I Am Hope turns down fundraising over beer logo

A beer created by fishing guru Matt Watson dives straight into controversy. Duncan's go vegan with new smoothie sour. Red barley beer "better for you". Spent grain turned into "leather"

Happy Friday Beer Lovers

This week’s dispatch is bursting at the seams with news — starting with the story of a beer created by fishing guru Matt Watson and its immediate dive into controversy.

Mental health charity I Am Hope has refused to take money from a boxing fund-raiser because the beer — with the tagline “not for pussies” — is being co-promoted alongside the event.

Swordfish Mojo is a low-carb lager created by Watson, the star of the ITM Fishing Show and the Ultimate Fishing YouTube channel.

The packaged version of the beer, brewed under contract at Good George, is being launched at the Ironfist Charity Fight Night boxing event in Hamilton on Saturday night.

The event was supposed to be a fund-raiser for I Am Hope, but when the mental health organisation learned of the beer’s tagline they opted out of receiving funds from the event, noting the beer’s message did not align with their values.

This story started when a number of people in the beer industry contacted me to ask if I was aware of the branding on the can, with one person raising the connection between the launch and I Am Hope.

“[L]aunching it at an I Am Hope charity event...not quite sure how that aligns with their mission —  ‘I AM HOPE has one goal — positive societal attitudinal change.’”

Another person wrote to me about “this bullshit”.

“I don't know if you saw this last week as you’d have been at Beervana. Looks like Good George have contract-brewed a lager for some fishing bloke. On the very front of the can it says ‘Not For Pussies’ wtf?!”

And a third noted: “I know they’re going for a mainstream market, but this is like time-warping back to the Moa days. What’s the message here? That only self-assessed alpha males can drink this beer?”

I asked I Am Hope through a generic contact form about the potential mixed messaging and whether they were happy with it.

Founder Mike King said after becoming aware of the branding on the beer, the organisation decided not to be involved in the Ironfist Charity Fight Night.

“People want to raise money for us, which is good, but I put it to our board chair and our counselling lead, and while they both understand it’s a joke, it doesn’t align with our core values,” King told Pursuit of Hoppiness.

“We made a mistake and I accept full responsibility for the oversight, so we won’t be the recipient of the funds.

“I know it’s only a beer label … but we’re encouraging kids not to use this type of language so it would be hypocrisy to be involved in this.”

To those who initially raised concerns about the branding and the link to I Am Hope, he said: “Thank-you for calling us out.”

In a message to Ironfist and Watson, King wrote:

“I regret to inform you that, unfortunately, we are unable to proceed as the recipient of funds for the event. I understand that you had already received approval from our marketing team, and I sincerely apologise for any confusion or inconvenience this may have caused. It appears that consent was given without my prior knowledge, and I take full responsibility for this oversight.

“While I know the strapline was intended as a light-hearted joke, given our current position as a mental health trust, it doesn’t quite align with our core values. This isn’t something we wish to make a significant issue of, but it’s important that we stay true to our mission.

“I want to thank you for your efforts and contributions, and I genuinely wish you all the best with your event. Please know that your support of our cause is deeply appreciated.”

Matt Watson — “I get it”

For his part, Watson accepted there would be criticism of the tagline — and he expected it — and having spoken to King he understood I Am Hope’s decision.

“I get it,” Watson said of the critiques.

“We took advice and I got a legal opinion … the lawyer looked at all our social media stuff and other beer brands and said so long as you don’t change your style, which is clearly tongue-in-cheek and you’re laughing at yourselves, it’s likely you’ll get complaints but it’s unlikely you’ll get an advertising standards complaint upheld unless you start calling any people or any sector of New Zealand pussies.

“And it’s not something I would do anyway — I wouldn’t single out any person or any group for any kind of bullying.

“We set out to make it a laugh. There’s literally a cat on the side of the can, with a little line through it, and it says: ‘Whatever you do, don’t give it to your cat!’”

Watson admits he was forewarned by his wife.

“My wife said ‘you know some people will get pissed off with this’. So it wasn’t like I wasn’t warned.

“Not everyone sees the world the way I do, that’s for sure.”

Swordfish Mojo — the backstory

In the view of full context around this, it’s important to know the backstory.

The new beer started as a bit of banter, with Watson referring to the “mojo” when people asked him how he caught swordfish when others couldn’t. Part of the mojo was having a beer.

A friend then made stickers that read “swordfish mojo” and they would put them on cans of beer. The gimmick became that the secret to catching swordfish was drinking a can of Lion Red with the “swordfish mojo” sticker on the tin.

Watch swordfish mojo in action

“Then it grew into this social media thing, with us saying ‘we’re the conquerors of the ocean …’ taking the piss out of ourselves.

“‘Not for pussies’ is not an attention-grabbing thing — it went into the logo way back then and I wanted to keep it.”

Watson says he defines the phrase as “not being cowardly”.

“Up until now I haven’t had any negativity around it, even from the supermarkets.”

The beer is also a fund-raiser in its own right for the marine conservation organisation Legasea and part of the awareness campaign is adding salt water to the beer.

“The beer has salt water in it for that tangible connection: You have to look after the ocean because it’s going in your beer and by drinking this beer you’re helping the ocean. I’m trying to create a simple way to get people to care about the sea and if I can connect with beer-swilling heathens maybe there’s hope.”

Watson had not intended to launch the packaged beer at the Charity Fight Night — he had October pegged as a release date — but he brought forward the first canning run to help the promoter, who asked him to leverage interest in the beer to drive ticket sales.

“He said ‘I’ve been following your social media and everyone’s very excited about the launch of your beer … if you could get some of it for the event it could draw some of your fans into buying tickets’. And he asked us to sponsor some beer, so we ran some off especially and Good George have been incredible to get it ready. We’ve had to move heaven and earth to get it into cans to support this event.

“I wasn’t using the event as an opportunity to launch the beer, I was helping him to help I Am Hope.”

I finished our conversation by noting that at least the beer would get noticed, to which Watson replied: “I was expecting the saltwater angle to generate some interest.”

Why it matters

I know there will be many people questioning this, arguing that it’s only a beer label and wondering when we got so precious. I hope words like “woke” and “snowflake” don’t pop up in the conversation.

In the end, it’s the connection to I Am Hope that’s problematic.

As Mike King reminded me in one of our phone calls, words are weapons that can be used to bully young men perceived as different from an accepted norm and that words and phrases like this can and do have an impact New Zealand’s youth suicide rate.

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Beer of the Week No 1

Well, I came home from Beervana on a hefeweizen high and luckily for me, that coincided with Sawmill taking the bold step of putting their hefeweizen in a six-pack. Bold because, well, you know how well wheat beers sell in New Zealand right? Perhaps this is the one to bust that paradigm, especially as the weather warms up. It’s a great beer for a 330ml six-pack, because a) it’s just 4.8% ABV, and b) once you have one you want another straightaway. It’s refreshing and dry with all the requisite flavours of ripe banana and clove-like spice which is subtle (a good thing!). An ideal food beer too, as there’s a complexity to it that works well with food. I want this to be a huge success because — frankly — we need more wheat beers on shelves.

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Duncan’s break new ground with vegan smoothie sour

New Zealand’s self-professed biggest user of lactose (milk sugar) in the brewing process is set to find new customers after creating a lactose-free, vegan-friendly smoothie sour.

The use of lactose in dessert beers, ice cream sours, smoothie sours and milkshake IPAs has always been problematic for lactose-intolerant and vegan drinkers, but Duncan’s in Paraparaumu — renowned for just these types of beers — has found a way to deliver the same texture and flavour without lactose.

The change was spurred by the recent Beervana festival which attracted three German breweries, including Sudden Death, who have a similar love of smoothie sours and dessert style beers.

When Duncan’s got the chance to do a collab beer with Sudden Death, founder-brewer George Duncan said there was one problem — Sudden Death is a vegan brewery.

“There main thing is they don’t brew with lactose so we had to ask: ‘how to do we brew the same beer without lactose?’ We ended up using a combination of maltodextrin, coconut milk powder and some salt, and that created the same body we get from a pastry beer — and we’re really happy with the result,” Duncan says.

He said the idea of using coconut milk powder didn’t come from Sudden Death, but rather that it was something he’d been exploring already — especially after discovering his own health concerns.

“Ironically, I’ve just been diagnosed as lactose-intolerant myself.

“And we’ve played with coconut milk powder before for flavouring but not as brewing aid. When we did it, Sudden Death were surprised and said: ‘We’ve never thought of doing that before’.”

The Mango Pudding smoothie sour features malted barley, wheat and oats in the grain bill, mango and passionfruit fruit additions, coconut milk powder, maltodextrin, hops, natural flavours, salt, and yeast.

To produce a great vegan beer is a major breakthrough for Duncan’s as they get a huge number of people saying: “I’d love to try your beers but the lactose thing…”

“But it was also about trying to do something different. And it’s not as if the beer doesn’t stand up next to our other beers — it’s really good.”

Not using lactose was a revelation for Duncan in terms of the flavour profile as well.

“I knew lactose added body, but I always wondered ‘how much sweetness does it really add?’. And after brewing that beer I’m now thinking it doesn’t add that much sweetness — if you get the acidity right. If you adjust the acidity, you can maintain a semi-sweet beer.”

To that end Duncan’s have also changed their brewing technique for the fruit-driven beers, abandoning the traditional kettle souring process, where the pH is lowered pre-fermentation. Instead, they are now doing a post-fermentation dosing with lactic acid.

“With using a lot of fruit you can get variations in acidity post-fermentation, so it’s good to do your final acid adjustment once the fruit’s in. That way you get an idea of how the beer is tasting first. It’s like adding seasoning to food. And that’s how we do the salt additions as well. It gives us flexibility.”

The proof, so speak, was in the pudding, with Duncan noting they “got great results at the NZ Beer Awards with post-ferment adjustments”.

They got five medals from five entries in the Speciality & Experimental class with gold medals for Satellite Grapefruit Hazy IPA and Feijoa Crumble Ice Cream Sour, silvers for Boysenberry Waffle Pastry Sour and Passionfruit & Lime Ripple Ice Cream Sour, and bronze for the Juniper IPA.

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Dusty’s Beer of the Week

Love getting my mitts on some Abandoned Brewery — makers of great beer and a great aesthetic to match. The 17th iteration of the hazy series is an absolute juice molotov, hopped with Mosaic, Centennial and Nectaron producing gargantuan amounts of mango, pineapple and orange upfront with secondary layers of pine and blueberry. Mouthfeel is thicc with a tingly carb and a juiced-up finish. Absolute crusha and contender for tin art of the year! Hoppy Friday. — Dusty

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Red barley beer “better for you”

The Carlsberg brewery in Denmark has just released a beer brewed with red barley — the follow-up to a one-off version brewed as a collab with the Liverpool football team (who wear red, for the those of you who don’t follow sport).

It’s not to be confused with a red ale, which is traditionally made from roasted barley and kilned malt.

Carlsberg told The Telegraph the experimental lager is less bitter and contains fewer hops than normal beer thanks to the addition of anthocyanins, chemicals in grape skins that make wine red.

‌These compounds are naturally occurring and red barley has been bred to contain a high concentration of them. They have been shown to boost memory as well as reduce the risk of cancer, inflammation and diabetes.

‌Dr Zoran Gojkovic, the director of brewing science, yeast and fermentation at Carlsberg Research Laboratory, told The Telegraph: “We have all colours here from our research. We have a green beer, we have blue, we have black, we have red. There is a lot of stuff, and surprisingly for us, they all taste different.

‌“You should eat colours, the more colours you eat the better for you. But in our case, we drink colours.

‌“Luckily, the red one was what we had the most of and we also made it first and it turns out it is extremely tasty.

‌“The colour is from anthocyanins, a little bit like those in the grape skins used in wines,” he said.

‌“There are different compounds, different anthocyanins, there are about 6,000 of them.”

He said the red beer was reminiscent of red wine in taste, “it’s a little bit of a crossover.”

Red barley is not made by gene-editing but with cross-breeding using techniques developed as part of the Carlsberg Research Laboratory’s own technology, dubbed Find-It, which allows scientists to identify desirable genes in other plants and then breed them into barley to create new varieties.

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Beer of the Week No 2

Lakeman continue to quietly produce damn good beers. And I’m impressed with this latest release, Mastermind, mainly because I think they made me like Sabro hops (well I’m guessing there’s Sabro in there). Normally I find the coconut expression somewhat overwhelming and confected but here it’s a more mellow experience that fits snugly with the rest of the juicy, tropical, dank, citrus elements. There’s a strong presence of Nelson Sauvin that I think helps even out the profile by delivering that sense of acidity with its wine-like flavours. The body is super-light and the bitterness dial is set at the right number. A coherent yet complex drop.

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Hop N Vine partnering with Beer Fridge

A new beer distribution company has been launched with the merger of Christchurch-based Hop And Vine with Auckland’s BeerFridge.

Terry Mitchell from Hop And Vine wrote to me:

“With New Zealand’s hospitality and brewing industry struggling to survive the hits from government taxes, high interest rates, exorbitant costs of ingredients and a cost of living crisis on top, a craft beer and wine distributor and a beer-dedicated logistics business are aiming to buck the recent trend of industry closures by forming a partnership that will support the growth of craft beer breweries, wine-makers, and other beverage manufacturers.”

The new entity is called ABV Beverages. The merger combines both businesses’ resources, infrastructure and expertise.

One of keys to the merger is a nationwide sales team representing brands including:

Emerson’s, Burkes, Three Boys, Volstead, Duncan’s, Boneface, Waitoa, Shining Peak, Black Sands, Laughing Bones, Brothers, Paynters Cider, Kombucha Bros and a range of NZ wines.

And they are offering a great point of difference for bars by providing options for tap systems “allowing more venues to showcase the very best independently owned NZ beer and wine, without tying themselves up in 'big brewery' agreements”.

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Tim’s Beer of the Week

Saisons always put me in mind of spring, and with the daffodils well and truly on display here in Canterbury, it’s probably just about time for one.  My choice — Holy Roller from local Christchurch brewers Southpaw — certainly pours with an abundance of jubilant spring energy, as my ill-fated photo can attest…

As saisons go, Holy Roller somewhat eschews the traditional approach, instead presenting a hop-forward energy that I find suits my tastes perfectly.  Nelson Sauvin and Motueka drive a zesty and remarkably energetic lemon and lime citrus aroma, while the typical saison spice is present, but far from the main focus.  That signature spice is eventually coaxed out in the long finish, where it performs an interesting inflection from a primarily hop-driven beer, into a more traditional yeast-driven form.

Fresh, lively and dynamic, not to mention potently flavoursome for a lighter 5.5% abv.  This may well be one I find myself returning to as the garden (mostly the lawns…) beckons. — Tim Newman

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Spent grain turned into alternative leather

The most common use for grain left from beer production is animal feed or for making spent grain crackers. But The Kernel brewery in London is working with some scientists to make alternative leather, in which no animals or plastic are used to make the material. This BBC video describes how it works, and it’s fascinating, really.

How beer is used to make alternative leather (bbc.com)

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That’s me for another week. I know I’m one beer short of the usual, but I literally ran out of space and time! Catch you next week for another round.

Michael