Rex Attitude: King of divisiveness
Three Sisters deliver a rye twist on classics. Why your beer needs foam. Excise tax hike has industry worried. Succession's best drinking moments. Rare beers need new home. Sobriety and "bro science".
To celebrate King’s Birthday long weekend, beer friends, this email is free for all.
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Rex Attitude Returns
Thursday night: It’s two hours since I finished a glass of Yeastie Boys’ Rex Attitude and my mouth still tastes like an ashtray. I just burped and it smelled of smoke. Oh, how I’ve missed this beer.
If you haven’t had the love-hate experience of tasting Rex Attitude I urge you to give it a go. I feared there would be a generation of craft beer newbies who might never get to experience this most divisive of beer.
Ahead of it’s return I asked Yeastie Boys’ founder Stu McKinlay to share some of the feedback (good and bad) that Rex has received over the years.
“Last week I purchased one of your Rex Attitude beers from the supermarket and was quite impressed with the packaging and excited to drink it. I am sorry to say that this has been the most awful beer I have ever tasted. Possibly I got a bad batch, but either way a bottle full of what tastes like, cigarette butts soaked in a bronchitis patient’s bed side bucket and cannot be considered a craft beer. I am not a ‘only Lion Breweries’ drinker by any means, and am aware of what a strong maltie or hoppie beer can taste like, and am just really worried that this 100% heavy peat distilled beer has escaped taste testers and will continue to poison people around the country.”
Three Sisters bring a rye twist
It’s been a mad week or two for New Plymouth’s Three Sisters with their New World Beer & Cider Awards Top 30 debut and then winning the champion small international brewery award at the Australian International Beer Awards, to go with their NZ Small Brewery title.
But in a little side-step …
Beer of the week No 1
I think Rumours in the Dark is a fantastic beer but this week I was tempted in their Oakura Blonde because Joe is so proud of this beer. It was highly commended in the New World Beer & Cider Awards and won silver at AIBA. It’s such a simple, easy-drinking beer it’s hard to find adjectives to sing its praises. The best I can think of is that it’s incredibly well-structured, teetering a fine line between bitter-sweet, offering great palate weight and great flavour. A simple beer done very well is a thing of beauty.
More excise tax pain coming
The excise tax hike of 6.65% coming on July 1 is another huge blow to the beer industry. There’s plenty been written about this (see links below) but I wanted to take exception to Finance Minister Grant Robertson’s observation that having excise tax tied to inflation (or specifically the consumer price index) has been the case since “the early 1990s”. Now, I have problem with that, because the early 1990s, the Reserve Bank has been mandated to keep inflation at between 0-2%. And for the best part of 30 years the fluctuations were mild and inflation stayed in a pretty narrow band as required by law. That allows breweries to budget for it — if you know inflation is supposed to stay within set parameters then so should excise. But when things go haywire, as they have over the past year and a bit, I think the government’s attitude of “hard luck, get on with it” is misguided. Yes, we need excise tax to help pay for the damage alcohol can do in society, but the alcohol industry, is, as far as I know, the only industry that has to deal with this kind of enforced but unpredictable price increase. And as Steve Plowman of Hallertau noted in one story, alcohol harm is not tied to inflation. There have been calls for relief from such a large jump but something a little more predictable and consistent would be better. Why not, just 2% every year, set and forget?
Kiwis likely to pay more for beer after tax increase, brewers warn (1news.co.nz)
Hopscotch fillery teetering on brink over Covid money
Speaking of money and beer, Hugh Grierson, the owner of popular Avondale fillery-brewery Hopscotch has been getting plenty of media coverage for his battle with IRD over alleged misuse of Covid funds. It seems that when even the tax experts are not entirely sure of what’s what in this department (listen to the Radio NZ clip) it makes it doubly hard for the punter in the street. I hope Hugh gets some leniency from the IRD, because he’s already posted on Facebook that he may have to sell up if he’s forced to pay back the money.
Hopscotch was forced to close during Covid because of the ridiculously bad management of the West Auckland Trusts-governed area during various lockdowns and now seems to be paying a heavier price.
Vague rules hurting some — expert
Hugh explaining things on Radio NZ
Beer of the Week No 2
Well, I finally got my hands on Shining Peak’s Gung Ho! This is immediately going towards the top of the Fresh Hop “best” list. This is fantastic example of a fresh hop beer. It’s light, but bristly, fragrant, a bit catty-dank, fruity, weedy, tropical but finishes nicely dry. “A very pleasing beer,” I said as I supped it the other night. You can still get some on Shining Peak’s website if you have a hankering for more fresh hop goodness. And do get it if you see it, if this Untappd post is anythign to go by!
Rare beers need new home
An old journo friend contacted me the other day wondering what he might be able to do with a collection of craft beer he’s accumulated over the years. David sent me some pics of what he’s got and there are beers in there that I’d call collector’s items: A Hodgson IPA from Ben Middlemiss, an old Death From Above by Garage Project, an original Dump The Trump in bottle from Behemoth, GP Triple Day of the Dead. A lot of them are hoppy beers that may not have survived the time in David’s garage. David is based in Christchurch and he’s looking to sell them which you can’t do on Trademe without a liquor licence … so if you’d like to get in touch with David at: ddisomma2019@gmail.com
Reusable flagon campaign kick-started
As mentioned a few weeks ago here, a campaign to use refillable containers that’s being partially backed by Garage Project is up and running.
Sustainable packaging technology company Again Again has announced a new project to assess the possibility of using reusable packaging in the craft beer industry.
The new project is being supported and co-funded by the New Zealand Ministry for the Environment’s Te Tahua Pūtea mō te Kirihou Auaha / Plastics Innovation Fund, Glass Packaging Forum and Garage Project.
As part of this project, Again Again will work with brewers and taprooms to identify a reusable container for beer that can serve as an integrated and easy-to-use solution.
The idea is that a pool of containers will circulate between taprooms and consumers, with drinkers not having to pay anything unless they fail to return or reuse the container. It’s been likened to borrowing a library book and only paying a fee when the book is overdue.
The ministry is contributing 50% of the forecast $530,000 cost, with its share capped at $265,710. Garage Project has chipped in $15,000 and the Glass Packaging Forum $25,000. Again Again is funding the balance. Again Again co-founder Nada Piatek said the scheme would start with takeaway tap beer and would include up to 50 individual breweries. Potential brewery members would be consulted before the material for a flagon or “growler” was chosen, with glass and stainless steel the most likely contenders.
According to Again Again, funding will be provided to approximately 50 individual breweries to help set up a reusable packaging asset pool that will deliver several environmental and cost-saving benefits.
Again Again CEO Nada Piatek said: “Having the input of industry leaders, industry bodies and the government means we have the best chance of opening the door to packaging innovation for the whole sector, as well as other consumer goods sectors, by proving reusable packaging can be a simple, practical and cost-neutral experience for consumers and businesses alike.”
Unlocking hop flavours
Martin Bridges, aka Beer Bigwig, went along to the Hapi Symposium earlier this year and belatedly I’ve got his insight into what went down when some of the biggest brains in the brewing business get together to discuss flavour.
One of the main discussion points at the symposium, as Martin notes, was thiols. And I thought this was a nice read through by the Mad Fermentationist blog, even though the headline is a bit click-baity …
Are Thiols a Scam? Thiolized Yeast, Phantasm, and the Rise of Designer Beer
The best drinking scenes in Succession
I’m a massive fan of Succession and was primed for the finale in a big way on Monday night, including playing the Spotify series playlist for about two hours prior while having a beer or two. And, of course, after the event, I scoured the internet for different reactions. In doing so I stumbled across this story: the most iconic drinking moments in Succession. It’s a great read, with Tom’s description of his biodynamic wine a highlight, but also: FAIL! They forgot to mention the night out on the town in episode 2 of season 4 when Connor, in a pre-wedding rehearsal outing, wanted to take his siblings to a “real bar with chicks and guys who work with their hands and grease and sweat from their hands and have blood in their hair.” When they get there, Connor wants to ask for “whatever a regular Joe would have, just a Belgian weiss beer — not Hoegaarden.”
Beer of the week No 3
I’m pretty certain that using the word “spiced” on this saison is unnecessary — it’s not spiced-spice if you know what I mean. Rather it’s just a bloody good Saison, a little sweet, bready, some great yeast esters, and some citrus ping. If anything it could use a little more spice. But this is an honest-to-goodness delight and was my Monday-night Succession lead-in beer.
Don’t have FOMO for foam
I’ve written a lot about foam in beer and the need for it, the beauty of it. And one of the things that foam is good for (often overlooked) is making sure you don’t get that uncomfortable bloated feeling from beer by ingesting too much CO2. It’s one of the reasons drinking straight from the bottle is not great for you.
Why more foam makes for the best beer-drinking experience – and always has (theconversation.com)
Consolidation craft’s new direction
I’ll preface this by saying, as always, New Zealand is different to America when it comes to the perceived “threats” to the craft beer sector. Amnerica, for instance, is just starting to do battle with RTDs, which we’ve had here way before we had craft. And seltzers… while they soared in America, they crashed and burned here.
But some of the arguments made in this following story are valid, notably innovation is basically exhausted.
I can’t help but notice that this consolidatory pattern roughly coincides with a protracted stretch of profound unoriginality in the craft brewing industry. As full-flavored beer became ubiquitous, it lost its novelty with the American drinking public, which turned its attention and spending power toward more explicit commodity beverage-alcohol products like White Claw, Twisted Tea, and the like. Craft brewers have struggled to find an answer ever since, and have mostly failed. Craft hard seltzer sorta worked, to an extent. Launching spirits-based canned cocktails has been a decent move, if you’ve got the distillery or the dough to build one. Hard kombucha, hard coffee, non-alcohol craft beer… this stuff shows some promise for some breweries, but as iterative or incremental add-ons, not future flagships.
Innovation on actual beer these days is… I mean, what even is it? Pastry stouts are old hat. Brewing beers with popular cereal brands is played out. That hazecanneries print money with weekly IPA releases featuring slightly different combinations of hops is meme fodder among enthusiasts; that craft lager is always on the cusp of going gangbusters is a punchline, even for longtime industry evangelists.
Consolidation, Not Innovation, Defines This Decade in Craft Brewing | VinePair
Sobriety, bro science and manosphere
I hadn’t heard terms like Bro Science and Manosphere before I read the artice I’m leaving you with this week, but I know in my heart they are genuinely accurate terms for a bunch of fit-and-well guys selling stuff on Instagram.
This particular piece is about podcaster-influencer Andrew Huberman (he’s well explained in the story) and his strong advocacy for sobriety. Sobriety is good, don’t get me wrong, and I’m always looking to reduce the amount of beer I drink, continually chasing quality over quantity, which is why I also prefer lower ABV beers — or rather I’m not super-fond of big ABV bombs.
Anyway, it’s when sobriety becomes a product to be sold, and the sellers use fear tactics that it becomes a little messier.
Huberman’s increased coziness to sponsors like ROKA and Athletic Greens has led listeners to begin questioning his credentials. Scrupulous listeners have decried Huberman’s podcasts as profit-chasing “bro science.” “I need a fucking rest from optimization,” one representative Redditor said. “F*ck all this constant hamster wheel of self-improvement.”
How Neuroscientist Andrew Huberman Became Sobriety’s Biggest Zealot | VinePair
Thanks again for reading and enjoy your kingly long weekend.
