Whistling Sisters close their doors
Alibi brewer's new venture. Australian indie brewers fearful for their future. US brewer puts boot into NZ Pilsner. Saudi Arabia gets first bottle shop
Happy Friday Beer Fans
We start with the news, as reported here late last year, that Whistling Sisters in Wellington have closed.
The quiet closure of the brewery, restaurant and pub is the latest hit in the past six months for a troubled beer industry following the fiscal problems that saw Epic sold, Brothers restructured and Deep Creek closed.
For pub owner Russel Scott, it’s a sad end to a personally important business venture.
The veteran publican, who founded the Backbencher and still owns Avida, Leuven, and The Featherston, set up Whistling Sisters in memory of his daughter Karen, who died from breast cancer in 2015.
“I get quite emotional about it. Karen was a precious person, she climbed mountains and never gave up,” Scott told The Post newspaper.
The Karen Louisa Foundation had raised and donated more than $300,000 to breast cancer research at the University of Otago thanks to Whistling Sisters.
The Whistling Sisters premises, on the corner of Ghuznee St and Taranaki St, will go on the market in Feburary.
Award-winning Alibi brewer to open Parnell brewpub
Bernard Neate, who brewed up a Champion NZ Brewery title for Waiheke Island-based Alibi in 2021, is about to open a brewpub in partnership with John Austin, who previously worked for Konvoy Kegs and organised Wellington’s Winter Ales festival when he was with SOBA.
The brewpub-restaurant is in Parnell, in the spot previously occupied by acclaimed restaurant Woodpecker Hill, which was a Covid victim, closing a couple of years ago. Previously the site was home to The Bog, an Irish pub.
The new venture, known as Twofold, plans to open in April and will be a drawcard because Parnell, for all its restaurants has never had a decent craft beer venue.
With a new brewery being installed, it continues something of a revitalisation of the Auckland beer scene following the recent opening of St Leonards, Batsmen, Bean Bag, and Hideaway.
Great Kiwi Beer Festival
For those of you attending the Great Kiwi Beer Festival in Christchurch tomorrow, do call by the Pomeroy’s Craft Beer Academy Tent where I’ll be hosting a series of speakers — on the hour, from noon — including David Nicholls (ex-Moa, now at DNA in Blenheim), Crocky Hargreaves (Garage Project), Damian Treacher (Three Boys) and Matt Kamstra (Moon Under Water). I’ll also speaking myself on: “Craft Beer’s Mid-Life Crisis”. Come and say hi and enjoy free beers from the breweries in question. For my talk, I’ll be pouring a gueuze from Wilderness, an IPA from Beer Baroness, and a pastry stout from Derelict … keeping it local!
Pitch Black is back
Kudos to the team at Brew Union for resurrecting a former great from the early years of the New Zealand craft scene, Invercargill Brewing’s Pitch Black stout. Pitch Black is a classic 4.5% stout and was seen as a gold standard for the style back in the day. The beer is pouring at Brew Union, The Rutland Arms in Whanganui and possibly some other venues, the team said on Instagram.
Beer of the Week No 1
Huge congrats to Pacific Coast Beverages for taking out the Rising Tide Lagerfest Challenge last weekend.
Pacific Coast’s 4% Beach Break Pilsner won both the judges’ prize and people’s choice.
It just so happened that this was the beer I was drinking last Friday evening! And I was raving about it: it’s right in my wheelhouse as a flavoursome 4 per center with some real character.
In general the beers I was gifted by Pacific Coast were all excellent. The star of the show from this newish brewery in Mangawhai is the rebranded Tapawera NZ Pilsner which debuted last year as a collaboration with Hop Revolution. Anyway, it’s back under a new look (see pic below) and is being tagged as a Double NZ Pilsner (which at 6% is probably fair). It features a delicious dank-fruit Riwaka-Nelson Sauvin hop combo with a distinctive wine gum finish to the hop profile.
The XPA has to be the palest beer I’ve seen since the Crystal IPA phenomenon from Urbanaut a couple of years back! I also super enjoyed the Scarab Bright IPA.
Never too young to read about beer
This was sent in by a friend who spotted it on Facebook. Amazing that such young kids could complete the Alps 2 Ocean ride … it’s not easy. But the reason I share this is twofold. Eagle-eyed readers will identify the venue as Craftwork in Oamaru, an impressive post-trip venue in itself, but more impressive is that these youngsters seem immersed in Pursuit of Hoppiness!
End times for indies in Aust?
The headline from across the ditch screamed: “Australia’s craft beer system at brink of collapse — as breweries lose battle to multimillion dollar overseas giants”.
I don’t know if brink of collapse is right, but the challenge is real, and no less real here given the power of the deep-pocketed global entities.
The headline, on news.com.au, was driven by news that a cult favourite – Wayward Brewery – had gone into voluntary administration with the aim of restructuring the business back to profitability.
Peter Philip, the founder of Wayward, based in Camperdown in Sydney’s inner west, put the business into voluntary administration, owing approximately $2 million to trade creditors, statutory creditors and shareholders.
Philip’s observation — that “consumers are not supporting us to the extent that we need” — is the part that talks to second half of the screamer headline, which pans out to a wider issue of Aussie drinkers not being able differentiate between independent breweries and global giants.
The story noted the powerful hold Asahi has on the Australian scene through ownership of Carlton & United and a bunch of craft brands: 4 Pines, Balter Brewing, Green Beacon, Mountain Goat, Pirate Life, Matilda Bay and Yak Brewing.
Kirin-owned Lion has a number of smaller craft brands in Australia, in addition to established big players Little Creatures, James Squire and White Rabbit. Lion also acquired the Fermentum Group, which includes Stone & Wood and Fixation.
Stef Constantoulas, co-founder of Sydney’s Philter Brewing, added: “I think there needs to be a lot more education; if a brand has that independent seal on it, you know it’s an Australian independent craft brand.”
Those globally-owned brands do have an edge when it comes to absorbing costs and keeping pricing lower during a cost of living crisis is forcing craft brands to change their approach and (to paraphrase Constantoulas) dumb down their offering.
“With the pressure on household incomes, craft beer is no longer in the everyday purchase anymore,” he said. “You’re definitely seeing that in terms of the trends; there’s no way this year I’ll be producing as many double IPAs or hazies and all those big beers because consumers just can’t afford to pay for them anymore.”
And thus a vicious spiral starts …
$20 pints are coming
That cost of living crisis is impacting the price of beer here too, with Sean Golding of Wellington’s Golding’s Free Dive telling us that $20 pints are on the way.
“If you can’t sell something for what it needs to be, then you probably shouldn’t be doing it,” he says. “So I’ll keep pushing the prices up to where they need to be and when that stops working, then the bar isn’t working. It’s as simple as that really.
“I suspect there’s been a few people who have come in and seen $16 and $17 pints and thought, `What is this, 2030?’. But to be honest, we sat at $10 to $13 pints for so long in this country … and I suspect there’s enough people out there who will still appreciate and experience and will pay [for that].”
Golding doesn’t think the days of the $20 pint are that far away. “I think the $20 pint will be here next year. Maybe I’ll do it first, just to get it out of the way!”
Rising Beer Prices — $20 Pints Are Coming | Pursuit of Hoppiness
More on the non-alc debate
The non-alcoholic debate continues with this excellent cartoon that came my way via Britain’s Pellicle Magazine
On a more serious, or perhaps more news-worthy note, Athletic Brewing has created a new app called “Track Record” to give users a way of recording their alcohol-free days and creating streaks. But it seems to me the gamifying of sobriety could have an appeal for breweries here as a way of creating customer loyalty.
Athletic CMO Andrew Katz told Brewbound that the goal of Track Record was to build awareness for the company's app, which launched a year and a half ago, and engage with users more frequently than when they’re out of beer.
In the first 21 days since Track Record launched, 7,000 people have downloaded the app on IOS (it’s not yet available for Android), growing its user base to 35,464 users. More than 50,000 check-ins have been recorded, which Katz called “the ultimate litmus test” of determining whether the app is being used.
Nearly 4,000 users are actively engaging with Track Record, Katz said. Most check-ins occur on Tuesdays, while the fewest are on Saturdays.
The bump in app usage is helping drive sales. Since Track Record launched, Athletic has doubled its revenue daily, Katz said.
Athletic communications manager Chris Furnari added that the company is on pace to double sales on in-app purchases in January compared to most other months. He added that visits to the brewery’s store locator have also increased around 50% compared to January 2023.
“There's a lot of virtual and real world applications, but I do believe that community is at its core. And it's just a way to connect other users who are kind of active lifestyle like-minded, mindful drinkers.”
Beer of the Week No 2
Do you ever have a beer that sits in your fridge for a bit because you’re always finding something more “interesting” and “exciting” to try. I was like that with Emerson’s Grey Area 5.1 — with a little voice in my head always saying, nah you don’t want a cream ale, you want a Cold IPA, or a West Cost Pilsner … and so it would sit there, like a refrigerated wallflower. And then, one day, what the heck, let’s have that Cream Ale… and wow! What a great fun beer. It’s smooth, silky, creamy but also dry in the finish. Creaming soda profile, with a vanilla coconut vibe. I wanted more.
Zuckerberg’s beer-drinking cattle
Mark Zuckerberg — remember him?! — well, the media mogul is trying to revolutionise American beef, announcing on his Facebook and Instagram platforms that he is raising cattle at his ranch on the Hawaiian island of Kauai and using beer and macadamia nuts to fatten them up.
“My goal is to create some of the highest quality beef in the world,” Zuckerberg said in his post showing a picture of him dining with cooked beef. “The cattle are Wagyu and Angus, and they'll grow up eating macadamia meal and drinking beer that we grow and produce here on the ranch.”
Yes, beer, in the style of Kobe beef production, but I guess without the massaging and classical music. The beer is not really for nutritional value but to induce appetite so they eat all those nuts … I feel this serves as a warning of sorts!
Zuckerberg is also reportedly building an underground bunker on his Hawaiian property, according to Wired, but I’m more interested in his in-house brewery. That would be the dream.
Dusty’s Beer of the Week
New tin drop from Thief Brewing in Tai Tapu (Christchurch) and it’s a beaut! Tasking on the trending mash up of styles that is west coast pilsner 'tropic myopic' hits at 6% and is hopped with plenty of Nelson Sauvin & Motueka providing notes of lemon/lime/melon to the fore, mouthfeel is soft juicy with a wash of prickly danky bitterness sitting atop of a cracker like malt backbone with a grapey brut-like drying finish. Beautiful drop and great example of a West Coast Pils from a brewery doing cool things in their own unique style.
Rebels turn brewers
What a great story this is from The Guardian: former rebel fighters in Colombia have built a brewery that doubles as cultural hub to teach visitors about Colombia’s violent history and the road to reconciliation
Doris Suárez, 61, co-founded La Trocha with 10 other former guerillas from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc), which fought the Colombian government for decades, but since the 2016 peace deal have been trying to forge new paths in civilian lives.
Stigma around fighters in the Marxist-Leninist rebel group has made reintegration hard but the Colombian government, determined to stop the country slipping back into guerrilla warfare, has made small pots of money available to support them.
Suarez and her ex-Farc colleagues set up La Trocha in 2019 with the grant and scholarships to study beer production.
“I am already an older woman, I am a guerrilla fighter, I am a former prisoner, so with that on my CV no one is going to give me a job easily,” says Suárez, who served 14 years of a 40-year prison sentence for her involvement with the group.
NZ Pilsners get panned by US brewer
Ok, so this following story is just an opportunity for brewers to whinge but a headline that reads “What’s the most over-rated beer style” is clickable.
What I didn’t expect to read was an American brewer dissing NZ Pilsners.
“This is a tricky question. Although I think there are a lot of overrated hazy IPAs around the world, I respect this style because it’s an ‘entrance door’ for a lot of non-craft beer drinkers. With that being said, my vote would go for New Zealand pilsners. Although it’s seen as an original or hyped take on a crispy and refreshing beer, I find them often unbalanced and annoying since I can’t enjoy neither the pilsner aspect of it, nor their overpowering and hoppy taste.” —Maria Shirts, head brewer, Tin Roof Brewing Co., Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
The rest of the over-rated styles were as expected — hazy IPAs, fruited sours, pastry stouts … you know, all the stuff people like but brewers hate (LOL).
We Asked 15 Brewers: What’s the Most Overrated Beer Style? (2024) | VinePair
Beer of the Week No 3
Pastry stout you say? Clearing my Christmas beer-drinking experiences before the end of the holiday window, I must refer you to Three Sisters Liquid Cake #3. To appreciate this you really have to accept that you’re drinking a dessert … there’s no other way to appraise it. Huge amounts of chocolate, vanilla, lactose and a well-balanced (but big) dose of cinnamon make this 9% bomb sound like something to approach with caution … and really, it should be shared. Delicious, rich and creamy. (Apologies for the rubbish picture, but it was late!)
Mikkeller sells big stake to Carlsberg
One-time cult Copenhagen brewery Mikkeller has sold a 20% stake of their operations to Danish multinational brewer Carlsberg.
Contract brewing has been a big part of Mikkeller’s story and they still contract brews over 95% of the beer they sell globally. But when this deal takes effect later this year, 100% of its Danish beers will be produced at Carlsberg breweries.
The sale, which was made for an undisclosed sum, has been rumoured by insiders close to the scene as a significant amount, but nothing compared to the amount that Carlsberg offered for the entire Mikkeller business.
According to industry sources Carlsberg offered DKK1 billion (£115 million) for the lot [but] the US company which owns 49% weren’t prepared to sell their shares just yet.
Saudi Arabia gets first bottle store
In my days as a cricket writer, I did a couple of trips to Sharjah when that emirate became the default host for Pakistan. Sharjah was extremely hot. And there was nowhere to buy a drink because it was a “dry” emirate. So to go out, you had to trek to nearby Dubai which was, in contrast, so wet with booze it was practically drowning.
We were told Sharjah was dry because it had been bailed out of financial strife by Saudi Arabia and one of the conditions was that they not sell booze. So it was with some surprise today that I read Saudi Arabia is getting its first bottle shop.
As AFP reports, “citizens and foreigners alike mulling one question: is this a minor policy tweak, or a major upheaval?”
Located in the capital's Diplomatic Quarter, the store will be accessible only to non-Muslim diplomats, meaning that for the vast majority of Saudi Arabia's 32 million people, nothing has changed for the moment and 70 years of prohibition continues.
Additionally, purchasing quotas will be enforced. Access to the store will be restricted to those who register via an application. And customers will be asked to keep their phones in a "special mobile pouch" while they browse for beer, wine and spirits.
Big deal or small beer? Saudi debates first store for booze (france24.com)
There are still too many hops
In the wake of last week’s story about over-production in US hops, a line from American hop guru Stan Hieronymus, caught my eye:
At the American Hop Convention last week, John I. Haas CEO Tom Davis told growers that as a group they need to remove an additional 9,000 to 10,000 acres of aroma hops from production. A reduction of 6,000 acres in 2023 had no meaningful impact on inventory reduction.
Hieronymus noted: “For perspective, farmers in Washington, Idaho and Oregon harvested 60,113 acres in 2022 and 54,318 in 2023. In the Czech Republic, the third largest hop-producing country in the world, growers harvest about 12,000 acres, almost all of them planted with aroma varieties.
“Eliminating 10,000 acres would be much like eliminating all Czech production.”
Bonus Beer of the Week
I was pleased to see 8 Wired’s Cucumber Hippy back this summer. I’m sure this is released every summer, but it feels like it’s been a while since I had one. Maybe the newer-look cans have done something to do with it. When Auckland was 28 degrees and a zillion percent humidity, this was spot on. The cucumber was reasonably restrained compared with how I remembered it, but also that’s likely to be my palate, which doesn’t get taken by surprise as much as it used to.
Thanks for reading and enjoy your weekend.
Michael