Luke Nicholas

AIBA 2012 - Some explanation to what it really means?

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 18:50:00 -0800

Clarification regarding eligibility for Champion Brewery Awards.

The Entry book states:
CHAMPION AND MAJOR TROPHY REQUIREMENTS
Champion Small Brewery Trophy (Australian and International)
Will be awarded to the Small Brewery with the highest average score of all Exhibits entered that were made at the actual brewery site.
• The Brewer must be the Exhibitor, a Brewery that does not enter as an Exhibitor is not eligible.
• This award is not eligible to Exhibitors who have their beers made under contract.
• The Brewery must enter a minimum of 4 Exhibits.
• The award will be judged by the breweries top 4 scoring Exhibits.
Champion Large Brewery Trophy (Australian and International)
Will be awarded to the Large Brewery with the highest average score of all Exhibits entered that were made at the actual
brewery site.
• The Brewer must be the Exhibitor, a Brewery that does not enter as an Exhibitor is not eligible.
• This award is not eligible to Exhibitors who have their beers made under contract.
• The Brewery must enter a minimum of 4 Exhibits.
• The award will be judged by the breweries top 4 scoring Exhibits.
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
There has been discussion and queries regarding the eligibility requirements of these Champion Brewery Trophies.
The rise of craft brewers and breweries in recent years has made eligibility more complex. To eligible you must:

Own the rights to the beer recipe/license

Have made the beer

This would be demonstrating excellence in both the beer recipe and beer making.
Regarding contract breweries, if you contract a brewery and use THEIR staff to make YOUR recipe which results in an excellent beer, you have only demonstrated excellence in the beer recipe as you did not ‘make’ the beer. This beer would still be eligible for a trophy in its own style class.

If there was a circumstance where a brewer owned a recipe/had the license to a recipe and contracted facilities but used their own staff to brew, then yes they would be eligible for both the beer and the brewery trophy.

In the same way if a Brewery contracted out a space, and provided staff to MAKE the beer, but did not own or have the rights to the recipe they would be ineligible to enter either for the beer or the best brewery award. They may have demonstrated excellence in the brewing but did not provide/own the recipe.

The AIBA aims to recognize and reward excellence in both the brew and the beer making.
Please direct further queries to : events@rasv.com.au

==========================================

Maybe it shouldn't matter who made it or where it was brewed. Maybe just judge the beer. It is a beer awards? Or does the judging have to judge the people who made it and the brewery (size) it was made in.

Permalink | Leave a comment »

Brewers Guild of New Zealand

Sun, 09 Oct 2011 20:04:00 -0700

After the Brewers Guild AGM back in August I came away feeling that as a member I wasn't really listened too by the committee, which is meant to be representing me.

This probably isn't the best place to start this discussion, but sometimes I just need to put stuff out there, and get comments back from people to help my thought process.

I think I will also add to this post.

So some things I am thinking about:

Why do we now have 10 members on the Brewers Guild executive committee?

What will these people be doing?

Why does my membership fee go to funding meetings?

Why does the committee not just use video skype or Google+ huddle to have meetings?

Now that the loss making Beervana has been sold, and the Beer Awards is not only self funding but profitable, can we please make the Beer Awards a self funding event that is run by a person dedicated to the event, and their time is paid for. There is a set formula we use each year, it should be pretty easy to create a template for the organizer to run the same each year. Set deadlines for things to happen, ie sponsorship, entries, venue booking, etc etc. Should be pretty straight forward.

With the Beer Awards, self funded, and run by a full time person, we are left with what do we need the Brewers Guild to do and stand for?

We need a spokesperson to represent the industry to the world, liquor industry, government.

So why do we need 10 people on the executive? I propose that 3 would be plenty.

I will get some more thoughts down soon.

MORTON COUTTS
Including the Morton Coutts Innovation Award, which created some controversy at the time, which raises questions on how it is judged, who are the judges, and what the industry. Does innovation mean something that has never been done before? Maybe the nomination process needs to be more open, transparent, and collabroative, maybe something that the indsutry can input on with comment, and maybe vote, with a final say from a panel of unbiased judges.

KEGS
Also a growing problem people using other peoples kegs. Craig Bowen was going to address this at the first exec meeting. I think since then we have seen a classic example of this problem. Initially we thought it was Lion & DB picking up craft brewery kegs. But it seems the problem is also other craft breweries using other craft breweires kegs, without agreement. This has to stop, and the problem needs to be addressed. Example is Renassiance using West Coast Breweries kegs, not only just filling, but removing markings ie paint, and then labelling those kegs as Renassiance kegs.

With some rough calculations, the craft brewing industry collectively owns about $1,000,000 of stainless steel kegs. This is a large investment which the owners of the kegs should not have to worry about their investment being stolen by other brewers.

...

Summary:

Brewers Guild - what are you going to do for me, and why does the exec need 10 people

Morton Coutts Award - process of judging, industry input, comments voting on nominations

Kegs - large investment, stop the loss and stealing

I'll get back to this to add aditional thought, and expand my thoughts in each area. Please add your comments and thoughts, it will solidify my thoughts.

Permalink | Leave a comment »

Beer sign on school bus - SST article - Setup or real story?

Sat, 30 Oct 2010 21:12:00 -0700

Today I was surprised to be reading the Sunday Star Times and find an article that had stemmed from a Twitpic http://twitpic.com/2znukp I had posted on Twitter a week before. What I thought was an innocent mistake and a bit of a laugh, has made the national weekend newspaper. Really people, this is news?

So I have some thoughts about this.

1. if this makes the news, then we live in a really fantastic, easy going country, with little other serious news to really report on.

2. since I didn't get a credit for the photo, either next to the photo or in the article other than "rival brewing company" then it is possibly a PR setup so DB can get some extra free advertising for Summer Ale (nice work if you are that clever)

3. Sunday Star Times - not cool stealing my photo for your gain and profit. And even worse if it was a setup to help promote Summer Ale. At least give me a credit if you are going to steal from me. (Please see Twitpic Terms of Service - http://twitpic.com/terms.do - All images uploaded are copyright © their respective owners)

Permalink | Leave a comment »

[REVIEW] BrewNZ Beer Awards 2010

Mon, 13 Sep 2010 19:57:00 -0700

Well it would be unfair to not express my thoughts about the recent BrewNZ Beer Awards, considering I expressed so much about the Australian International Beer Awards earlier in the year.

The one thing that I will point out about the difference of BrewNZ and AIBA is that every year the Brewers Guild of New Zealand takes on board all the feedback from its members, and even input from outside the industry to continue to improve BrewNZ. The Brewers Guild of New Zealand which represents its brewery members, are the ones that make the changes to improve and make things better.

There has already been quiet a bit blogged, and commented on already post the event.

BrewNZ 2010 – “That” result by Greig McGill 30 August 2010
Beer and loathing – 2010 edition by Hashigo Zake 30 August 2010

I guess the following are the big points for me which need to be addressed and discussed:

CHAMPION BREWERY

The definition of “Champion Brewery” I guess this issue was summed up by the tweet from Neil Miller

RT @beerlytweeting: Full page ad - DB congratulate their four breweries (plural) for winning Champion Brewery (singular) at the @beervananz awards. #mathshurts

This was a function of how the lack of definition on brewery is stated, as well as our current setup of class that have trophies.

I do not dispute that DB where the Champion Brewery, they obviously made the best beers in the categories they won, and they won the highest group of medals.

But looking forward there is a couple of scenarios that need to be considered and discussed regarding what is a brewery.

1. The DB scenario – Large Company, with multiple brewing sites, and different brewing teams, owned by one parent company.
2. The Contract brewery – One single brewing site, with multiple contract brands. i.e. Steam Brewing, Invercargill or Harringtons

Let’s quickly look at the contract brewery example of Steam Brewing Company. Steam Brewing won Golds with the Cock & Bull beers, Epic also brewed at Steam won Golds medals, Croucher Brewing is now being brewed at Steam under contract, it won Gold. If you took all this on board, then Steam Brewing would have actually been the Champion Brewery.

Interesting, but not sure what the best path forward on this is.

HOW IT IS AWARDED
The brewery with the top three medals is the winner.
Gold = 3 points
Silver = 2
Bronze = 1
No medal = 0

The number of entries from a brewery disadvantages breweries only making a few beers, vs breweries making 8+ beers, who have more chances to medal. Something to consider but not sure how to improve the system.

RECOMMENDED CHANGE:
- Don’t know. I guess it comes down to the way a brewery enters the competition. It is just confusing for the beer drinker that doesn’t understand the process.

THE CLASSES AND MEDALS
Every year the styles of beers made and entered change and follow new trends in the market. Going back 10 years every brewery entered a NZ Draught style, but now everyone seems to have a Pale Ale. It just reflects the changing market.

More NZ breweries are making more international styles of beers and less local draughts and lagers.

So it is time we review the specially created NZ styles, and how many entries there are and look at consolidating, as well as look at the classes that have the most entries and consider expanding these classes.

The example I give for this thought is the example of Epic Brewing Company. I entered the Pale Ale, Mayhem and Armageddon all into the same class. Where as DB had different classes to enter Tui, Tui Blonde, Export 33, to potentially win medals, but looked like the number of entries were low vs high entry numbers in the Pale Ale class.

A class I think should be questioned for its existence, and I can hear the haters now, but this is my rant, is the cask conditioned class. I think my feelings were summed up by Martin Bennett’s own words when he was on stage accepting the award “this is the only way I could win a trophy, by having my own class.”

Cask Conditioned styles is an exclusionary class with only 4 brewers in NZ producing this format. Plus the styles of beer are already being judged in other classes. There is even a place on the entry form to tick if the beer is cask conditioned so the judges can take that into consideration.

Does it seem fair that a brewer making a “Best Bitter” for example Fuggles, is judges with other like beers in Class C – European Ale styles, and a Twisted Hop beer of the same style has its own class to be judged because of the way it is contained and served?

It should be judged on style, not the packaging type or way that it is served. There isn’t special classes for kegged or bottled beers. The judges are professional enough to be able to take into consideration that it is cask conditioned, and judge it on its style merits, not packaging type.

RECOMMENDED CHANGE:
-    Merge the classes with low entries such as grouping all the NZ styles of Draught, Lager and Premium Lager (possibly also Low Alcohol/Low Carb/Gluten Free) into one new class.
-    Expand the classes that have a high number of entries, such as European & International style Ales
-    Cask conditioned styles, why? Kegged styles? Bottled styles?
-    Packaging award, why do we even have this? To me this is just a revenue earning exercise, and it is something that should be judged at the Design Awards.

CONSIDERATION:
- I’d like to raise the idea again for just having 1st, 2nd & 3rd in each class, but expanding the classes so we aren’t grouping such broad ranges of styles. So only one Gold, Silver and Bronze. It would mean the value of these awards would be much greater and more desirable. I get a sense from some brewers that only if you got a Gold is it worth anything because so many others get Bronze and Silver.
- We have classes where there were no gold medal winners, it seems odd to then award a Trophy for the class to a Silver or Bronze. But I understand that when you have sponsors of a class you need to award a trophy.

FESTIVE BREW – “Let’s Go Native”

I think this year’s theme should be the theme every year for the Festive Brew, as it created some amazing beers, and it got everyone really excited about getting crazy with unique ingredients.

The winning beer Three Boys Pineapple Lump Porter, was absolutely brilliant, not only for the balance and flavour, but also for thinking outside of the box, for a native ingredient. If you wanted to you could say that confectionery wasn’t covered in the natural ingredients, but it was the deserved winner. Well done.

The only urk I have with this class is the spirit of brewing this beer. It seems a number of brewers only brewed very tiny batches like 50 litres of a particular beer. Yes the beer doesn’t need to be commercially available prior to the judging, but the point I thought was to encourage this creativity and get new and interesting beers onto the market for Beervana, and the months that followed, to get the New Zealand beer drinking public excited about beer.

It would be a shame to have the Festive Brew category become a homebrew competition,. Yes you can make more extreme and exciting beers if you only make 50 litres, but when you scale up to a commercial size and have to actually sell that beer, it does seem to change what and how people brew, and the willingness to take a risk.

RECOMMENDED CHANGE:
- Set a minimum amount that needs to be made, even if it is just 6 or 10 kegs.
- State in the style guidelines for Festive Brew the spirit of what we as the Brewers Guild want this to achieve.

AWARDS DINNER
Can’t say there was much wrong with this Awards Dinner. (poor Mr Cryer on the spot when the flowers couldn’t be found for Catherine) The price was fair, food good, the beers available were all of the trophy and gold medal winners from the year before, so we had the best beer available.

MC was great; love to see Paul Mercurio back. Having an MC that not only speaks well, and understands and has a passion for the beer industry, Paul also knows the personalities and brewers in the industry which makes him just that much more engaging, and entertaining. (and thanks Paul for the plug of the website luke.co.nz)

It was also great to have an international craft brewer as a guest speaker with Sam Calagione from Dog Fish Head. Great to have Sam speak to about the craft movement that is happening all over the planet and have his point of view that great things are happening here in NZ too. This international recognition through Sam and the exposure will help the craft beer industry in NZ.

I guess as an industry we are also luck to have had Sam come to New Zealand as part of his new Discovery Channel series BREWED, as our craft brewing industry will now feature on a whole episode of the series, and potentially be seen by 260 million people worldwide.

So the night went smoothly and everyone had a great time.

Looking forward to next year, and already thinking about what crazy native ingredients can be added to a Festive Brew.

Permalink | Leave a comment »

Hashigo Zake vs Epic Brewing Company

Sun, 05 Sep 2010 16:34:00 -0700

This is an answer to a FAQ regarding supply of Epic Beer to Hashigo Zake.

It has been a year now since the opening of Hashigo Zake in Wellington. But the frequency of a common question slowly increases, and I would like to stop answering it all the time. So here is the answer.

I am prompted to write the response now as I had to repeat this to four different people at Beervana recently.

As I discussed with Dominic prior to his opening, it doesn’t make economic sense for Epic Brewing Company to ship less than 8 kegs (a pallet) at a time to Wellington. This is the same for all customers outside of Auckland, an 8 kegs minimum, with the expectation that these kegs will be used within 2 weeks.

Why? Because I want the beer drinker to have the best and freshest experience possible, and I am sure any bar stocking beer has the same desire too, to be turning over fresh beer.

It does mean I will not supply Hashigo Zake direct from the Brewery, as they don’t meet the requirement of 8 keg/pallet deliveries. But they are able to buy Epic Beer via Regional Wines & Spirits as is any other bar in Wellington. (Examples: D4, Apartment, Bar Edward, Feathers).

They can even get Epic Armageddon IPA in keg which Regional Wines & Spirits have had a good stock of since early August. Also it is just a matter of asking Regional Wines & Spirits if they can get hold of the seasonals as well (prior notice is required for seasonals and one off beers, as only some much is kegged. Once the batch is bottled and kegged, you can’t create anymore kegs).

So the answer is YES, Hashigo Zake can stock Epic Beers whenever they chose to. They have a convenient supplier of Regional Wines & Spirits. I guess if you drink at Hashigo Zake and want to drink Epic Beer then maybe you need to ask at the bar, and let them know they just need to order it.

Permalink | Leave a comment »

Dear Sunday Star Times Editor

Sun, 29 Aug 2010 15:26:00 -0700

Dear Sunday Star Times Editor

Thanks for running the article “Pub turf war has small brewers in a froth over the two big players” by Esther Harward - Sunday Star Times on Sunday 29th August 2010 about the situation regarding the small breweries battle trying to get their beer on in bars and restaurants against Lion & DB’s anti-competitive practices.

I and my fellow craft brewers appreciate the opportunity to get “the little guys” side of the story out there. Well done.

I am a little upset with the end of the article where it just seems that you were trying to balance the story, which is fair enough, getting both sides of the story is good reporting. But you have just taken the surgically constructed statements from the corporate affairs spokes people of two large brewers.

I would like to challenge you to actually review and quantify just what was written. Let’s deconstruct the statements I am talking about.

“Lion Nathan's spokeswoman Judy Walter said 70% of the beer sold in New Zealand was in supermarkets or liquor outlets, so craft brewers were talking about a very small part of the market.”

I think people would initially read that the key point of this statement is “a very small part of the market”

Let’s quantify that. 70% sold in supermarkets and liquor outlets. Therefore we are talking 30% of the market is on premises (bars and restaurants) which is what the article was about. So good, we’re on topic.

But what does this “very small part of the market” look like in litres? I’m just going to use some very top level round numbers, to keep this simple.

Total beer market approx. 300 million litres. 30% (the very small part, which is bars and restaurants) lets call that 100 million litres.

Since Lion made the statement lets look at how much that means to them? Lion produce 150 million litres per year. So this “very small part of the market” is around 2/3 of their total annual production.

I think the Lion Nathan spin doctors won that round, they have marginalized the small brewers position and made the reader take their eye off the ball. If it is a very small part of the market then I guess they aren’t going to be too worried if they lose a little to the small brewers.

Let’s look at DB’s strategically constructed statement, these guys are good too.

DB's spokeswoman Jo Jalfon said “consumers drank what they most enjoyed.”

What they most enjoyed? Well if you only have one breweries beers available, and they are all lagers coming from one or two wort streams (basically the same beers with a different label, and slightly tweaked for colour, sweetness and bitterness), i.e. no real choice, then I guess you have to chose something if you want a beer.

Consumers aren’t buying what they enjoy in bars, they are buying what is available – BIG difference.

Maybe when Judy Walter said it was a “very small part of the market”, she was referring to how much money the 30% contributes to the profit of the company at the end of the year. This is probably due to the fact that they have to spend so much to keep these bars tied. 30% contributes a “very small part of the profit” which they send back to Lion’s Japanese owners Kirin.

So a little disappointed in your reporting there, but at least the story has been broken. It is a starting point for discussion and debate.

As for the statement from the President of the Brewers Guild David Cryer

“… described it as a "turf war" but said drinkers had enough choice. He said the two big breweries contributed to the craft beer range though their Mac's (Lion Nathan) and Monteiths (DB) brands.”

This statement definitely does not represent the opinion of the majority of the Brewers Guild members. Perhaps Mr Cryer was misquoted? As a founding member of the Brewers Guild I will also be addressing this directly with that organization.

Lion & DB do not want this information in the public forum. They exert pressure to try and keep people from speaking out – often effectively. They come off with their “PR” answers instead of actually explaining to the public why/how they effectively limit the New Zealand beer drinkers choices and why at most bars & restaurants you will only find green bottled lagers.

I think the NZ public would be appalled if they knew the truth of what the now Japanese owned (Lion) and Dutch owned (DB) companies have been doing in our market to keep their duopoly over the “little NZ guys” and limiting their choice.

Also it was brought to my attention that this article was to run the previous Sunday, but obviously through some pressure and coercion the newspaper caved to the influence of some parties, and ran it post Beervana and NZ Beer Awards for political reasons

I am not as worried about when it ran, as I am worried that the media can be influenced this way.

Thanks again for getting this story out.

Regards
Luke Nicholas

Permalink | Leave a comment »

A chat with Sam Calagione from Dogfish Head

Sun, 29 Aug 2010 13:57:00 -0700

Permalink | Leave a comment »

BEERVANA 2010 - A Beginners Guide

Sun, 01 Aug 2010 19:35:00 -0700

Beervana is the one time of the year that you can visit a single location in New Zealand and try the largest range of New Zealand brewed beers in one place. On offer there will be over 160 different beers from all around the country.

The benefits of this are you get the freshest beer from nearly every brewery in NZ, you get to discover many small breweries you may not have heard of and even less likely to visit them in their remote, far away locations.

You also get to meet the people that made the beers. Pretty much every stand has the actual brewer there, so you have a chance to meet them and find out the interesting stories behind the beers and the brewer and what drives and inspires them.

There is a downside. You can’t physically get around to every stand and try every beer on offer. So as a professional in this area of sampling beer, I will outline some strategies so you can make the most of your visit to Beervana.

1. KEY FACTS
Dates: Friday 27th & Saturday 28th August 2010
Sessions: There are four sessions, two each day. 12-4pm & 5-9pm
Beers: 160+
Breweries: 35+
Price: $30 (includes, glass & one free beer)
- (bring cash with you for additional beers, miss the queues at the cash machine)
- (pricing per sample vary by brewery and alcohol strength)
- (gold coins will speed transaction time)
Samples: Full taste 200ml & ½ sample 100ml

2. PICK A SESSION
Depending on how much you like crowds and how long you want to talk to your favorite brewers then the session time is important. (This might not be relevant if all sessions sell out) Generally the afternoon sessions are more relax and less of the festive & celebrator mood the evening sessions have, therefore if you are interested in engaging in conversation with brewers the afternoon is best.

3. SAMPLE SIZE
If you are there to taste as many different new beers as you can (as you should be because this isn’t really the place to be if you are just coming to drink your favorite beer brand you drink every day), then you would be best advised to just go for the half serve size. This means you will be able to try nearly twice as many different beers. In a session it would be reasonable to budget on being able to try possibly up to 30 x 100ml tastes.

4 hours x 60 minutes = 240 minutes
30 x 100ml = 3000ml or 3 litres (that is actually a lot of beer)
240 minutes / 30 samples = 1 sample per 8 minutes

4. BE SMART WITH YOUR TIME
You have 4 hours in a session to check out a huge number of beers, more beers than is physically able to be served to you in this amount of time. YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO TRY THEM ALL (160+ different beers)

Some might think that 30 samples in 4 hours isn’t many but you need to factor in the delays at the popular stands (oh yeah, they will all be popular, its beer), plus you will want to spend some time with friends socializing and discussing the beers that you are trying.

5. BE STRATEGIC
Since you are probably only going to be able to taste 30 out of 160 beers you are going to want to think about how to do this in a way that isn’t random, and has you trying beers you don’t like that much.

BY STYLE – this is possibly a good way to do it if you have a favorite beer style or two. Example, head to every brewery and just try there IPA’s, this way you can see if there are other breweries making your favorite style of beer. You might find some new favorite beers.

BY BREWERY – pick out some breweries that you will try all their beers. This could be done by breweries “you are never likely to visit (geographically)” OR “you have never heard or tried their beers before”

BY AWARDS – on Thursday evening 26th August the BrewNZ Beer Awards results are announced, so that you will then be able to take the results and walk around the venue and try all the trophy winning beers. Many of the award winning brewers will display there trophies on there stands.

BY FESTIVE BREW – every year for the BrewNZ Beer Awards there is a category for brewers to make a new beer for the first time, and made to a theme. 2010 the theme is “Let’s Go Native”. Many of these beers will only ever be available at Beervana and the few days following this event.

6. ITS MORE THAN SAMPLING
You can learn about beer beyond just tasting it. There are multiple seminars each session talking about beer and food, and cheese, and chocolate and even sensory evaluation. There are a range of experts presenting, you have a chance to taste beer and food together, as well as heard about the fascinating world of beer, including a special guest speaker Sam Calagione from Dogfish Head Brewery in the US.

7. YOUR CHECKLIST
- pick a session
- go for the half sample
- have a strategy (brewery, style, award winners, festive brew)
- bring cash, preferable gold coins, for fast transactions

The bottom line though, this is a chance for you to try beers you haven’t tried, a chance to learn from the people that make it and have a good time with your friends while learning the diversity of styles and flavours that beer has.

Want to stay up with what is going on follow @BeervanaNZ on Twitter, and become friends on Facebook.

Cheers
Luke Nicholas

(Luke is owner/brewer of Epic Brewing Company, owner/webmaster of RealBeer.co.nz as well as international beer judge at the World Beer Cup. Having attending many beer festivals, including Beervana Luke realized may people missed out on optimizing their experience due to not enough information.)

Permalink | Leave a comment »

Three best new products @thefoodshow Auckland

Sat, 31 Jul 2010 13:28:44 -0700

See the full gallery on Posterous

After a quick three hour visit around the Auckland Food Show yesterday day I discovered three new products which were good enough that i actually purchased them to take home.

(in order of discovery)
Boylan Bottling Co, soft drink range from the US

West Indies Spice Trading - amazing Jerk Chicken and Jamaican hot sauces

Marama Organic Sheep sausages

Permalink | Leave a comment »

Carrots in my Nachos

Sat, 31 Jul 2010 01:08:55 -0700

I had the $10 Express lunch Nachos at Brew on Quay, it had not only big chunks of carrots, but celery and green and white beans.

Now it's been a while since I have had Nachos but CARROTS? do you expect carrots when getting Nachos? Maybe Jalapenos (which there weren't any).

I am thinking this isn't that cool.

What do you think?

Permalink | Leave a comment »

Three Cities x Three Bars = Awesome Craft Beer in California

Sun, 25 Jul 2010 18:23:00 -0700

I have just go back from a trip to the USA, primarily to do a collaborative brew with Sam Calagione of Dogfish Head Brewery. We have made a beer that will be entered as a Festive Brew for the BrewNZ Beer Awards, and be available for tasting at Beervana 27th & 28th August in Wellington.

Anyway, my travels took me to three major Californian cities that have some really great beer bars. So as a quick guide for others traveling to these cities. This isn't a definitive guide, as there are many more great beer places, but these places were at the top of my wish list, and came with many recommendations from people that know.

SAN FRANCISCO

Zeitgeist - off the plane from NZ at lunch time (NZ8 gets in around midday), check in, quick shower, and head to this bar. It is a "dive" bar, but then again so many bars are dive bars in this city, so it is hardly original. The greatest feature of this place is the massive outdoor garden bar. Good beer in the Californian sun, after 12 hours on a plane, NICE! Last three times I have been there they have had Racer 5 IPA on tap which is always a safe bet for first beer, big hops. Food is good value, if you are into a burger and BBQ'ed potato (not fries) and you will need it after a few hours in the sun drinking big IPA’s

Toronado - if there is only one bar you visit in San Francisco for craft beer then it is this place. If there is only one beer you try there then it must be Pliny the Elder from Russian River brewing Company from Santa Rosa. I have been visiting this bar for over 10 years and it always has new beers that makes me smile(because they are awesome). Always the very best beers available. The staff are so amazingly anti-customer, even a sense of “no service for you”, maybe it is they are just always so busy with a packed bar every day and night. I recommend big tipping the first couple of rounds then their attitude becomes better and you get the service you would expect.Remember everyone in the place is there for great beer and you are sure to make some new friends every time.

See the full gallery on Posterous

21st Amendment – brewpub famous for their canned beer and Watermelon beer, located a few blocks up from AT&T Stadium (haven’t seen a game their yet, but I have heard there is an excellent selection of craft beer at the stadium). Solid range of house beers on tap, and food is good. Beers are a little more expensive that the Mission, but you are in the city.

The Mission – if you are at Zeitgeist there are a couple of places to check out on 16^th , just a couple of blocks south.

Monk's Kettle – waking in the door of this place from the Mission (not the classiest part of town) is like working in the door of the TARDIS (totally not what you expect from the outside and the neighbourhood). It is very upmarket, packed with 30 somethings, wait for a table can be 45 minutes +, the tap and bottle selection is awesome, and the menu looks amazing, never had the time to eat there yet, but planning to do that sometime. Had my first Old Rasputin on Nitro here - AMAZING.

Kilowatt – another dive bar, with a solid range of craft beers on tap, more of a locals bar. Literally right across the road from Monk’s Kettle (you have a place to go if you can’t get a table, or a seat at the bar)

SAN DIEGO

The Regal Beagle – new bar, only been open a few weeks when I got there, but they had 30 different beers on tap, many IPA’s and Imperial’s, so kept me happy. Staff very willing to help. I wanted to try everything so asked for tasters, they said we don’t do those but can’t see why not, and lined me up with 1/3’s of everything I wanted.

Toronado SD – I missed the opening of this bar in 2008 by a week when I was in San Diego as a judge for the World Beer Cup. It has a bit more openness than the original SF bar, but the beer selection is as awesome, and staff hiring policy is similar. Again a great place to drink some of the best beers in the world, and meet new people. Had a fantastic afternoon here Brett & Chuck from Green Flash.

Hamilton's Tavern - I didn’t make it this trip but visited in 2008 and worth a visit if you have the time. Great selection of beers. Pretty central location.

O'Briens – I didn’t make it this trip either but visited in 2008 and worth a visit. Great selection of beers. "Hoppiest place on Earth". North of the city so ff you are heading North to Stone, then you could swing by here for a quick pint.

SANTA MONICA
Wish I had spent more than a couple of days here, and maybe in August, once the marine layer had burnt off.

Library Alehouse – 20+ taps, of amazing craft beer, long skinny bar, with a bigger area out back for dinning. I was there on a Tuesday night and the place was packed with people both for food and beer. It is great to be amongst a bar of people that are totally excited about drinking different and interesting beers. Food was substantial, I couldn’t finish it, then again most places I ate in the US I found the serving sizes too big.

Father's Office – reminded me a lot of the Toronado format, which seems to work well. Fantastic selection of beers on tap. Only stayed for one beer, but will spend more time there next visit. The staff was really helpful, asking people what they like, and recommending other beers to try.

The Daily Pint – this was back to the ‘dive bar’ feel. This bar was less craft beer, but more craft beer than the previous two bars I visited in Santa Monica. It had several imports on tap, but it also had a couple of cask beer on the bar. Also it had the most impressive selection of single malt whisky I have ever seen in a bar before. I visited twice in less than 24 hours. Second visit was with Hallie from the Beer Chicks which was a last minute meeting before I had to head to the airport to fly back to NZ.

So in summary some really great places to drink craft beer in California. Well a couple of extra for SF, which makes up for the two recommendations in SD where I had a couple from 2008 (but I have it on good authority these places are still worthy.) One thing I have learned from this visit is that pretty much everyone in these bars are there for the good beer, and they are fun to talk to, and you will get the inside scoop on the new beers you should be looking out for and trying.

Permalink | Leave a comment »

[REVIEW] Australian International Beer Awards 2010

Fri, 11 Jun 2010 14:32:00 -0700

I have now been sitting on this too long and no one else has said it even after many people talking about it at the time. Brewers and beer industry people were disappointed and pissed off on the day.

The Australia International Beer Awards.

Well this might sound like sour grapes but I would like to challenge the whole event on every level. And I would like to challenge the organizers to actually start to make an effort to catch up with where the world of beer and brewing are today and strive to be the best they can, and move beyond a greedy money making enterprise, that is compromised on every level.

Where to start? How about where I started thinking about all this.

I have been attending the Australian International Beer Awards off and on since 1998. Back then they had a reputation for awarding every entry a bronze medal, and if your beer was OK you got silver and if it was good then you got gold. If you got nothing then you mustn’t have paid your entry fee. (I.e. not a good reputation, but all the brewers felt good because they got something)

Over the last few years they seem to have raised the standards a bit as not every one gets a medal any more.

But things are still ridiculous.

The best part of the awards dinner these days for me is the 30 minutes before the dinner where you can actually catch up with all your beer and brewing friends you haven’t seen for a year from around Australia and NZ and the world.

This year though the beer pre-event reached and all time low. Both beers on offer which would have been most acceptable if fresh were extremely oxidized. To the point there were many bottles lying around on tables with only one sip out of them, including in the sink tops in the toilets. The brewers of these beers must have been extremely embarrassed, and I can only imagine it was a marketing or sales person doing a deal to supply a bunch of beer for free they had to move because it was close to or out of date.

Great people, bad beer.

Next, the event of the awards dinner.

The tickets cost $175. Someone made a huge amount of profit off someone here. The food was fair to mediocre. Nothing amazing, but definitely an underwhelming three course meal, something I would have been disappointed with if I had paid more than $40 at a restaurant for.

The beers on the table seemed to be a selection of beers an importer/distributor was having trouble getting rid of, as well as the usual mainstream “premium” lager offerings (why bother). I would expect an awards dinner for an industry to be celebrating the best of what was on offer. Not doing a deal with breweries and importers to see what beer you could get for free. Which is what this selection of beers reeked of. (I'd really like to get some feedback from some of the empolyees from the large breweries that attended to get there opinion on whether they thought this was acceptable)

The MC was efficient, annoying, and insensitive to the industry. It was interesting to see they had a pre-recorded announcer for the winners, so that the MC didn’t make a total dick of himself when announcing foreign breweries or unfamiliar brewing terms (like we have expereinced in the past). The YouTube (quality) videos they had downloaded and showed in the breaks was an embarrassment not only for the organizers but those of us from the industry. (bring back Rossco)

The time between announcements of the awards was way too long. I found myself outside the main dinning hall meeting up with and talking to people I hadn’t seen for a year or so. The background music was depressing and slow. This event should be one of fun and celebration.

There are several awards that should be dropped as they are either redundant and don’t help the credibility of the awards anymore such as the Best Victorian Beer or just idiotic like the trophy for the Best New Exhibitor. WTF. Why would there be such a ridiculous award? Are you people retarded? You can win a trophy because you entered a beer in these awards for the first time? What?

Or this award, Champion Hybrid Beer? Did someone say Prius?

Then you have to question why there are trophies for Porter and then one for Stout, but then there is just one trophy for Ale? Ale must make up 60% of the entries but there is just one trophy, for many different styles. But Porters and Stouts combined make up maybe 5%.

HELLO?! It is time these trophies where looked at again and reviewed for relavance. We aren’t in the 80’s anymore.

By the end of this event, again, everyone seemed depressed, and disenchanted with the whole thing. Brewers asking questions on what happened, why their beer didn’t medal, or why it got what it got.

Again the question was raised how come so many International beers won (obvious the beers were better), but you can’t buy many of them in Australia, and have to travel to the US or the country of manufacture to actually try them. These results leave the local brewers and beer drinker flaccid towards this competition, as it has no meaning or relevance to the locals. What is this competition trying to achieve? Cash, relevance or credibility? I think cash.

Also maybe look at a new venue if you have to pay $175 for a ticket for a lame meal. Someone is making a lazy $100 profit on this somewhere.

In comparison, only a few weeks earlier I attended the World Beer Cup awards dinner and would have to say it was one of the most amazing meals (on this scale), and better yet the best beer and food matched meal I have ever had. US$85 vs A$175, I got a huge deal in the US. It was a privilege to have been able to attend this dinner, and can understand why there were people outside scalping tickets, for the WBC dinner.

The World Beer Cup meal, not only was matched with some of the best beer on the planet (to the point that people on my table were trying to sneak more beer from the tables beside us), it used beer in the dishes and hops also.

World Beer Cup used 90lbs of hops in the menu, 2700 litres of beer on the tables, 2000 people, and 10,000 plates. It was incredible, more on that in another blog. It made AIBA dinner look like the joke that it has become.

One of the biggest jokes of the night was the fanfare that was made about the judges. Is this some old boys club or something? Maybe the beer “Manders & Co.” from Wig & Pen was hinting at something, or even their beer “The Judges are Old Codgers RIS”.

The judges were all called out by name, and asked to come on stage. (How many where there? it seemed to take about 20 minutes to get them all on the stage). Each of them was presented an award for judging, and more time was taken up with this than anything else for the evening. Seems that the judges were more important than the brewers that made the beer and the beers that won.

The judges, now this has become a bit of a joke, and I have the proof finally. You look through the list of judges and there is a theme here. Most of them have or do work for the large brewers (of mainstream swill, and pseudo-premium lagers (only premium because of the price) in Australia and New Zealand. Where is the international judges, those that are experts in the styles of there region. Can you state that these ANZ judges from large breweries making mainstream lagers, have expert knowledge in all the worlds beer styles?

I entered one of my beers in both the World Beer Cup and the Australia International Beer Awards. Both from the same batch, and shipped and then judged within a couple of weeks of each other.

The one to the US was shipped airfreight in a bottle, the Australia on was sea freighted in a keg. So one would expect that the keg version would be the best. What follows are the comments from each competition on the same beer.

(Disclaimer: I was a judge at the World Beer Cup for the third time in 2010, plus I am a serial award winning brewer, I know a bit about brewing and judging good beer. I believed that the beer I entered was in excellent condition and very medal worthy.)

World Beer Cup comments on my American IPA

- big citrus resiny nose, good

- big hops dominate

- nice bold IPA

- lingering bitterness

- clean and fresh

- fine piney hop character

- citrus pine finish

Overall result – quality beer others entries are better. (in a class with 100+ entries and 3 medals, a good result and feedback)

Australia International Beer Awards on the same American IPA

- a little out of balance

- late hop bitterness not smooth

- slight menthol character

- unbalanced too much hop character

- raw hop character is not appropriate to either US or UK style

- a little unbalanced

- hop one dimensional

- resin character of hopping out of balance with rest of beer

Overall result - Bronze (personally a disappoint result, I question whether the judges had ever tasted an American IPA before judging this beer)

This beer won Gold and Best in Class at BrewNZ last year, with a panel of mostly interntaional judges.

For those interested the style guidelines of an American IPA that both sets of judges used state:

82. American-Style India Pale Ale

American-style India pale ales have intense hop bitterness, flavor and aroma with medium-high alcohol content. The style is further characterized by fruity, floral and citrus-like American-variety hop character. Note that "fruity, floral and citrus-like American-variety hop character" is the perceived end, but may be a result of the skillful use of hops of other national origins. Hops of other origins may be used for bitterness as well. The use of water with high mineral content results in a crisp, dry beer. This pale gold to deep copper-colored ale has a full, flowery hop aroma and may have a strong hop flavor (in addition to the hop bitterness). India pale ales possess medium maltiness which contributes to a medium body. Fruity-ester flavors and aromas are moderate to very strong. Diacetyl can be absent or may be perceived at very low levels. Chill haze is allowable at cold temperatures.

SO for the Australia judges maybe the first sentence of the style guidelines should be capitalized.

AMERICAN-STYLE INDIA PALE ALES HAVE INTENSE HOP BITTERNESS, FLAVOUR AND AROMA.

DUH!

My summary on this is these judges at the Australia Beer Awards are in over there heads, they are judging beers styles they don’t understand, have never brewed and obviously have never tried. American IPA is all about the intense hops! Hops, Hops, Hops.

So I guess in summary the Australian International Beer Awards need to do the following to actually get some credibility back.

1. Get judges that have tried and understand (or can read style guidelines) the styles they are judging. Might cost you some money to get international judges, but it would be worth it.

2. Stop ripping off the brewing industry and making money from a crappy dinner, with shit MC and bogus trophies.

3. The dinner should actual have beer in consideration with the food presented

4. The beer on offer on the table should be drinkable and represent the best the industry has to offer, this should be a celebration of the best.

5. Relevance. What is this competition trying to be? The biggest in the world? Not going to happen, there is the World Beer Cup, of a quality and standard they will never be reached by AIBA. Maybe it is time to get more focused on the local region.

Let’s celebrate great beer, and great brewers.

Permalink | Leave a comment »

Review - Mercure Welcome, Melbourne

Wed, 26 May 2010 01:37:00 -0700

Last week I spent 6 nights staying at the Mercure Welcome. Got a good deal for the Beer & Brewer Expo special of $99 per night. (even though I hear of someone gettign $89 on Wotif a couple of weeks out)

The first night and room was a shocker. 1121 (don't stay in room 21 on any floor in this hotel, unless you can sleep through anything) the head board of the bed is right against the elevator shaft, so you can hear each time the lift goes up and down and the BING! when it arrives at the floor.

I complained in the morning. They asked what room I was in, and they knew straight away it was a 21. Immediately they requested that 248 be freed up. They said they would take care of it. Just zip up my bags and they moved them during the day while I was out. When I got back that evening I had been moved to possibly the quietest room in the hotel, had a card apoligizing and a bottle of wine waiting on my bed.

Well done these people.

But really expecting a guest who is staying 6 nights to put up with a room 21, I was surprised. Well maybe thats what you get for $99

Overall - once I had a nice room, at a nice price, the location of this hotel is awesomely central to walk pretty much anywhere in the CDB. Probably stay again at this price. Very helpful friendly staff.

Permalink | Leave a comment »

Trial photo for PicPosterous iPhone App

Tue, 25 May 2010 00:37:00 -0700

Had a great week in Melbourne last week. More on that soon

Permalink | Leave a comment »

AirNZ A320 from Melbourne to Auckland

Mon, 24 May 2010 22:21:00 -0700

On Sunday night (23 May 2010) I flew back to Auckland from Melbourne on flight NZ126 on the A320. This is the second time I have done this in six months.

Overall comments for both flights

- cabin was overly warm, with no releif from overhead aircondition
- the engine noise is bad (November flight is was a wonder we made it to our destination)

Sunday's flight there was no ice for the cold drinks.

Overall this was one of the least comfortable flights/sectors I have flown on Air NZ :-(

Two people sitting near me had difficulty getting back to there seats as they had been in bathroom when meal service started. They had to take the food trolley all the way back to the rear of the plane so the person could get pass and back to his seat. Advice don't go to the toilet right before the meal service.

Permalink | Leave a comment »