Parrotdog founders stepping back
Three Sisters hit crowd funding target with late dash. The great brewery Instagram disappearance — mystery solved. Tui billboards return — will they be relevant? A crackdown coming on airport beers.
Happy Friday Beer Fans
It’s a week of comings and goings in the Kiwi beer world — all in a good way.
We start with the news that two of Parrotdog’s three founders, Matt Stevens and Matt Kristofski, have stepped back (a lot and a little, respectively) from day-to-day operations at the Lyall Bay brewery.
Stevens, who was the chief financial officer and a commercial director, decided earlier this year to relocate his family to Nelson for a lifestyle change.
As a result, he’s resigned from his CFO role but remains a director and major shareholder.
Kristofski, Parrotdog’s brand director, has also moved to Nelson with his family and, according to Parrotdog’s annual report “has reduced his operational involvement while still continuing to lead the brand strategy.
“Matt continues to play a key role in NPD [new product development], guide the brand direction and is involved in leading key brand partnerships.”
The other co-founder, Matt Warner, remains the brewing director.
In some ways, they are not unexpected changes for a brewery that’s grown hugely in the past four or five years in terms of volume as well as maturing as business. It now has a staff of around 70 with Paul Watson the managing director.
Three rounds of substantial equity raising means more than a third of the ownership lies outside the founding trio, who own 65% between them.
Parrotdog’s growth has also been matched by an attention to quality over the past two years — resulting in them taking out the Champion Large Brewery title at the recent NZ Beer Awards, claiming two trophies, four gold medals and a 100% success rate, with 20 medals from 20 beers.
The perfect return on the medal count and the fact that three of their four gold medals went to popular core range beers meant a lot to lead brewer Matt Warner. I spoke to him about that success:
Parrotdog's Core Range Rolling In Gold | Pursuit of Hoppiness
Three Sisters hit their target
Last week I said I was confident Three Sisters would reach their crowd-funding target of $500,000 but I didn’t anticipate the flood of money that would go their way in the last 48 hours of the equity raise.
From being $70,000 shy on Friday afternoon, they finished up with $562,600 — meaning $132,000 came in over the weekend.
The main purpose of the equity raise is to install a new brewhouse so Three Sisters can meet the increased demands of an export deal to China.
Founder-brewer Joe Emans, in a video chat with PledgeMe’s chief executive Anna Guenther, said the China deal was a game-changer for the brewery.
It wasn’t that long ago that Three Sisters was a one-keg brewery operating out of the basement of Emans’ house. That grew to a 300-litre brewery, still in the basement, before they moved into the old New Plymouth Savings Bank Building in New Plymouth (later TSB).
“We have significant capacity now but the brewhouse is the one bit that we need an upgrade on because it’s hard work.
“Exporting to China is a real game changer for us, with the quantity they’re ordering. The sample order took up half our brewery and they’re talking about ordering that or larger every month or couple of months.”
Some of the funding will be used to expand the existing bar which is often pushed to capacity, while they get a new label printer and applicator which will allow them to do personalised cans.
Beer of the Week No 1
Coming off some big success for Hazy Pernicious Weed at Beervana, Garage Project have released it in a six-pack format.
Given I’m preaching to the choir, I don’t need to remind people that Pernicious Weed is now something of a legendary beer — it was GP’s first ever commercial release when they started out just over 13 years ago and has developed a cult following since.
They’ve riffed off its success in the past with a Yuzu version and for their 10th birthday they released Double Pernicious Weed — an amped-up 10% version of the flagship beer.
And now they’ve come up with a hazy version, simply called Hazy Pernicious Weed.
It differs from the original in that it’s only 6% ABV compared with 8% — but the hop profile is the same, with liberal doses of Nelson Sauvin and Rakau hops.
Pouring a beautiful lemon-gold colour, this beer is remarkably light and agile on the palate. It’s creamy but not heavy or dense. The hops deliver trademark grapefruit juice, passionfruit and an edgy herbal note aka dank.
There may some critics who will want (and expect) this one to be ramped up to 8% to match the original but I believe 6% is just perfect. As a hazy the bitterness is softer than the more raunchy original so the lower ABV suits that. Plus it allows Garage Project to get this into a 6-pack at a reasonable price. If it was 8% like the original, it would be too hot taste-wise and price-wise!
All in all, a great (but different) experience for fans of the original Pernicious Weed.
This is available in select New World stores — your home of craft beer — this month.
Tui’s billboards back from tomorrow
I’m not sure what to make of DB’s announcement that the famous/infamous Tui billboards are returning from tomorrow.
Is it the last throw of the dice for a brand that seems to be more about RTDs than beer?
Given that the original Tui brewery is now just a glorified pub, with no brewing happening there now, there’s a risk the billboards could be all mouth and no trousers.
It’s been 10 years since Tui took down the last “yeah, right” billboard and they say the comeback is because New Zealand is getting “a little too serious”.
To be fair, I’m not sure if they are taking the piss or not when they say Radio Hauraki DJ Mike Minogue will be manning a Tui Feedback line, a 24/7 phone feedback service available by dialing 0800-TUI-YEAH-RIGHT (0800 884 932).
Members of the public are encouraged to leave feedback, suggestions, complaints or “just have a general chin wag about the return of ‘Yeah right’” with Minogue himself. Given it’s a 24/7 line, I figure Minogue will not be on the other end of the line at 2am.
“I look forward to hearing the Karens and Daves of New Zealand tear up the feedback line.” Minogue said in a press release.
DB marketing director Fraser Shrimpton we can expect the same irreverence the original billboards were known for.
“We’re not going to be afraid to say the things we’ve all been thinking,” he says. “As always, we’re aiming to help Kiwis lighten up and have a laugh.
“We’re living in a world where everyone has an opinion, so we as a brand have embraced not being afraid to hear it and are welcoming any and all feedback,” he adds.
The New Zealand Herald today said it had been given mock-ups of two of the early campaigns. Judge for yourself…
Dusty’s Beer of the Week
That unstoppable juggernaut that is McLeod’s 802 series ploughs into its 62nd iteration, this time featuring Yakima Chief’s experimental hop HBC 638. Plenty going on in this liquid fruit bowl, with notes of mango, mandarin, strawberry with a flickering of floral running through a spritzy carb; mellow bitterness and juicy finish, tying together one easy-drinking brew. Hoppy Friday! — Dusty
The great Instagram disappearance solved
For a while there, breweries were disappearing from Instagram without warning or explanation.
Urbanaut, Canyon, and 8 Wired are three I can think of who recently vanished from the popular social media platform. Urbanaut and Canyon are back, but 8 Wired are still missing, although their Barrelworks account is still active.
For some, it was initially confusing as they had no idea what they’d done to breach Meta’s rules and get rubbed out.
But thanks to the legend Kellie Cooper aka @hoppedupkiwi I’ve discovered that in most cases this was due to breweries not having an R18 limit. Hopefully the 8 Wired team can rejoin the fray.
Beer of the Week No 2
I’m super late on this one, thanks to a delivery that was a house behind me following a recent move, but it was obviously well looked after by the caretaker and must be well-made because I had fears this could have been past its best (spoiler alert: it was great).
I’m talking about Double Vision Brewing’s TinyKen … if you say it just right, it rhymes with Heineken. Also, before anyone gets their knickers in a twist about DVB using Tiny in the name of a non-alc beer, they have been using Tiny as an adjective for their small beers for a while, so it’s all in keeping I reckon.
I hope they keep this one going because it’s very good. With a relatively liberal dose of Mosaic, it’s not a million miles from the flavour profile of the Garage Project Tiny — less lemony to my taste buds. Plus there’s Freestyle Style Hops’ Sub Zero Hop Kief, ie liquid hops, which add a punch without astringency.
Another great non-alc in a market bursting with great options.
Crackdown coming on airport pre-loading
The airport bar has a certain comfort to it — that pre-holiday beer before boarding a flight feels like a real treat. Likewise the one at the start of the return home.
But recently the CEO of Ryanair, Michael O’Leary, suggested that airports should enforce a two-drink maximum pre-flight. This comes after a spate of media reports about drunk passengers-gone-bad. Admittedly this seems to be a European and American problem but are a few rogue drunks going to spoil the airport ritual for the rest of us?
Are Airports About to Start Restricting Your Drinks? | VinePair
Tim’s Beer of the Week
As someone who tastes a lot of beer and is (at least occasionally) expected to have cogent, critical opinions about it, there’s a slight anxiety that comes along with enjoying the latest cutting edge release from X national brewery; that I might be asked to render an opinion on it in the future and I failed to take any notes.
So, for me, true comfort beer is English ale, particularly ones for which the recipe has been set in stone long ago, and now preside as stoic landmarks of their style, like easy-drinking standing stones. Spitfire, from Shepherd Neame in Kent (the oldest registered brewery in the UK), is one I often reach for.
Rich aromas of delicate toffee over dried apricot and marmalade lead into a palate that starts tinder dry before yielding into a complex spectrum of malt and black forest fruit, before a strong, earthy bitterness sternly curtails the finish.
Nuanced, but uncomplicated to enjoy, and (at least for my taste) deeply satisfying. As much as I might long for a fresh pint, Spitfire’s malt-driven construction means that the bottles that appear in most supermarkets are usually in sound condition. — Tim Newman
The end of the great British pint?
The proper pint is a rare thing in New Zealand these days, reserved for a handful of bars who care deeply about tradition and expectation.
But recent research from the behaviour and health research unit at the University of Cambridge recommended that the traditional British pint be abandoned in favour of the two-thirds measure. For most of us here in New Zealand, that’s roughly what we get when order a beer at a bar these: around 425ml, which is more like three-quarters of a pint than two-thirds.
After a trial in a dozen pubs, bars and restaurants in England, the study leader, Professor Theresa Marteau, concluded that the change — which led to nearly 10% less beer being sold and consumed — could reduce the impact of alcohol-related harm.
The Cambridge trial tested the idea that people often think more in portions than portion sizes, going for one beer, one cup of tea, one piece of cake, rather than specific numbers of millilitres or grams. This was illustrated to me in a different way when a friend recently revealed she cut her baking into smaller sizes to make it go further, noting that her teenage stepson would always eat two pieces of whatever she baked, regardless of the size of the piece. As long as he got two pieces, he was happy!
Beer of the Week No 3
There’s a kind of theme running through this week’s beer picks, in the form of Garage Project (see Beers 1 & 2) and it continues here with The Unholy from Shining Peak.
Why? Well this beauty is made with Phantasm, the thiol precursor developed by GP’s Jos Ruffell as a side hustle.
Phantasm, which is made from sauvignon blanc grape skins, helps deliver tropical-citrus flavours such as passionfruit, grapefruit and guava.
Shining Peak are the first New Zealand brewery outside Garage Project to use Phantasm in a packaged beer. St Leonard’s in Auckland have also used it.
That restricted NZ usage is mainly because Phantasm is better suited to the North American market where they can use the genetically modified yeasts that create the most thiol bang for their Phantasm buck.
It doesn’t mean non-GMO yeasts can’t create the thiols, they’re just not as punchy as those created by GMO yeasts.
Anyway, this beer is brewed to celebrate the recent EP release Mercy, by Taranaki swamp-blues band Courtnay & The Unholy Reverie.
Peacharine, Nelson Sauvin, Citra and Motueka also feature in a beer that just bursts with life. First up it’s super-light for a hazy so all you haze-hounds who like it thicc should probably skip the Untappd reviews!
Me, I prefer the hazies light and breezy and this is just that: zingy, sweet citrus, a bit of pineapple, some tart passionfruit and a sherbet-like effervescence that adds to the feeling of light of bright.
And I love the artwork!
That’s it from me for another week. Enjoy your weekend!
Michael