The arrival of 'hop water'
Plus, All Blacks in hot water over booze advertising & weekend recommendations
Gidday Beer Lovers,
Lots to get through today, including three recommendations for your weekend drinking, a new home for Abandoned Brewery, the arrival of ‘Hop Water’, All Blacks in hot water over advertising and a look at the history of the pub crawl.
Abandoned move in to Porirua
Abandoned Brewery are about to open a new pop-up taproom in Porirua, a site that will also become home to their brewery from mid-2024.
Abandoned set up originally in Avalon, Lower Hutt.
Founder Tim Ward said the new taproom, due to open later this month, will have a capacity of 60 at the front of a large warehouse on the Porirua Harbourside. “Fast forward to mid-2024 we will move into and fit out a permanent space that will be home to a medium-sized production brewery, packaging line, family restaurant and garden bar,” he said.
The taproom and brewery is part of the landlord’s wider plan to create a new boutique shopping experience, including a sheltered pedestrian walkway connecting the nearby Pataka Art Gallery with the harbour.
SOBA memberships extended
The Society of Beer Advocates (SOBA) is automatically extending memberships to account foe the fact that members have been less able to access beer-related benefits and discounts during the pandemic and associated restrictions. One year memberships will be extended by an additional 3 months’, and three year memberships will be extended by 6 months’ free of charge.
SOBA’s president Warwick Foy says: “Look it’s been a really hard time for the beer industry. We’ve been moving in and out of lockdowns and restrictions for a while now – beer gets brewed and kegged for bars that can’t open at all or to their capacity, and for festivals that get postponed. Consumers haven’t been able to get down to their local pub for a beer due to restrictions, and SOBA events such as the National Homebrew Competition and other festivals haven’t gone ahead. Our members just haven’t been able to get their usual benefits. As a one-off we’ve decided to extend memberships by 3 or 6 months as a thank you for sticking with us, and in support of the industry that we love.”
All new members that join SOBA before 31 March 2022, will get the additional 3 or 6 months added to their membership free of charge.
New members can join (or re-join) SOBA.
The Society of Beer Advocates (SOBA) is a consumer-based organisation advocating for the appreciation of and access to quality beer. Until 31 March 2022 an annual membership costs $35.00 for 15 months (usually 12 months) and the three-year membership costs $90.00 for 3 years and 6 months (usually 3 years).
Long friendship helps brewery through tough times
The crew at Auckland’s Urbanaut Brewery recently featured in an article on Business Desk about the difficulties of trading in the Covid-19 era, including pouring beer down the drain because they were unable to sell it and didn’t wanted aged beer in the market — a commendable, if costly practice.
One of the co-founders, Thomas Rowe, talks about the challenges and how he and the other founders, Bruce Turner and Simon Watson, fell back on their long friendship from their school days in Marton.
Beer of the week No 1
I’ve been exploring low carb and light beers lately as part of an upcoming feature for the print edition of Pursuit of Hoppiness (look out for it at all good venues from April 12). And I was absolutely taken with this offering from Gisborne’s Sunshine Brewing:
At 2.4 per cent ABV it’s naturally got that lighter body that you’d expect from these sorts of beers, but the beauty of this beer is that it’s unusually hopped for pilsner, with Mosaic and Citra. So it’s got this great hop flavour and a long bitterness that belies the lighter texture. I wish it was summer again as I’d be having a few of these, I reckon.
Ukrainian beer just finding its feet as war hits
The following comes from Jeff Alworth at the Beervana blog:
“On the day Russia invaded Ukraine, beer blogger Lana Svitankova had a post cued up about an emerging indigenous style in her home country. Like the craft beer industry in Ukraine, it isn’t very old, but Lana makes a case that it has developed both the contours of a recognizable beer type and an organic popularity local beers must develop to stick around. She concluded her post:
“So, in 2021 the Association of Independent Breweries, together with beer enthusiasts, began the process of making the style official. It involves getting it approved as a local style by the BJCP, raising awareness in Ukraine, unification of labels, arranging international collabs, etc. It is a long road, and we have a long way to go... but we are hopeful.”
Given the atrocities committed by Ukraine’s neighbor, the appearance of a potentially native style—just a decade after craft brewing started in Ukraine—is a cause for delight and celebration. But look—forget the BJCP. If Ukrainians consider golden ale their style, they don’t need anyone’s permission.”
Beer of the week No 2
This Double Vision Silent Monk Tripel purchase was prompted by Kieran Haslett-Moore of North End Brewing. Kieran has impeccable taste when it comes to beer, especially Belgian-styles. When he posted this on Facebook with the comment that he samples very few New Zealand-made beers besides his own but made an exception for this one. It’s true to style in as much as it’s all pilsner (or pale) malt, Tettnang and Saaz hops, and a typical yeast profile with banana and orange esters and some well-integrated spice. It has a mouth-coating richness and a lovely long taste profile. The brewery seems to have sold it out, but you can still buy it at good booze shops.
A little pub for these troubled times
Right now, it seems, we’re staying home even when don’t officially have to. The omicron wave has created a de facto lockdown.
But what if, instead of you going to the pub, the pub came to you? Christchurch business My Little Pub takes the idea of a backyard shed to a new level with their bespoke miniature pubs.
The idea arose during the first phase of Covid-19 back in 2020.
Designer and founder Steve Rosling has designed spaces such as The Viaduct on Christchurch’s Oxford Terrace and Ferg Bar, part of the Fergburger franchise in Queenstown. Business partner Gary Altenburg’s joinery business, MWF Manufacturing, did the fit-out of The Brit Pub & Eatery in Auckland’s Britomart and nationwide Coffee Cultures including the award winning cafe at The Crossing in Christchurch.
The first Little Irish Pub was T. O’Loughlin’s. Named for Altenburg’s father-in-law, Terry, who was treated to a surprise when the Little Irish Pub was unveiled with his name on it, painted in the colour of his Irish home county and adorned with old historic family photos.
Read my interview with Brei Bennetts from My Little Pub
When did the pub crawl get invented?
Speaking of pubs … A blogpost from Boak & Bailey piqued my interest the other week.
We use the phrase ‘pub crawl’ all the time but recently found ourselves wondering when it emerged as a concept, the blog starts.
Helpfully, the Oxford English Dictionary (which we can access in full online for free with one of our library memberships) offers an immediate answer: it’s a late Victorian and Edwardian thing.
Here are some selected entries from the list of examples provided by the OED in its entry for ‘pub-crawling’, under ‘Crawling’:
1877 | York Herald | women on ‘gin crawls’
1902 | Daily Chronicle | “the cockney ‘beer crawl’”
1915 | Nights in Town by Thomas Burke | “We did a ‘pub-crawl’ in Commercial Road”
The entry for ‘pub crawl’ under ‘Pub’ is oddly less comprehensive, omitting anything before that 1915 entry.
Beer of the week No 3
The use of the f-word in beers (and gins, and other products) reflects the times. We’re all inclined to be effed off at the world. The past two years have been pretty bleak, especially in hospo. But Boneface are spinning it around, and I’m guessing by this name, the aim is to make the world a better place one double IPA at a time.
The beer itself does a fantastic job of removing you from whatever situation you’re in… it feel almost old-fashioned with a deep, lush, malt cushion, well integrated hops and an 8 per cent ABV that is nicely hidden inside the overall structure. It’s not a brute force beer more one that rolls over and around you.
Boneface have also just done their annual release of The Big Unit, their NZ-hopped hazy double IPA.
Watch it, you’re in hop water
NZ Hops is entering new territory with “hop water” … now I know some of you out there might say that no-alcoholic beer is pretty close to hop water but this is something completely different.
Regular readers of the magazine will know that the co-op, which has 30 farms owned by 25 growers in the Nelson Tasman region, signed a deal with UK-based Totally Natural Solutions (TNS) a couple of years back, to make NZ Hops-branded hop oils.
NZ Hops chief executive Craig Orr told Food Ticker that beer would always be its “bread and butter”, but said product innovation using hop oil was essential to keep up with changing consumer tastes and demand, including a shift to low- and zero-alcohol beverages.
“For us to be able to innovate using the core ingredient – the oils – gives us ability to move across segments [including] food additives and other food profiles,” Orr said.
Last month, the Nectaron hop oil was used for the first time in a hop water — a non-alcoholic carbonated water with the flavoring of hops, also known as hop seltzer — in the US.
The beverage was the result of a collaboration with Colorado-based non-alcoholic beverage producer Hop Lark, which is making its mark on the US$1.3bn non-alcohol US drinks market.
Canadian spirits producer Aupale was using the hop oil in its vodka and, closer to home, Grey Lynn Kombucha manufacturer New Leaf had a non-alcoholic Hopbucha.
With demand also growing from its traditional market of brewers, Orr said production of Nectaron was scaling up. Overall about 25 tonnes of Nectaron was produced in 2020, while 50 tonnes was produced last year.
That would double to 110 tonnes this year, Orr said, with breweries in New Zealand, US, Australia and Britain set to receive the hops.
Breaking the colour bar
I’m a big fan of the writing of David Jesudason, an Englishman of Asian descent.
His latest piece for Good Beer Hunting starts off the with this story:
Malcolm X is walking down a road in Smethwick, England, called Marshall Street. He wants to witness with his own eyes the racism endured by South Asian immigrant foundry workers, which has seen them banned from buying property along this ordinary stretch of small terraced houses. He wants to visit a pub to see the “color bar” in action—the practice of forcing non-white customers into segregated drinking rooms away from their white colleagues and neighbors. But most of all, he wants to meet the comrades fighting in the same broad anti-racism struggle, more than 3,000 miles away.
He’s seen angry white people before, and he’s used to their brutal resistance to his presence. A group of women are holding a banner, while others are shouting: “We don’t want Malcolm X here!” Despite their attempts, he is able to meet the band of Indian activists who have been protesting against the color bar, using peaceful tactics similar to those employed by the Freedom Riders in the United States earlier in the decade. They fear for his safety—particularly one Sikh man, named Avtar Singh Jouhl—but he refuses their offer of walking with him in convoy. If he is attacked, the press are here and would—hopefully—report the unprovoked violence. He turns to Jouhl and says, ‘‘This is worse than America. This is worse than Harlem.”
Breaking the colour bar is the story is Avtar Singh Jouhl and his fight for the desegregation of Britain’s bars.
Fresh IPA subscription service
Beer subscription services direct from the brewery are on the rise, with a number of breweries offering monthly deliveries to your door. Kereru and Sawmill were among the first that I saw and now Garage Project has a Fresh IPA subscription service in which you can choose packs of 4, 6 or 8 cans of their monthly Fresh IPA releases. Saves having to remember to log-in every month and buy … especially when the sell out so quickly.
Just a reminder, that I don’t clip the ticket on anything that gets mentioned here … I’m just providing the info!
A bit more about me …
I realise there might be a few subscribers and others who stumble across this page coz they love beer. So I decided to re-up this story from The Spinoff last year. I was pretty humbled to be asked by Parrotdog to be part of their Birdseye series that offers people a look some special places around Auckland with a birdseye view, ie from a drone! For me, that special place is Titirangi Golf Club, not far from where I’ve lived the past 17 years.
Anyway, the story gives you some idea about me and how I got into this beer lark.
All Blacks trio pull advertising for RTD
Three All Black entrepreneurs have pulled their contentious advertisement for pre-mixed spirits, amid fizzing tensions over the marketing of liquor to young people and in vulnerable communities, Newsroom reports.
The decision to withdraw the social media promotion, depicting a young woman wakeboarding while sculling from a can of their new RTD brand, comes ahead of an anticipated ruling from the Advertising Standards Authority this week.
And New Zealand's biggest and most powerful council, Auckland, is throwing its weight behind a parliamentary crackdown on alcohol marketing, especially around sport. The unanimous council vote on Thursday came after the chairs and chief executives of all 20 district health boards called for "urgent" change to alcohol law.
Thanks everyone for reading everyone and remember, you can get the print magazine Pursuit of Hoppiness delivered to your door, every two months, for just $45 a year. Next issue is out in mid=April.
Cheers,
Michael
The silent monk. An interesting and thought provoking beer.