Garage Project get global recognition. Beer community loses a legend. Canyon sign ace deal with NZ Open golf. Deep dive into US hop harvest. The big non-alc debate: yes or no?
And to celebrate a new year I’ve got a bumper newsletter. I guess that’s what happens when you go on holiday.
We start with:
New Zealand has a new No 1 brewery on Untappd!
Cell Division this week ended Derelict’s five-year run as New Zealand’s highest ranked brewery when they clocked their 1000th review — which is the threshold for Untappd to start ranking breweries.
It’s a major triumph for Cell Division, a small, one-man hobby brewery run by Jamie McQuillan in Dunedin. Focused on farmhouse, sour, wild, funky and fruited beers, their releases are rare and infrequent but always worth trying out.
Cell Division’s elevation to top spot also means the top four are all South Island breweries, with Derelict and Wilderness from Canterbury and Craftwork from Oamaru.
Nothing changes in 2024 when it comes to top-rated individual beers on Untappd, with Garage Project still holding nine of the top-10 spots.
Garage Project on global radar
Speaking of Garage Project, their reputation in New Zealand is unimpeachable, but by the looks of it they will be garnering more international attention after being named one of the “breweries to watch in 2024” by global outlet The Drinks Business.
The magazine named 13 breweries to watch and 10 of them were American, with just three internationals including breweries from Japan and Argentina. Here’s what they said about GP:
“Remember Phantasm, a product derived from Marlborough grape skins that contain a high amount of thiols, well, that was developed by Jos Ruffell, co-founder of Garage Project based in the Aro Valley of Wellington. Ruffell and Garage Project have similarly been turning heads stateside and many people are keeping an eye out for Garage Project beers in other parts of the world. Now is the time to pay attention to this NZ brewery.”
NZ loses beer royalty
Some sad news filtered through on New Year’s Day, with the passing of Ted Verrity, a long time champion of New Zealand craft beer.
Ted died in the early hours of January 1, aged 84.
Ted, born Edward Cressey in Hull, England in 1939, was brought up by his aunt and uncle and chose to take their name. Shortly after moving to New Zealand as a young man, he met Frances – his soulmate – in 1963 at the Wellington Magistrates Court where he was working as a miscellaneous clerk. Ted and Frances were married for more than 50 years. Ted enjoyed art, rugby, was a loyal fan of Hull City football club, and loved to travel with Frances. She died on their last trip together to England in 2015.
Ted’s passion for beer began in the 1970s on a trip back to England, where CAMRA had recently begun as a champion for Real Ale. It wasn’t until the 1980s and the opening of Mac’s brewery though, that Ted could find enjoyable beer back here. Ted enjoyed all sorts of beer styles, and dictated meticulous tasting notes to his wife Frances — a wine drinker — over many years. Traditional English styles were his favourites, particularly those served on a hand pump, and loved a dark mild. His passion helped New Zealand’s beer community grow to what it is today, encouraging brewers and fellow beer enthusiasts alike.
Ted and Frances were lovingly known as the Royal Couple of craft beer. Both were heavily involved in the Brewers Guild of New Zealand and the (recently wound-up) Society of Beer Advocates, and were awarded honours by both organisations for their immense support of the craft beer sector over the decades.
Ted will be sorely missed. His memorial will be held at LBQ in Wellington on Sunday, January 21. Donations can be made to Mary Potter Hospice or the SPCA in the names of Ted and Frances Verrity.
Canyon Brewing score ace deal
In terms of recognition locally, big ups to Canyon Brewing for doing a deal to become the new beer sponsor of the New Zealand Open golf tournament being held in Queenstown next month.
Canyon’s Vacation Hazy Pale Ale is the official beer of the tournament and it’s a nice fit to have a local brewery supplying the beer for the tournament, to be played at Millbrook.
“We're stoked to be the chosen beer partner for the New Zealand Open. It's an absolute honour and can't wait to bring the bold flavours of Canyon to this world-class golf tournament,” said Jimmy Nicholson, director of Canyon Brewing.
Michael Goldstein, the partnership manager for the event said having a local brew on board was a real bonus.
“We love working with locals who know the region and are supportive of the event we host. Canyon have some great products, we love the taste of their Beer, and hope that golf fans across the country get a taste of the limited-edition New Zealand Open beer this year.”
And kudos to the Canyon social media team for nice little video to promote the deal.
Canyon Brewing™ on Instagram: “We’re excited to tee off as the Official Beer Sponsor of the 103rd New Zealand Open 🏌️♀️ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Swing into Vacation Mode with us, as we introduce the Official Beer of the tournament. Made to be enjoyed whether you’re watching the NZ Open live @millbrookresort, at the 19th hole, or on the couch at home. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Limited edition Vacation x @nzopengolf cans will be hitting supermarket shelves, bottle shops and our online store soon. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ #nzopengolf#vacationhazy#proudsponsors”
January 18, 2024
Beer of the week No 1
Some of the beers I’m going to mention in the next few weeks may or may not be in stock. But I checked this one (and ordered more) because damn, it’s so good! I’m no closer to knowing what a Bright IPA is (and this is supposedly my job!). There have been a raft of them appear lately but kudos to Parrotdog — they’ve been doing a “Bright” IPA for a while now. I take it to be, basically, anti-hazy in looks but with a lick of the “juice” factor that hazies try to capture. It’s adjacent to Cold IPA in structure but without the lager fermentation. Whatever. It’s bright, clean, light, fruity-dank and crazy good on the tastebuds.
Freezing Beer in US Football
It’s been hellishly hot in the northern parts of the country this month. Just nonsense hot, to be fair. To make my ancestral Scottish blood feel more at home I’ve enjoyed watching the snow-hit NFL games that have been on offer lately. The one that made news most recently in a beer-sense was Kansas v Miami played in -20C. It was so cold that refrigerators were keeping drinks “warm”. As soon as water came out of the fridge it would freeze. Beer took slightly longer but it still turned into frozen slush — exactly the kind of thing you get at modern beer festival!
BrewDog making waves — again
BrewDog have been slammed by their own staff and copped some media critiquing for dropping their commitment to an accredited real living wage scheme.
Workers reacted with anger on the group’s internal messaging system, with one saying: “I’ve been at BrewDog long enough to see every benefit that attracted me to the job either binned or completely reduced.
“The effective cutting of our pay again when cost of living is only getting worse, especially in the city that is home to the business’s flagship bar, by a company that prides itself on its ethical ‘underdog’ image and supposed moral values is wildly questionable on both ethical and moral grounds.”
Another member of staff told the Guardian: “Last year there was a staff vote surrounding benefits and what staff want to keep. No 1 was the real living wage. Barely a year later and they’ve turned back on their promise.”
There was some support for BD founder James Watt in the comments to his post on LinkedIn trying to counter some of the reporting.
Beer of the week No 2
Again, another one still available, but only order Duncan’s San Jorge Mango & Habanero Smoothie Sour if you like your beer really thick! I will admit that I took my time with this, and initially I was fearful of my ability to do so, but when it was gone I missed it straight away. This is a Duncan’s special — over the top but seemingly without effort, The habanero is pitched quite delicately and brings the perfume notes without too much of the heat, while the mango is definitely there and the whole thing drinks like a mango lassi with an added spritz of chilli. Fun beer.
The big non-alc debate
There’s been a heap of chatter on socials this week about non-alcoholic beer with the main concerns being a) whether it’s any good; and b) will make you sick?! The latter is a fair enough point as without alcohol there’s nothing to stop the bugs getting a foothold and there was a global recall of Guinness 0.0 a few years back that kindly illustrated this point. I’m pretty sure most non-alcs made in NZ will be pasteurised as it would be impossible to sell them without doing so — just way too risky. I do wish supermarkets would keep them chilled though, as the hop stability in the “IPAs” falls away quickly if they are not cared for properly. That point of out of the way, are they really as bad as this article makes out?
I’m at odds with a few people in the industry with my firm belief that they are, in fact, not terrible! At least what’s made in New Zealand. I’ve said it often enough before: I think the NZ NAs from Garage Project, Bach, Parrotdog, State of Play, Sawmill, Urbanaut and many others are as good as the hyped beers from overseas such as The Athletic in America and Heaps Normal in Australia.
And I’m also in the camp that will argue strongly against the naysayers who make the point that if you don’t want a beer then have a fizzy water with a slice of lime in it. Yeah that can work … for a minute. It just so happens I like hops and I like drinking a non-alcoholic hoppy beer. I call it fun. It’s not a penance or sacrilegious.
And related, I see Sierra Nevada, one of the biggest craft breweries in the world has only just released its first NA beer, saying it took them five years to perfect the recipe, according to a blog post on their website.
“Underwhelming would be a good word,” said innovation brewer James Conery. “A lot of the early [non-alcoholic] yeast strains produced off characteristics. Quite a few of them were hybrids of Belgian strains, so you would get the phenolic spice flavours or, you know, what we call hot dog water and those kind of things … they don’t lend well to IPAs.”
Even when the occasional batch showed promise, consistency was a wildcard.
“Oh wow, we really like this. Great, let’s try it again,” explains Conery. “And then it would ferment to 5% alcohol or it would do something [else] weird.”
Conery added that for a long time: “The science was not good enough with maltose-negative [yeast] products. It just so happens that we stumbled across this new yeast that was being developed by Lallemand, and that’s really where we kicked it off again.”
This to me says two things: Sierra Nevada wouldn’t have invested this time and money if there wasn’t a market for these beers, and second, it shows how flipping hard they are to make, so again hat-tip to the NZ breweries who have done them so well without the resources that Sierra Nevada have.
”Well it’s playing a big role in NZ independent beer and for very good reason. The growth of naturally brewed zero-alcohol beer (not alcohol removed beer imported by big beer) in 2023 was +80% in supermarkets. You spent $6.5 million on a segment that hardly existed 18 months ago.”
It’s not too late for Christmas beer, is it?
I had some great beers over the holiday period but didn’t get a chance to sample the traditional Christmas trio from Small Gods (my bad for being disorganised!). But Pursuit of Hoppiness chief reviewer Tim Newman got his hands on some and here’s his take on Hark! — a gingerbread imperial stout.
The annual Christmas series of seasonal one-offs from Small Gods took a decidedly dessert stout turn this year. When faced with a selection of beers like this, flavoured with raspberry, orange, clove and more, I would typically pick the one I was most comfortable with to review. But, to kick off a new year that I hope will contain many new directions, I am instead going to pick the one that terrifies me the most: Hark! A 9.3% Gingerbread Imperial Stout …
Crystallised ginger is certainly first and foremost on the nose, but it harmonises well with that huge quantity of malt. Chocolate, mocha, even an errant note of banana that manages to stealth in from somewhere, all lean in around what would have been an overpowering primary flavour and keep it on the rails. The palate is as sweet as you’d expect (which is very …) with a notable viscosity from the sheer malt concentration. But here the ginger works to its benefit, lending a freshness that holds the line just long enough for the big burnt-malt bitterness to take control.
This may not be the beer that turns me into a dessert stout drinker, but it’s certainly moved the needle. It’s big, powerfully indulgent, but — in its own vast way — balanced. Small Gods are again proving their mastery over the ‘big beer’.
Intrigued because many have touted cannabis as an existential threat to craft beer but it turns out instead that craft beer is something of a boost for a cannabis company. Some of the analysis in the story indicates the top-line reasons: competition from the illicit market, low wholesale prices and an oversaturated Canadian cannabis market.
Tilray is playing a long-game, using the craft beer business to position themselves to get into THC beverages should the US cannabis laws change in the future.
But the story put me in mind of the Lindy Effect, which, in short, posits: the longer something has been around the longer it’s going to last. It’s more complicated than that, but we’re here for a short read, not a thesis.
He wrote: “If a book has been in print for forty years, I can expect it to be in print for another forty years. But, and that is the main difference, if it survives another decade, then it will be expected to be in print another fifty years. This, simply, as a rule, tells you why things that have been around for a long time are not ‘aging’ like persons, but ‘aging’ in reverse. Every year that passes without extinction doubles the additional life expectancy. This is an indicator of some robustness. The robustness of an item is proportional to its life!”
So, craft beer … it’s been around for about 40 years so we can expect it to last another 40 at this point. And beer in general, well it’s been around for thousands of years so expect it to last thousands more (assuming there are still people to drink it, that is).
I guess it’s my way of saying that despite all the low points in beer over the past year, the sector is established and has longevity. The legal cannabis market (as opposed the longstanding illicit market) is relatively new, so who knows how long it might last. And as an aside the Lindy Effect might explain why the illicit cannabis market is so persistent despite legalisation in Canada … people do what they’ve always done.
That’s because I always want to know where is NZ? But also this one was interesting, from Yahoo! Finance, as it had this predictor (my emphasis): “the global beer market was valued at $793.74 billion last year and is projected to grow from $821.39 billion in 2023 to $1.07 trillion by 2030, with a CAGR of 3.88% during the forecast period. The overall demand for premium and low-calorie beers, the rising popularity of craft beer, and the expansion of distribution networks in emerging markets are expected to continue driving growth in the global beer market over the next few years.”
Anyway, New Zealand came in 12th on the list, sandwiched between Italy and Denmark, two proud beer countries:
“New Zealand's beer industry has boomed over the past decade or so. Thanks to Kiwi ingenuity and the outright refusal to accept poor quality brews, New Zealand is now a hot spot for great beers, with some of its most popular craft breweries, such as Garage Project and Tuatara, beginning to establish a presence all around the globe.”
See above in this newsletter for more evidence of GP establishing “a presence around the globe”. Tuatara … not so sure!
But there’s still a balance to be reached and we’re not out of the Covid-Inflation-Russian Invasion scenario just yet, as witnessed by these two stories, one more illustrative in terms of how a darling brewery fell from grace and the other a wider lens look at the American scene:
Here's ya heat beater! 8 Wired Brewing’s Citrus Maxima is a 5% American wheat ale. Off the tear it's got a greeny citrus aroma and pours a beautiful straw colour, mouthfeel is super crisp, clean, with notes of zesty lemon and orange. There's a underlying honeyed wheat vibe, a continuous effervescent carb and juicy citric finish to round out a summer smasher!
A guide to pouring beer
A citrus wheat ale with it’s fluffy, high-carb effervescence is a good lead in to this helpful story. Much of it pertains to bar staff (and many have a lot to learn, including staff at a well-known craft beer bar I visited recently where the tap nozzle was in the beer all evening! And I’ll be sending a copy to the bar staff at my “local” — The Titirangi Golf Club — because the cardinal sin there is a non-ironic froth-less “iceman” pour which just ruins the post-round beer. All that said, the first points are pertinent to all beer drinkers, especially those who wish to post to socials and not have the CGP “clean glass police” after them. I know we all err from time to time and it’s not always possible to have a saint-like cleanliness to our glassware, but it sure does help.
I’ve been enjoying the beers from Mount Brewing and I note they are hosting a lager festival this weekend at The Rising Tide, well it started today actually, so if you’re in the Bay get along. They’ve got their own Oishi Ume Lager on tap and the guest line-up is nothing short of phenomenal … some great beers there (but don’t start with a 10% Hops En Pointe!)
Anyway, lager-related, I had Mount Brewing’s Helles Lager and just loved it. It might be a little on the high side of the ABV window (5.2%) for endless stein drinking, but everywhere else it feels pitch-perfect — soft and dry, with just a splash of bitterness on a not-too-sweet but biscuity malt base. It was excellent.
More ways to be sustainable (and do marketing)
We’ve had wastewater beer, a few times I might add, but now we’ve got condensate beer.
Aaron Justus, owner of East Village Brewing Co., has created an IPA and a honey ale using recycled water from San Diego International Airport.
The water used in the beers is condensate that drips from the bottom of air conditioning units attached to jet bridges at the airport.
Justus said using reclaimed water creatively will help all of San Diego reduce their water footprint and reliance on imported water.
“The idea that you can consume something that has reclaimed water in it. The condensation water is no different than rainwater,” he said. “So as a brewer, that's a dream. You're brewing with dream water.”
Apparently, air con condensate is very clean water to start with so maybe it will catch on faster than beer made from wastewater.
Hops, hops and more hops
I’ll leave you with a deep dive into a review of 2023 hop production from USA Hops. There’s so much material I cannot possibly summarise it, except to say that the long-time cumulative surplus in Mosaic, Citra and Simcoe has seen a decrease in the production of those in-demand proprietary blends. At the same time, high alpha acid hops have seen a slight increase, which is possibly just an historic rebalancing.
The season is the first in 12 years to see a substantial decrease in acreage, with a 10% total reduction in the Pacific Northwest. Despite the acreage reduction, yields climbed 13% above the 10-year average.
“In response to a long inventory of aroma hops, in 2023 acreage of these varieties decreased 18.5%, exhibiting a sizeable correction to address the oversupply. While achieving a market balance may not be realized in one year, the cut signifies an important step towards resolution,” read the executive summary.
“In 2022 the top two varieties (Citra and Mosaic) commanded nearly a third of hop acreage, and their 26% and 19% respective decreases this year together constitute a considerable proportion of the aroma reduction. Citra remains dominant with 8,856 acres harvested. Mosaic dropped to third place with 5,276 acres. Cascade shifted down to 4th place with 4,484 acres, and Simcoe slid into 5th place with 4,206 acres.”
And I couldn’t help but notice that New Zealand has significantly upped its import of American hops over the past five years, and is now the second biggest importer of American hops after Germany. What that tells me is if you want American-style IPAs, New Zealand is a pretty good place to find them!
If you want to read more (and I mean a lot more!) about the cumulative surplus of proprietary hops, then this is the ocean-deep dive you’re looking for:
