New can business 'exceptionally positive' for industry
Garage Project one of first customers for new can-maker Recorp Ltd. Slow ticket sales kill-off beer festival. The end of the great American beer whale. An ode to Guinness.
Happy Friday beer fans!
In an era where we’re looking for good news to poke through the veil of gloom that’s pervaded the past couple of years … well, we have some.
The opening of can-manufacturing business Recorp Ltd yesterday is one of the biggest positives for the beer industry in a long-time says Garage Project’s Jos Ruffell.
Until now the production of beer cans in New Zealand was in foreign hands with two Australian companies, Visy and Orora Beverage, the only options.
The Aussie pair currently produce around 1 billion cans a year and Recorp aims to take a chunk of that business and expects can use to grow by 100 million a year.
“It’s great news. We view it as an exceptionally positive move for the industry,” Ruffell said.
“In an environment where good news has been few and far between, I feel really positive about this.”
The business is the idea of former Air NZ boss Rob Fyfe and he’s in partnership with former Air NZ chief operating officer Bruce Parton. Others with a stake include Zuru toy empire co-founder Anna Mowbray, property investment mogul Justin Wyborn and Forsyth Barr executive director and investor Jonty Edgar.
Ruffell said Garage Project have switched totally to Recorp for all their cans, noting the fact that it’s a New Zealand-owned company going up against what was formerly an Aussie duopoly.
Recorp Ltd is one of the biggest manufacturing businesses to launch in New Zealand costing more than $100 million to get up and running.
“It’s a staggeringly large project — they said it’s the largest private manufacturing investment in New Zealand’s history.” Ruffell said.
“We like their ethos, it lines up with our own sustainability goals.
“We’re attracted to the flexibility they are offering customers, the responsiveness, and the quality; it’s brand-new lines. And we like that it’s a New Zealand company taking on a foreign-owned duopoly. We feel like we’re working with people who are pushing New Zealand.”
Ruffell also said Recorp offered a variety of can sizes, from the standard 330ml and 440ml options as well as a slim-line 250ml and a large 500ml can. The larger formats can come in regular sizes or “sleek” meaning a slightly narrower cylinder.
It’s understood Recorp will offer lower minimum order quantities than their rivals, which will mean brewers won’t have to tie up so much cash in stock.
It will be interesting to see what formats breweries might opt for — I would be a big fan of 500ml cans!
Swifty in 12-packs
Staying with Garage Project a moment … Swifty, their collaboration with Royalburn Station, aka Nadia’s Farm, has been so successful it’s now going into 12-packs.
The beer is made from grain grown on Royalburn Station and was a focal point on the latest season of Nadia’s Farm which follows the lives of celebrity chef Nadia Lim and her husband Carlos Bagrie.
The show has certainly helped with the beer’s profile.
“We seem to be getting a really positive response,” Ruffell said. “It’s a simple beer but it’s bloody delicious and seems to be well-received so we thought it was time to put it in a 12-pack.”
Swifty will retail at round $36 for a 12-pack.
Beer of the Week No 1
The Bright IPA trend continues — the latest coming out of Double Vision Brewing in Miramar with the awesomely designed Bright Idea.
Bright IPA is not a style, exactly, more a direction that beer is taking — an antidote to the hazification of the market.
While Bright IPA is about clarity rather than haze, it does borrow some of the flavours you get in hazies and applies them to crystal-clear beer.
So expect only a hint of bitterness, with the loads of summer fruit flavours like mango, pineapple, rockmelon and sweet citrus.
Double Vision have absolutely nailed the brief with Bright Idea. The label is definitely bright and vibrant while also (using the lightbulb imagery) indicating that this is a new “idea” in beer. Within the six pack the individual cans show a variety of different colours which adds to the feel of fresh and lively.
They’re also showcasing a new hop, Elani, which is “found” hop (more on that below).
Great beer, great packaging. What more could anyone want?
Bright Idea is now available in select New World stores, your home for craft beer.
Elani — the “found” hop
Just to round back on Elani hops, as I think it’s quite a cool story. It’s the proprietary hop of Yakima Quality Hops, which is not a grower but a distributor and broker.
Yakima Quality Hops owner Tim Sattler discovered Elani (previously YQH-1320) in Idaho’s St Joe River Valley, an area he often explored on family outings as a child. This region boasts a rich brewing history with late-19th century and early-20th century miners and loggers frequently brewing beer using hops cultivated near their camps. Elani likely resulted from an open cross-pollination of these hop plants.
Sattler brought rhizomes back to Yakima Valley for testing and development. When DNA results confirmed Elani as genetically unique, the new variety was patented in January.
The name is in memory of Sattler’s late sister Melanie.
It’s said to bring pineapple, guava, white peach and sweet citrus flavours.
Slow ticket sales kill Beers at Basin
The reason behind the sudden “postponement” of this year’s Beers at the Basin event has been revealed at a Wellington City Council meeting.
Earlier this week, a post on the event’s website said “due to a recent number of unforeseen circumstances, Beers at the Basin has unfortunately been postponed from this year, until Saturday November 29th next year”.
The Post newspaper covered the WCC meeting on Thursday morning, and reported that councillor Nicola Young asked Lisa Jones, who was speaking on behalf of the Basin Reserve Trust, if she could “shed some light on the mystery of Beers at the Basin being postponed, but is it really being cancelled, and why?”
Jones said the decision to put off this year’s event until November 2025 was made by the event’s organisers, Arada Promotions, due to slow ticket sales.
“The reasons they gave for that was they hadn’t sold all the tickets, and normally by this stage they have sold [all] the tickets — it’s a sell out,” she said.
Last year’s event was plagued by heavy rain but went ahead despite the weather. Jones told the council it was obvious that that had an impact on this year’s sales.
“[The promoter’s] concern was around the vendors. [Arada Promotions] could’ve possibly covered their costs based on the sales that they had... but he was concerned for the vendors,” Jones said.
In a statement to Stuff, the promoter, Damien Hochberg, said there were “a number of factors that led to the decision to postpone this year’s event”.
“While the event wasn't sold out yet like it was at this point in 2022, tickets were still selling consistently each day,” Hochberg said.
Ticket holders to this year’s Beers at the Basin have until the 31st of December to request a refund, or they can also have their ticket transferred to next year’s event.
Dusty’s Beer of the Week
From the stygian depths comes the king of beers in my opinion, a rare market return in the form of Black Mass a 6.66% Black IPA from Welly heavy-hitters Garage Project. An obsidian pour makes way for pops of zesty grapefruit, orange with licks of danky pine, mellow dark chocolate undertones on a resiny mouthfeel and tingly carb tie together a moresish example of the style. Drink and repeat! — Dusty
Shortjaw featured on The Crafty Pint Podcast
Shortjaw co-owner Luke Robertston featured on a recent Crafty Pint podcast.
In Australia, Robertson is far better known by his handle Ale of a Time — the blog that spawned a podcast of the same name, both of them home to sharp, witty and occasionally caustic observations of, and commentary on, the wide world of beer.
Nearly three years from starting Shortjaw, he talked to Will Ziebell and James Smith on his change of direction – “or putting his money where his mouth is, as he puts it: how he's approached building a customer base for a regional brewery in one of the most remote parts of the planet, his fondness for creating beers that represent the place in which they're brewed, and some of the highs and lows that come with launching a brewery in the toughest climate for beer in decades”.
The chat with Luke starts just after the eleven minute mark.
How to save pubs
In the post-Covid era talk of a universal basic income did the rounds for a while. You know the idea, everyone gets a set amount of money from the government no matter what you earn. It’s more often viewed as giving everyone the same floor to stand on as opposed to the safety net of welfare.
Well, totally only half-joking, writer Katie Mather reckons we should have a universal basic income for going out!
“Everyone needs to be given some money to spend on enjoying themselves, now more than ever.”
Beer of the Week No 2
Dankonia is the second go at a terpene-laced IPA from Urbanaut and after the first one had me in WTF mode, this one was more, dare I say it, approachable.
It’s definitely dank and loud and I got intense grapefruit — like grapefruit essence — plus furniture polish and leather. There was a deeper layer of fruit-sweetness like stewed strawberries plus some herbal notes.
This one uses Green Crack terpene oil which is also known as “mango” so I figure there’s some in there!
Once again this is an experience — and one I highly recommend.
The darkest hour — and ode to Guinness
Today North End brewer Kieran Haslett-Moore celebrates his birthday (at least that’s what Facebook tells me). So in recognition of that, I’ve shared his latest column in the Fermented Culture series:
Fermented Culture — The Darkest Hour | Pursuit of Hoppiness
Happy Birthday, Kieran!
Tim’s Beer of the Week
Lawn mower lager is surely one of the most rote “beerisms” still knocking around the parlance. But, as someone who’s already in the two-mows-a-week time of the year with the lawns, it still holds a great degree of truth.
From down south, Wanaka Beerworks’ Cardrona Lager (5%) — refurbished packaging wise as part of the Brewski range — has been helping me keep that grass low.
Hopped (bravely, it still needs to be said) with Green Bullet, it brings a bold aroma of (suitably) cut grass and wet hay, with a touch of bracing barley-husk astringency. The palate though is where this one really shines for me. With an immensely textural gristy crunch followed by a phenomenal bitterness that I never expected to come from a lager. Style purists may denounce it as wantonly over-bittered, but I find that walloping oomph to be just that much more satisfying. — Tim Newman
Paddock to pint beers
Talking of Swifty (above) reminded me of a recent brewing concept which equates to the farm-to-plate restaurant ethos. The closest we might have in New Zealand is Canyon Brewing, which grows its own barley and has a brewery on the farm.
But imagine a farm-based brewery that grew both its own barley and hops? I saw a story on the Australian Financial Review this week about Devilbend on the Mornington Peninsula outside Melbourne, but it was paywalled. So a quick google told me our friends at The Craft Pint had already done it!
Beer Grows Here: The Devilbend Farm - The Crafty Pint
Beer of the Week No 3
While the Oktoberfest month of German beers is in the rear-view mirror Abandoned Kolsch is still in the front of my mind. I thought this was a really good beer. Light, fresh, nutty malt character, just a hint ester-fruity with a hint of apple and pear and a firm bitterness. A simple beer but one that’s well-made, nicely balanced and refreshing.
The end of the beer whale
I’ll leave you with this story from Punch about the end of an era in America beer — the culture of queuing for hours in long lines outside elite taprooms to get your hands on a rare beer, aka a whale (as in Moby Dick).
Just a few years ago, brewers could reliably expect hundreds of enthusiasts to swarm their special releases. Today, beer whales — and their attendant hype — are few and far between.
Are Beer Whales, or Hyped Craft Beer Releases, Going Extinct? | PUNCH
Thanks again for spending time with me on Friday Night Beers and I’ll catch you again next week.
Michael