On the 14th anniversary of the first entry in the original Beer Diary, George and I present a "holiday special" of sorts — a look back on what's changed, and what hasn't, since we last talked and since we first talked. We cover a little of the long arc of news, entry and exit from the subculture of beer (or anything else), the ageing of beer and of ourselves, and keeping things in balance in a peculiar world.
This conversation was recorded on 17 September 2015 and is one of those 'lost episodes' we mentioned in s05e05. Two more to come shortly. We sat down for a few beers 'on the record' with our friends Dave Wood and Denise Garland. Dave is the general manager of Wellington beer bar Hashigo Zake as well as the current President of SOBA (the Society of Beer Advocates) and Denise is a journalist — and both have long been key members of the beer community. They talk about the rapid evolution of the local scene, their introductions to it and their 'epiphany' beers, the simple pleasures of everday beers in their right place, and the joys of making your own homebrew. We also discuss the bar business, SOBA festivals, women-in-beer groups like Beerded Ladies and Pink Boots, lament the general lack of brown ales and have a few dated-but-foreboding words to say about company takeovers — Dave idly ponders a Ballast Point buyout that was just a few weeks in the future.
Damn these recurrent hiatuses. It happened again, as these things do. But we're back this week — rather fittingly, after the long weekend — with a little look at crowdfunding in the beer business, some reminiscences over my marvellous trip to the Mussel Inn, and looking forward to the Great Kiwi Beer Festival this very weekend, at which I'll be doing one of my little rambles. All that by way of bicycle bells and videogames, and accompanied by two rather strikingly different Beers Of The Week. There are several sadly-long-neglected episodes in our proverbial back pocket, which I'll upload over the coming weeks. You — our listeners and our excellent guests — have our apologies, and also our welcome back.
Recorded at Beervana 2014 and lost for a year on account of technical difficulties, this was our second "live" session, from the Saturday night. This time, we were joined by blogger and podcaster Luke Robertson (an ex-pat New Zealander living in Melbourne) and Denise Ratfield from the Pink Boots Society and Stone Brewery.
Recorded last year in the seminar room at Beervana 2014, and waylaid since on account of technical difficulties. We were joined by Australian beer writer and founder of BrewsNews.com.au, Matt Kirkegaard, and Sean Burke of the Commons Brewery in Portland.
And so the Beer Diary Podcast is back for a fifth season, and with our traditional delay in hitting 'publish', no less. Episodes should return to their usual non-super-sized format and a sharper turnaround in this back half of the year — but you all know what kind of paving projects are undertaken with good intentions. Here, we accidentally settle on a G-theme: we catch up about the end of my tenure at Garage Project, including some thoughts on how they make their interesting beers; the debut of GABS — Sydney Edition, which also makes us ponder trans-Tasman beer availability; and read a neat little piece in the Guardian on Gastrophysics which sets us wondering about experiments that really should be done at the beer awards.
Back at last for a traditionally-belated — but moreso, at no extra charge! — 'Year in Review' episode, George and I called in a few guests to help ponder what 2014 meant to us in beer, since we were both extra-busy in everything else. Now-recidivist Friends Of The Show Jono and Hadyn graciously took up the challenge and joined us in searching their memories for the year's highlights, disasters, themes and oddities — and they also threw in bonus musings on professional wrestling and the sociology of Palmerston North.
Following straight on — after a quick re-play of the introduction, thanks to some clever editing by George — from last weekend's episode, we're delighted to present the second half of our Very Special podcast takeover on Women & Beer, by women, drinking beer. Megan, Beth, Hayley and Steph continue their conversation, covering topics as diverse as canned beer, food matching, 'extreme' beers, festivals, labeling and tastings — as well as discussing the potential need for (and nuances of) dedicated women's groups in the community, and the role of (and need for) overt feminism in the beer business.
For a Very Special episode, George and I relinquish the microphone entirely to four of our friends. We'd wanted to dedicate an episode entirely to 'Women & Beer' for some time and eventually realised that we were sufficiently blessed for potential guests — and also sufficiently lacking in personal experience, for obvious reasons — that a takeover episode made all kinds of sense. Our replacements are, in order of introduction: Megan Whelan (journalist and producer for The Wireless), Beth Brash (blogger at Eat & Greet), Hayley Adams (bartender at Golding's Free Dive and project coordinator for the Safer Bars Alliance) and Steph Coutts (SOBA stalwart and founder of Craft Beer College — and thereby occasionally my boss). They discuss their own beer epiphanies and preferences, run-ins with lamentable marketing and experiences as part of the beer community — good and bad, grating and brilliant. Here, with my traditional apologies for the delay in posting it, is part one; part two will follow shortly.
An episode with no beer. Well, none were consumed — out of a vague nod to Dry July, but more a result of us both being in losing phases of the age-old battle of Monkey v Microbe. We ponder Dry July, as a charitable enterprise (we're unconvinced) and (much better) a way for people to test and/or manage their relationship with one of humanity's favourite drugs. We drink some worthwhile non-beers, and I have a little ramble on the social history of tea and coffee and whatnot. And an episode this time of year wouldn't be complete without a looking-forward toward the beer awards and Beervana.
Back at last for a fourth season — which promises to include several Very Special Epsiodes, but more on those in due course — George and I quickly re-tell our Origin Story for new listeners, return briefly to the topic of our first-ever show (so-called "grey market" imports), before catching up on the beer festivals that happened while we were on hiatus. I also rave about keeping a Beer Diary (since it turns out I've been doing so for a decade), and we finally formalise what it means to be a 'Friend Of The Show'.
It's time again, at last, for our Year in Review: a look back at 2013, a pondering of its best beers and beer-related-things, and contemplation of what kind of 'theme' the year developed as it went. Our traditionally unhurried approach to these things (we've recorded all these episodes in March) met a few additional delays this year, but here we are. Plans are already underway for some Very Special Episodes in season four, but first let's wrap up our third year — and thank you all for coming along for the rambles.
For our first recording of 2014 and the penultimate episode of Season 3, George and I sat down for a post-holiday catch up over two beers he'd brought back from his travels and one we'd been meaning to share for a while. Somehow, we also talked about Canada a lot. We offer our traditional recommendations and observations — and also take the chance to make a more-explicit-than-usual call for listener feedback (and suggestions for Year In Review gong-winners), backed-up by a sincere offer of a bribe in beer form...
B.O.T.W. #4 in s03e07 (with Jono Galuszka) was a (non-boycott-breaking) Moa Sour Blanc. It prompted a predictable little side-ramble into their current situation. We've excised it from the main episode and present it here as a DVD Extra / after-credits scene. I allude a few times to a work-in-progress catch-up with post-IPO Moa, and I'll try to get that done a.s.a.p.. (Meanwhile, I still really miss the Imperial Stout.)
Just before the holidays — so apologies for the delay but, you know, holidays — George and I sat down for a ramble with Jono Galuszka, journalist, beer-and-music nerd, former bartender and barista, and occasional drummer. We discuss the many and varied joys of homebrewing, the at-last semi-reliable appearances of good beer in unexpected places, and (inevitably) a bunch of music. We had a venue change for this episode, so the background dog-shuffles have been replaced with regular overhead airplanes.
George and I recently had the pleasure of sitting down — for a record number of Beers Of The Week, amidst all the banter — with Stu McKinlay, notorious pants-wearer, and one half (give or take) of the Yeastie Boys. We crash-tested whether fresh is best, sampled some ill-fated beers from the Great Drought era, and heard the origin story for several individual beers and for the unique operation itself — before turning to industry-wide issues like collegiality in the beer business and the culture of consuming alcohol.
Requiring more We Do Not Here Represent Our Day Jobs than usual, George and I recently had a little ramble about a few potentially-controversial topics in the Beer Business: the ongoing shitfight-with-a-side-order-of-handwringing that is the Licensing Laws Debate, and the continuing evolution of the nation's most-senior beer festival, Beervana. My apologies — again!; you are an understanding lot — for the delay in posting, though there is something appropriate about getting my Afterthoughts out on the eve of the next (much littler) festival. There are plenty of contentious little angles in both topics, and I find myself taking unusually-middle-ground-ish positions on each to which I might have to return in fuller detail some day, but here — off the cuff, in good company, and over a few beers — are some initial thoughts, at least...
And we're back. Though we're not quite as back as we intended. This happens to us, sometimes. George has been abnormally busy, post-holiday — though often with new-puppy-related duties about which he's not remotely about to complain — and I was diverted, in the actual around-Beervana-itself days, by ingloriously falling off my bike. But at last, we're back. Much (though by no means all) of the conversation was looking-ahead to events now past, but we're presenting them here mostly unvarnished and uncorrected so you can test how prescient and/or very-very-wrong we were. More generally, we ponder beer in cans (and drink one) and the burgeoning (but still finding-its-feet) world of the beer documentary.
Catching up for the first time in a while, and not long after a now-notorious kerfuffle over the 'Death From Above' beer put out by Garage Project (site of my day job, if you haven't already noticed), my fellow red-bearded beer writer Hadyn Green and I were about to have a ramble about potentially-offensive beer names when George leapt in and suggested / insisted we save it for a podcast episode. And here's the result.
George and I ventured out to the wilds of Newlands (which isn't very far at all, to be fair), and sat down with Aidan and Nikki of the freshly-launched Baylands Brewery, a fully-fledged commerical brewery on a tiny-tiny scale in their garage. We talk about the process of turning a hobby into a business, how it all nearly fell apart, and taste a couple of their beers — before moving on to the traditional round-up of news and recommendations.