Cassels and Deep Creek join forces

The beer of the year has been found. Clayton Hops enter the cryo game. Beer Hug's Choicest Top 50 revealed. Beer makes you more creative, study shows. An argument against "exceptionalism" in beer.

Howdy Beer Friends

Welcome to another edition of Friday Night Beers — an edition bursting with news and one in which I go super early in delivering my verdict on the beer of the year.

First up, huge news from Cassels and Deep Creek.

In a move that promises to be a more common practice in the future, Cassels and Deep Creek have joined forces in a sales and distribution partnership across the North Island.

This kind of thing has happened on a smaller scale in the past but these are two heavy-hitters in the craft world and their combined strength will give them serious clout, as well as huge savings across the now-combined sales teams.

Under this plan, Deep Creek will become the distributor of Cassels products in the North Island, bolstered by an expanded sales team. The brands say this will increase their representation at the store level, which will translate into greater on-shelf presence.

For buyers of beer from the two breweries, it means a single point of contact for orders, deliveries, and invoices.

Zak Cassels, co-founder of Cassels Brewing, said: “We’re thrilled to unveil this partnership with Deep Creek. It's been a long time in the making, and we truly believe Deep Creek is the perfect match — an independently owned company sharing our values, along with a fantastic range of beers that complement our own.”

Paul Brown, co-founder of Deep Creek, added: “Our alignment with Cassels perfectly matches our growth. Representing Cassels’ award-winning beers in the North Island is an exciting opportunity, offering our customers the best products in the market and a more streamlined service.”

We talk of collaboration a lot in beer but until it’s been focused on breweries putting out a beer together, but this a meaningful shift in the dynamic and gives both of these breweries at huge lift in terms of their presence in North Island bars, supermarkets and bottle stores.

In particular, Brown told me that Cassels Milk Stout is poised to go big as it’s currently “so under-represented on tap in Auckland”.

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Beer of the year time?

Is it too early to make a call on the “Beer of the Year”?

I mean, if people are already promoting Christmas then we’re technically at the end of the year. And the Melbourne Cup is just a month away, too, and when I lived in Australia I always associated Melbourne Cup Day with the start of a long, slow, roll to the end of the year.

But before I tell you about the beer of the year 2023 … let’s preface it with a look at Beer Hug’s Choicest Craft Beer Top-50 poll.

This was an intriguing exercise to see unfold as Beer Hug used a model where voters picked their beer. No drop-down menus, no lists. It reminded me of how SOBA used to do their awards. So, there’s nothing to guide voters except their own memories of what they like (never an easy task). But they got 5000 votes and something like 500 beers got mentioned, which I’m quite stunned about.

Beer Hug didn’t have any demographic data, except that on a rough cut of the voting, 13% were women.

The winner was Behemoth’s Brain Smiles Hazy Pale Ale — a hugely popular supermarket six-pack.

Second was Eddyline’s Crank Yanker West Coast IPA, proving the Nelson brewery’s continuing increase in both reach and quality.

Third went to Deep Creek’s Misty Miyagi Hazy IPA, rewarding that brewery for the move to put this beer into 330ml six-packs.

When I drilled down into the list I found it, perhaps unsurprisingly, dominated by hazy pale ales and hazy IPAs. Including those labelled “unfiltered” there were 24 “hazies” — or 48% of the list.

With IPAs (13) and pale ales (6) of various descriptions claiming another chunk of the 50 spots there were only 7 beers that didn’t end with the words “pale ale” — and with four of them being pilsners or lagers, there were only 3 beers you’d describe as “not hoppy”.

So take a bow Cassels Milk Stout, Duncan’s Raspberry Ripple Ice Cream Sour and Double Vision’s Smooth Operator Cream Ale for fighting their way through the wall of hops! I’m inclined also to move McLeod’s Chili Pilsner into this group, as in reality the spice trumps the hops.

So there you go: we’re a nation of total hop-heads!

Beer Hug have boxes of the Top-12 and cases of the top-24 for sale now.

So, this beer of the year then?

I cross-referenced the Beer Hug Top 50 with the NZ Beer Awards gold medallists and the New World Beer & Cider Top 30.

A decent chunk of the Beer Hug Top-50 were either gold medallists or in the Top-30 but only one beer appeared in all three lists this year, meaning it excelled in a) a technical event (NZ Beer Awards) b) a consumer-oriented event (Top-30) and c) a popularity contest.

So my beer of the year based on that formula is:

McLeod’s Paradise Pale

And this doesn’t shock me in the least. It was tasting SUPERB the last time I had one.

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Beer of the week No 1

I wrote recently about what I perceived to be an increased quality in 2.5% beers as a result of applying the technology and practices required to make a great non-alcoholic beer and now I’m absolutely convinced we’re about to enter a golden age of small beer. Sawmill Nimble Pale Ale will be on my list of the best beers of 2023, no doubt at all. The aroma is adorable, the flavour fantastic. It’s also got a really nice, edgy bitterness, which I like a lot. This was gifted to me by Sawmill but I will be going back for more.

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Clayton Hops enter the cryo-game

In other major news this week, hop producer Clayton Hops continues its massive investment in the value-add department.

The independently-owned hop producer last year built its own pelletiser, a huge investment in itself. Now New Zealand’s largest single hop grower has jumped on the thiol bandwagon, coming up with their own version of Phantasm, the thiol precursor created by Garage Project’s Jos Ruffell.