Beervana: Tasting notes (Part 1)

Well, my head has almost recovered after a night of hedonistic beery pleasure, and this morning’s run along the Eastern walkway with occasional glimpses of the inland Kaikouras (they were just there!) has cleared the mental decks so that I can write up some rather illegible tasting notes from this weekend’s Beervana.

Him outdoors was like a boy in a sweetshop, or indeed, a bloke in a beer shop, and was barely restrained from leaping about trying everything at once. Methodically enough, we began at the beginning, handing over our first beer tokens in exchange for some Mike’s Mild from White Cliffs Organic Brewery. You don’t often get a good (or actually, any at all) mild in New Zealand, but this is excellent. I’ve had it before and enjoyed it, and I enjoyed it again tonight – a great start to the evening.

We moved on down, or up depending on your viewpoint, to the Renaissance stand where I sampled the Perfection Pale Ale, which is a great name for a beer. Again, I have had this before and liked it – most notably after the Grape Ride where I collapsed after cycling 101km around the Queen Charlotte Sound and the vineyards of Marlborough. Re-hydrating with plenty of water and some very tasty wine from Forrest Estate , I also refreshed myself with some of the local ale and I have been a convert ever since.

I really like the balance of the bitter hops and the creamy toffee notes. At the risk of sounding incredibly girly, I also really like the label. I think the design and the shape of the bottle makes this one of the best looking beers on the market.

Next stop was Peak Brewery from Taratahi, and I tried their Monkey Point India Pale Ale. Apparently Monkey Point is the name of the first brewery in India. The chocolate notes rang out loud and clear but it was slightly too sweet for my taste. I am always impressed with breweries in the middle of wine regions and I wish Mr. Morgan well with his range of German and British style ales from his relatively new (three years old) brewery. He sells them at the Farmers’ Market in Masterton and also has a hectare of sauvignon and pinot noir vines planted on his property. I think that might just be greedy!

We couldn’t pass the Epic stall without having a taste of their Pale Ale – just to check it is as good as we remember – it is. This is my tipple of choice at The Malthouse . I believe it won gold and best in class at the awards. The trophies depicting a mash tun are very cool and those who had won them were proudly displaying them on their stalls.

We first had Epic Pale Ale two years ago when there was a beer festival beneath the Old Bank on a Saturday afternoon. We emerged blinking into the pale sunlight with a feeling we had just tasted the best beer we’d had in New Zealand since we arrived ten years previously. I loved the Armageddon Ale that Epic released recently, but sadly that wasn’t on offer, or not that I could see anyway. Does this mean it’s all gone? Bring it back please – I love it! I love hops, which may explain it. In the meantime, I will happily drink the Pale Ale.

And now for something completely different – Waituna Brewing Company from Rewa are promoting their TaaKawa Ale as New Zealand’s first indigenous beverage. Apparently it incorporates the Kawakawa herb and spring water into a beer, which sounds very clever. The marketing people have just sold a line into Tesco’s in the UK and are hoping to ‘place TaaKawa competitively at the top of the National and the International market’. It’s clean and crisp, refreshing the palate.

For old time’s sake we sampled some of the ales from Brew Moon . We used to live in Christchurch and a trip home was always completed with a stop off at the brewery in Amberley. We were asked if we wanted the hoppy or the very hoppy and subsequently I tried the Hophead IPA while Him Outdoors had the Amberley Pale Ale. A delicious drop!

One of the great things about beer festivals is the opportunity to talk to the artisans who make the stuff, and Mr Bennett himself was manning his stall of Bennett’s Fine Beer and Ale . He is a man of boundless enthusiasm, and when he is not brewing beer or running supermarkets, he makes artwork out of toast – yep, that’s right, toast, but they’re actually really good!

We tried his Belgium Strong, which was interesting and different. As the name suggests, it is made to taste like a Belgian golden ale (Leffe Blonde springs to mind) with a taste that is slightly sweet and fruity. It is also strong (7%), but you don’t really notice the kick until later. Mr Bennett claims that he wanted to make this style of beer because ‘this is what the beer gods favour.’ He could well be onto something…

To be continued...

Beervana

Several years ago I went to a ‘beer festival’ as part of the Queenstown Winter Festival. In a marquee on a rugby pitch people sat at cramped tables and drank jugs of mass produced fizzy execrable lager. The event was sponsored by one particular beer manufacturer so there was only one variety of beer on offer.

The ticket price included the opportunity to sit at a table in the cold – the beer itself was extra. As a nod to host responsibility there were plates of those vile purple sausages, white bread and tomato sauce. At irregular intervals an oompah band struck up – there were printed sheets of lyrics that you were encouraged to sing along with. It was like a drunken nightmare version of Butlins.

Because this was Southern Man territory there were women dressed as wenches with low-cut tops and push-up bras who brought the beer to your table, thus saving you the trouble of moving, or getting in anyone’s way. A friend of mine was one such wench. She had a terrible night and said someone vomited on her towards the end of the evening.

Fighting broke out, beer was thrown (far better than being drunk), the whole thing turned ugly and the ‘beer festival’ was cancelled from the next year’s programme. I can’t say I was disappointed, but I was sad that this is what Queenstowners thought a beer festival was.

Where were the variety of beers; the atmosphere of excitement; the thirst for knowledge; the chance to talk to brewers about their ales and compare different strains of malt, hops and yeast; the drinking for enjoyment and appreciation of taste rather than simple alcohol content?

All of this and more was at this weekend’s Brew NZ event, Beervana, in Wellington. Over 20 brewers from around the country and many more discerning drinkers gathered in the Overseas Terminal on the waterfront. Stalls flanked the walls and in the middle the conversation and the tasting notes hummed.

A very good and unobtrusive band played throughout the evening, and the food (which could be purchased with beer tokens) looked excellent and abundant – I saw venison sausages, mashed potatoes and mushy peas, turkey and ham rolls, and a mound of tasty cheeses. I have to admit I didn’t eat any because I was too busy tasting the beer – more of which in the next blog.

Outside it was cold and wet and windy – this is Wellington remember – but inside it truly was a beer heaven. Everyone involved in the organisation of this event is to be heartily congratulated. A great night out was had by all, and my faith in the New Zealand beer-drinking public has been restored.

Sheep surprise

One of the great things about going to new places is walking along the streets and popping into little shops and galleries. I find you discover some really fresh stuff that way, that you wouldn't otherwise notice.

Recently in Napier, I came across a small art gallery called Statements. Their featured exhibition was by an artist called Geoffrey Fuller. I had never heard of him, but I had half an hour to kill between appointments, and I am so glad I stepped inside his world!

The exhibition was called Ovine, so naturally it focused on sheep. As the bloke is a Hawke's Bay artist, there was also a recurring theme of vineyards. The lines and the striking structures of sheds and barns blend well with the woolly forms.



I have mentioned elsewhere on this blog my love of vineyards, but I may not have mentioned my affection for sheep - and no, that is not the main reason I have ended up in New Zealand, although it doesn't hurt.

I don't agree with the popular notion that sheep are stupid. They are certainly no less bright than cattle. They get to roam the countryside in some of the most beautiful parts of the country and they adapt their coat to keep out the rain and the worst of the inclement weather.

If you have ever got lost in the mist in the Lake District, you will thankfully follow a sheep-track, safe in the knowledge that you are not going to plummet over a crag even if you can't see your hand in front of your face. In fact some people are starting to disprove this limited intelligence theory.

My mother maintains that my first word was 'sheep' - after 'mummy' and 'daddy', surely? Apparently my brother's first word was 'car', so I am clearly far more environmentally friendly. There is no family lore about what my sisters' first words were (I would guess at shoes and compass - if you know them, you'll know which is which!)

Anyway, retournon a nos moutons, as the French say (quite appropriately in this case I feel), Geoffrey Fuller's pictures of sheep cover all seasons. He also uses a variety of mediums, including working on a surface on corrugated iron which gives texture and atmosphere.

One of my favourites was a collage called One for Sorrow which depicted a magpie plucking out the eye of a sheep carcass. I know this sounds hideously gruesome, but it was a collage of materials and had a startlingly simple affect. I can't find an image of it to post here, so you may just have to take my word for it. Or find an exhibition of Geoffrey Fuller's work and go and see for yourself!

The lady is for turning

Carol Thatcher has written a book called A Swim-On Part in the Goldfish Bowl of Life. Normally this wouldn’t be interesting at all, except she has revealed intimate details of her mother’s encroaching dementia.

This has caused a storm in the British press with people asking whether she has gone too far, whether this is an invasion of privacy and whether we really needed to know. I suspect Carol needed to tell; otherwise who would have bothered to read her ‘memoirs’?

There is a touching episode, much quoted in the papers, about how Carol discovered her mother’s approaching Alzheimer’s (when she was 75) and how painful it was for her to repeat the tale of Dennis’ death.

"Losing Dad, however, was truly awful for Mum, not least because her dementia meant she kept forgetting he was dead. I had to keep giving her the bad news over and over again.

Every time it finally sank in that she had lost her husband of more than 50 years, she'd look at me sadly and say 'Oh,' as I struggled to compose myself. 'Were we all there?' she'd ask softly.”

I’ve seen this happen. It’s horrible. And it’s horrible for the person who has to break the news – and their loved one’s heart – all over again.

So I guess I am robbed of my hatred for a woman I never met. When I heard about the disease, my initial reaction was, “If I’d broken the spirit of the people of my country, sold all the national resources to private corporations, stomped on the rights of the workers and their families, destroyed the power of unions, and eradicated the notion of society, I’d rather forget it too.”

Him outdoors once said he would have a party on the day she died. I never held with that, as my dislike was saved for what she did politically, not who she was personally. Is the political personal? Perhaps – just ask Skunk Anansie. Thatcher more than most with her blind devotion to Milton Friedman economics, made it so.

Although I partied hard the day she left 10 Downing Street in a taxi and in tears, I can’t be pleased at this news. Alzheimer’s is a terrible disease that robs people of their dignity and the only response can be sympathy. She wins again.

Cloverfield

I recently watched Cloverfield on DVD. I'm gald I didn't watch it on the big screen because I suffer from cinema vertigo, caused by the use of QueasyCam. It's bad enough in the corner of my living room but when I'm assaulted by massive amounts of blurred, jerky, flashing shots I want to vomit; I get migraines and want to scream, 'Just use a sodding tripod, you moron!'

So, that aside, it was actually not bad. Best (and often) described as a cross between The Blair Witch Project and Godzilla, it is a disaster film set in New York City and filmed from one perspective of a bloke with a hand-held camera. He decides to capture the devastation on film rather than fleeing to safety because 'people are going to want to know how it all went down.' As you do.

He doesn't mention the fact that if it all works out he could flog this footage for a fortune, but seeing as he and his mates are prime examples of the shallow, materialistic, vapid, self-obssessed, Gen-Y, you can't tell me this didn't cross his mind, tiny though it may be.

The case of the missing plot or explanation has been heavily criticised, but I think the lack of omniscient director makes it interesting, albeit frustrating. In fact, despte the beautiful people, tumbling cities and giant scary monsters, the banal dialogue and unresolved ending add a touch of realism.

When this film was released, there was concern that viewers might suffer shellshock due to memories of 11th September when towers collapsed and the streets were full of dust and panic. The powers that be dismissed these worries. Do the movie moguls simply not care if it makes them a buck - or two million?

Does this mean we're immune to it now? Have we learned to live in the shadow of terrorism and destruction? Is that a part of our lives now? Or is it that we are resilient enough to bounce back? Seven years - is that what it takes?

My Newest Favourite Thing: The Stop Go Man

Everyone hates road works. They clog up the street making your journey take longer and making you arrive even later at your destination – usually work which you were late for anyway. Other road users get equally annoyed and behave in irrational and impatient ways.

So imagine my surprise to find the stop/go man on Tory Street is now my newest favourite thing (if a person can be a thing, but that’s far too existentialist for this time in the morning). The adjacent car park and apartment building is covered in scaffolding and builders are crawling all over it like construction rats, hurling slabs of materials into waiting skips below.

The man in the middle of the road orchestrates the passing cars, trucks, and cyclists with a cheery wave and a few bizarre dance moves. All he needs is a pair of white gloves and he could be a French traffic cop. Or a Michael Jackson impersonator. It’s satisfying to watch people drive by with a smile and a laugh to start their day.

I wonder if this task is shared among the road crew or whether it is his specific designated duty. I was once told in the States that there are diplomas for this sort of thing, and I laughed; I assumed we were playing our much-loved game of ‘let’s smugly mock our American cousins’, but now with the way the world is, I’m not so sure.

Anyway, if there is such a qualification for this particular vocation, I would like to recommend that this chap gets a scholarship.

Incidentally, when looking up ‘stop/go man’ on the Internet, I came across this blog from a bloke in Bermuda, so it’s proof (if you can call a random sample of two, ‘proof’) that people around the world are interested in the phenomenon.

Wellington Phoenix: Badge of honour

As gluttons for punishment, him outdoors and I have got season’s tickets for the next instalment of the Wellington Phoenix.

The first game of the season had an upbeat atmosphere, the pubs were bursting at the seams before the match, there was a surfeit of yellow and black as folk proudly modelled their new hats, scarves and t-shirts (admittedly over long-sleeves – this is Wellington!), and the sun was shining brightly.

A friend had come up from Christchurch for the game (among other things) and he commented that it was great to see so many people turn out to support a new team without any history or tradition (they’re only a year old) who finished bottom of the league in their inaugural campaign. There were about 10,500 people present.

Last weekend there weren’t so many people out in force (about 6,500) as the rain pelted down and the sodden pitch didn’t exactly lend itself to any silky footballing skills. And the Phoenix lost 2-4 in a fairly horrendous display saved only by the odd flash of competency from Shane Smeltz (currently the top scorer in the A league and the only scorer in Wellington) and Richard Johnson.

But I enjoyed it. There was that same resigned demeanour that used to accompany those awful matches on Tuesday nights away to Chester City. You faced up to it like a martyr, as though you should be awarded your football supporter’s badge to sew onto the shoulder of your uniform. It may have been rubbish, but at least we were there.

One thing that ruins the determinedly festive atmosphere though is those appalling banging-together sticks. I think the marketing term is ‘thunder sticks’ but ‘blatant advertising slogans for people who don’t have the intelligence to clap their own hands’ might be more appropriate.

Usually seen at netball or Chinese stadiums where if you don’t follow the orchestrated regime you will get shot, these things are horrendous. Children love them because they love irritating things that make pointless noise. Actually, they are irritating things that make pointless noise. Their only saving grace is that they have given rise to the chant of ‘You can stick your f*%^ink sticks up your arse.’

Said friend from earlier in the piece reckons these would make it into my blog as the first in a line of sporadic ‘my latest least favourite things.’ Don’t get me started…

So just to recap - this is a football crowd:


And this is a netball crowd.

See the difference?