What is the point of the beer awards?

Every year the Brewers Guild of New Zealand has its awards ceremony and every year there’s a flutter of excitement on Twitter, a flurry of happy photos on Facebook, and a general feeling of goodwill and happiness. And then, within a day or two (or even sometimes on the night itself), the quibbles come out.

Boatrocker due to open barrel tasting room. Kate freaks out.

Boys and girls, it is time to get excited. Boatrocker is opening a barrel-tasting room, with a ridiculous range of sours and barrel-aged wonders. And how do I know they’re wonders? I got to try some last week.

The Beer Market is Not a Dichotomy

There’s a semi-regular email that’s sent out across New Zealand. I’m not currently on the distribution list; I get the occasional, more outrageous one forwarded to me, so my view of the emails is a bit skewed towards the ridiculous.

Does location matter?

I’ve recently been drinking a lot of Fat Yak, having spent a bit of time socialising in less salubrious establishments. It’s no sacrifice really; the Yak has been tasting pretty good of late, with a lovely hoppy note in both aroma and taste.

Breweries and Safety

Today at work I was proof-reading a work health and safety (WH&S) website. My mind was constantly wandering to incidents that related to whichever hazard I was reading about. At first it was funny – the hilarious story of one brewer hitting a building inspector with a forklift. The silliness of a good mate sticking is hand in an active bottling machine and cutting himself to the bone. The same mate not realising that hot water had dripped inside the resulting bandage and burnt his skin.

Workin’ It

Ever wondered what it’s like to work at a beer festival? Well, I can tell you. It’s terrible. You spend all day trapped behind a counter, spilling beer on yourself, and pretending to laugh at drunk people’s jokes.

I’m kidding, it’s not like that at all.

‘Faux Craft’ is Stupid

A few weeks ago Melbourne blogger ‘Ale of a Time’ (aka Luke) posted a rant about the stupidity of the term ‘craft’ beer. Personally, I’ve always kind of liked the term, but then I like craft. I like to imagine that a craft beer has had as much thought, quality ingredients, and skill put into it as a sock that I’ve knitted. To me, it seemed more appropriate than microbrew and less wanky than boutique beers. But I could see Luke’s point. Particularly when he concluded that as far as beer is concerned, ‘Some is good, some is less good, some is made by evil companies, some is made by nice people. It. Is. Called. Beer.’*

Golden Pints

It’s been a big year of beers, beer events, and beer news. We’re all looking back at the year that was and making plans for the year that will be. For us beer writers, it’s time for the Golden Pints, an entirely unscientific process that involves reaching back into so fairly foggy memories and trying to decide what our favourites of the year were. It’s bound to put more emphasis on more recent beers and inevitably some great beers will be forgotten.

New Favourites

I am loving having a new city to explore and would like to introduce you to a couple of new favourites of mine:

The Local Taphouse, St Kilda
I didn’t have the best introduction to The Local. Wandering around in thirty-plus degrees, I walked past it twice. When I did realise that was what I was looking for, I thought it was closed. But, after I’d calmed down, I realised there was a flight of stairs leading up to what may will be one of my favourite bars in Melbourne.