Police defend Dunedin festival

Brothers Beer back in business and aim to pay ALL creditors by end of 2024. HP Sauce beer? Fallout from Tsingtao pee-gate continues. New book, Continuous Ferment, is a must-have for all beer fans.

Happy Friday beer family,

You could call this edition the good news antidote to a lot of the more recent posts — with two exclusive stories to boot! There’s lots of reading, so grab a beer and settle in.

First up, the Dunedin Craft Beer & Food Festival made global headlines last week after two assaults associated with the event at Forsyth Barr Stadium on November 3-4.

But in the wake of those incidents, both police and stadium management are backing the festival organisers and state they were happy with behaviour at the festival.

Senior Sergeant Anthony Bond of Dunedin Central Police said the assault inside the venue was "a random and isolated assault that does not reflect the behaviour of the other patrons at the event".

His colleague Sgt Steve Jones from the alcohol harm prevention unit added:

“It is simply the nature of the beast that some issues are going to arise at large scale events where alcohol is being served. Having personally worked at the event and being involved in the preplanning, I can say the majority of the patrons were well-behaved and enjoyed themselves, and the event was very well managed.

“The Dunedin Craft Beer and Food Festival has become a pinnacle event on the calendar for patrons from Dunedin and throughout the country and this success can only be attributed to the dedication of the event management and supporting staff.”

According to festival director Jason Schroeder a lot of negative headlines stemmed from inaccurate reporting of the event by the Otago Daily Times. Their story was picked by NZME outlets NewstalkZB and the New Zealand Herald and soon went global via Drinks Business magazine.

Schroeder was unhappy with the ODT’s report as it made it sound like a vendor (ie a brewer) had been assaulted inside the stadium. The person assaulted was a worker who was taking down an inflatable jousting arena at the end of the session. He was seriously injured when a man picked him and dropped him on his head. Potentially it’s a case that the assailant thought the arena was still inflated, although he has been charged with assault with intent to injure.

The inflatable jousting arena.

The other incident happened outside the stadium after four men were removed from the event through four different exits, but they reunited to continue a fight that resulted in an assault charge against one of them.

There’s lots more to read in the link below, but I did want to address a point I made last week: I found the 2022 festival to be quite a drunken affair.

Schroeder agreed with that assessment and said the organisers made a mistake in letting in too many spirits vendors last year. “That was on us. In an effort to have more vendors we allowed in too many that weren’t craft beer.

“This year we reduced the numbers of vendors selling spirit-based drinks and increased the cost for them in order to keep craft beer as our priority.

“We never want the event to turn into the rugby sevens, or other events where intoxication became the reason for the event to no longer exist.”

The Hamilton Great Kiwi Beer Festival was canned after the 2021 event because police and health authorities were unhappy at the level of drunkenness, which they attributed to the large volume of spirits sold, including by breweries.

Police Defend Dunedin Festival | Pursuit of Hoppiness

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Beer of the Week No 1

Sawmill have been producing this beer for 10 years and the fact they’ve now decided to put it into a can is a sign, to me anyway, that the Hefeweizen comeback is on! Seriously good beer. Excellent structure and well-integrated flavours. The subtle banana gives away to a nice spice and there’s a little bit of dry citrus bitterness at the end. On a perfect sunny day outdoors it was ideal. I like the packaging too, it reminds of the little graphic icons they are using at the Cricket World Cup.

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New beer book launched

The official launch is next week, but already Greg Ryan’s Continuous Ferment is getting a lot of media coverage.

Greg is an historian and sports fan. He’s a professor in the Faculty of Environment, Society & Design at Lincoln University and the managing editor of the International Journal of the History of Sport.

And he loves beer! The idea for the book came in 2002 over a bottle of Rodenbach Grand Cru at a railway station cafe in the town of Kortrijk. It may have taken 20 years to complete the epic project but it’s worth it.

For any of you have read my book, Beer Nation — The Art & Heart of Kiwi Beer, well, frankly mine doesn’t compare with Continuous Ferment when it comes to the sheer volume and quality of research Greg has done. You have to read this one to get a complete understanding of the complex relationship we have with beer — politically, culturally and socially. Plus, the picture selection is stunning.

The book retails for $65 and to get more of an insight into it’s worth checking out this Q&A with Greg on The Spinoff.

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Brothers Beer are back

Exclusive: Brothers Beer are back in business and aim to pay off all their creditors by the end of 2024 says new general manager Frans Bos.

They’ve had a management restructure, just hired Dylan Adams as head brewer after he lost his job when Deep Creek went into liquidation last month, and they are operating at two venues — at Mount Eden and Piha.

The original brew kit from City Works Depot has been largely picked up by Manaia Craft Brewers.