Beer: do they mix?

To be honest I can’t believe the question is being asked … but where there’s alcohol tied to sport, there is always criticism.

Olympic sponsorship deal with beer company AB InBev criticized as ‘cynical’ and ‘an odd pairing’ | CNN

And Lord knows what the critics would make of the beer advertising featured during the Super Bowl (airing Monday morning here in NZ).

On that note, Michelob Ultra released their Super Bowl advert, and it features Argentine round-ball maestro Lionel Messi, which is weird, I guess. And Ted Lasso (Jason Sudeikis) also makes an appearance.

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Beer of the Week No 3

Badass Beverages are making a solid case for the beauty of classical, and very drinkable, German styles — Maibock lager, Hefeweizen, Schwarzbier, Kolsch are all in their repertoire.   (And OK there’s a California IPA, but every rule needs and exception!). Anyway, the latest release stays firmly in the German corner, with Schadenfreude Session Pilsner. Weighing in at just 3.5% this is a dry, very dry, and firmly bitter pilsner. Boxed up in 4x330ml cans, it’s also got some great marketing on the packaging: Less than 4 standard drinks per pack. It’s a completely different proposition to the fruity-hop-driven New Zealand-style pilsners we’re used to — and that makes it a refreshing change.

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Excise tax and its lax impact on harmful drinking

Following on from last week’s story about Oregon Health Authority burying a report on how excise tax doesn’t stop the most harmful and costly drinking, comes this opinion piece, from cidermaker Emily Ritchie, who makes a good argument.

Opinion: Raising taxes on cider, beer and wine won’t address problem drinking - oregonlive.com

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Keg thefts rock Melbourne breweries

Dozens and dozens of stainless steel kegs are being stolen around Melbourne, apparently for their (pitiful) scrap value, and it’s causing all sorts of headaches for brewers.

Melbourne's Multitude Of Missing Kegs - The Crafty Pint

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Tasting trays not taking flight

As someone who never orders tasting flights, I’m wholly on board with taprooms that want to do away with them!

I get the virtue of flights … it gives people a chance to try a whole bunch of beers and figure out what they might like or not.

But I find flights can be palate-screwing — moving between styles can be confusing for your tastebuds and after a while it all blurs into a vaguely bitter taste and it’s hard to distinguish any nuance or character.

Plus, they’re a pain in the neck for bar staff to pour.

Why Breweries Are Saying No to Beer Flights — InsideHook

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Ireland’s new patron saint of drinking

As far as Irish saints and beer go, St Patrick is always associated with a pint of the black stuff … but last week I learned from my Irish in-laws that they were were having a just-introduced holiday for St Brigid, who it turns out has more right to be linked with beer than St Paddy.

Move over Saint Patrick: why the world should be celebrating beer-brewing Brigid | Art | The Guardian

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A look back at Cyclone Gabrielle

Next week marks the anniversary of the devastating Cyclone Gabrielle, and I thought I’d share this story featuring Chris Barber of Zeelandt brewing and the upside down Mazda that “swam” into the Barber’s house in Esk Valley.

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Cheers and thanks for reading