Result

So, after the last post, the results are in.

We will be getting Little Creatures Bright Ale and 4 Pines Kolsch for the next few months, and then swapping up real soon.

Keep comments rolling in if you have suggestions and ask your friends too. I think it's a really interesting discussion point. I might even do a poll at a later date.

What's the best craft beer for easy drinking in Australia?

Quick Quiz/ Help me out yo!

I have come upon a bit of a problem.

I work at an advertising agency and we very luckily have a bar area and a fridge which is always stocked with beers. These are usually of the extremely mainstream variety. Tooheys and Hahn Super Dry are stables, while the purchase likes to spice it up with the ever exotic Corona!

Luckily, we also have a thing at work called the Cain award. This award in honor of the first murderer in the bible goes to the thing that each month gathers the most votes for getting rid of. I like this because instead of people bitching at work, they can just vote for the cain award and get rid of their problematic issues, like annoying systems of processes.


This month I organised dissent among my colleagues, and have managed to have our beer choices win the Cain award.

BUT here lies my challenge.

I am now faced with choosing three beers that everyone will enjoy. I was thinking 4 Pines Kolsch, Little Creatures Bright ale or even the divisive Gage Roads Atomic!

What would you choose, if you had to pick three beers for the Friday afternoon drinking pleasure of over 150 of your closest workmates? Remembering that a Rauch might not get the reception you gave it when you were stroking your chin in the local beer cafe.

Trainworks Post Review

I wrote a piece on Trainworks which you can go see at Brews News now.

What's your opinion on Big Beer Festivals, are they good for the craft beer community? Do they attract the right or wrong crowds? What improvements could they make?

The Grifter Interview

I mentioned that I had done an interview with the folks from The Grifter Brewing Company a few weeks ago. Well, I finally got around to clearing it up and you can have a read of it here. Tell me what you think. I'd really like to know if this is the kind of information that you wanted to know about the starting of a brewery? Could I have approached it differently?

Craft Beer and Marketing

Tonight I'll write an article about this video, in the mean time watch this and have a think if you want.

Trainworks Winter Beer Festival

Just a quick one. Really looking forward to the Trainworks Winter Beer Festival on the 25th of August. I would encourage all to come along and check it out, it's gonna be lots of fun, great brewery line up, including my faves Redoak, Balmain, Rocks Brewing and all the regulars. Also if you are going, contact me and we can share a beer and have a chat.



Read the review here.

Working on it....

At the moment I'm working on a number of articles that I'm hoping to get on the site really soon. Here is a quick preview to keep you eager to read more OG word-smithing.

Introducing the Grifter: I'm interview Glenn Wignall and the crew behind Grifter to get in insight behind what it takes to start a beer label from the ground up, what they've got planned on the horizon and more more more.

I'm also going to be doing a write up on The Union hotel, a little insight on why, in today's beer market place, it's good to stand out and the balance serving great beer and being an approachable pub.

Last but not least, I'm writing an article about the small bar revolution in Newcastle, I'll hoping be speaking to Chris Hearn, owner of the Terrace bar and taking a look at how craft beer is playing a part in the revitalisation of a city in atrophy.

Hope I can deliver these to you soon, in the mean time drink enjoyable beer and see you at the pub.

P.S Those in the Inner West area, should note get along to The Duke tonight, they are putting Young Henry's on tap and the YH guys are gonna be down there. So show some support for local, fresh beer and show the guys at the Duke how much you appreciate them supporting it too.

Landline's beer stories

Landline have done a few stories about beer which are worth the watching to get an understanding of some of the problems and complexities that face the craft beer industry.
Here are the stories:

• Trouble Brewing - which features my ugly face serving the judges at the Royal Sydney Beer comp and some great stuff from some brewers.
• Hop To It - a great article about the hop industry, how it's affected by the diminishing size of the beer market and how craft brewers are bringing the hop market back.

It's great to see the beer industry getting some attention on probably the largest media platform for agriculture at large.

Good/Bad vs. Like/Dislike or how quality is irrelevant to enjoyment and beer elitism is born.

Theodore W. Ardorno is a bit of a hero of mine (if a little too intellectual for me to really keep up with). The German sociologist, philosopher and musicologist was one of the 20th centuries greatest thinkers.
A few years ago I started reading his very influential The Philosophy of New Music in which Adorno proposes that the separation of objectivity and subjectivity in the criticism of art was essential to raise critical theory above the problems created by peoples opinions. He supposed that the only way to do this was to demand artists create with a singular aim, that would conceptually drive this objective criticism.
Right now, you are thinking "cool story bro" and "what the hell does this have to do with beer?".
Essentially critiquing beer is the same. We all have our own biases and expectations, we have perceptions that have been taught by the media, brands who want to training our thinking for the sake of selling their products. All these things effect the way we think of a beer, before it's even touched our lips. Likewise, our opinion is totally relevant. At the end of the day, whatever your position, if you enjoy something, that's why you would buy it again. If you love VB, that's great, you are going to save a lot of money. It's not for me though. I don't "like" it.
What irks me are beer elitists who "dislike" a beer but call it bad, this is what Adorno was all about for me. What defines good and bad? Unlike music, beer already has an established goal. In fact it's got a whole set of judging requirements. The BJCP exists exactly for this reason. Having created and updated a style guide that is universally excepted means that judges all around the world can throw out their opinions (if only for a moment) roll up their sleeves and compare a beer to a fairly exact description and quite objectively rule how well that beer performs to it's style. Under this context it's easy for a trained judge to say that a beer is good or bad, because a clear outline exists to demonstrate what the conceptual aim is.

This critical approach to beer falls over though when a beer that could be fabulous (imagine your dream beer right now) but judged in the wrong category. The worlds most intensely fruity, well balanced and delicious IPA would score very low if it were entered in a competition as a stout. This is the essential flaw in good vs. bad. It's all about your aim, about the thing that conceptually you wish to achieve. For many breweries, their aim is consistency and controllable results, so that every time you crack a tinny, it's exactly the same. In essence then, given their aim, a brewer who makes hundreds of thousands of litres of beer and manages to make every batch taste exactly the same gets a pat on the back from his boss and has produced a "good" beer. These exact same beers may be repulsive to many beer drinkers, but it does not mean that it isn't "good", just that you don't like it. Much like you mightn't have liked your first wheat beer or your first Lambic, despite the quality of that particular beer.

Beer elitism is born out of two things. The desire to demonstrate you heightened understanding of beer (aka being a wanker) and not understanding the difference between the good or bad and like or dislike. Unfortunately it is something that is found a lot in craft beer drinkers, and often it is not as vigorously discouraged as it really should be.

Beer elitism can be an insidious byproduct of becoming a craft beer lover. I think that it has the potential to cripple the craft beer industry. New beer lovers acting snobbish to their friend's choice of beer could alienate a potential beer appreciators enthusiasm. Beer after all is a social drink, and it's important to us, as beer lovers to be inclusive and objective about our tastes.
I like to encourage discussion about beer, how it was made, what are it's characteristics, how does it relate to other beers we've tried? If someone you know enjoys drinking a beer, particularly commercial beer, that you don't like, leave it alone. After all chances are you aren't the king of beer knowledge and if they are drinking it and enjoying it, they have all the same qualifications as you do. Let the beer judging to competition rings and the BJCP style gudies.

Why beer? Why now?

Beer has suddenly and inexplicably blown up in Australia. I'm not sure if it's the internet's amazing ability to create clarity for previously shrouded sub-cultures or if it has to do with the increasing size of Australia's craft beer market but beer, craft beer specifically, is getting huge.

Given this, it might be fair for any reader to ask why I would start a beer blog in that environment. It hardly seems inventive or original, I'm hardly an expert, nor am I part of the industry. Both of these statements are pretty fair, but they really get to the point of why I am starting a beer blog.

I remember the exact point in time when my beer 'like' became my beer 'love', the moment I realized that Stella Artois is not a top notch "imported beer" and that "premium" did not refer to how much alcohol was in the tinnie.

It was a sunny Saturday afternoon. I had spent a long day crawling the streets of Sydney's CBD looking for cafe's and music shops with my brother Andrew.  We decided it was time for a break, while pacing down Clearance St we happened upon Red Oak Boutique Beer Cafe. I recall my brother looking at me and saying "Well it is a cafe after all".

Inside two large bright beer tanks, lined with wood paneling greet you. A long solid wood bar with 12 taps all bearing the Red Oak logo spans the length of the room. It was so majestic and inviting.

I sat at the table and quickly became confused by the menu, which was bar snacks and a list of almost unrecognizable words, which I'd surmised were beers. The bar tender, Janet, asked if we had ever been before, to which we replied negative, so she recommended the tasting platters.

As soon as the platter was in front of me, I knew I had been missing out. My life was about to change. Frozen cold, pale, bland coloured beers were no where to be seen. But an array of golden, red and opaque black glasses sat before me, small Hors d'œuvre, each placed in front of a beer, matching the flavours and progressive becoming stronger. It was so odd, so different, I'd never seen beer treat like this before, it was like, to my mind, they had somehow confused beer with.... wine! So in the haze of my confusion, I decided, why not? Why not treat this beer in front of me as if it were wine. So my brother and I did just that. We started tasting the beers, slowly swapping back and forward between food and beer, discussing as we went the flavours, their complexities, the subtles, as we had both seen our parents do many times (they are big wine buffs). Janet became involved in the conversation as we progressed and by the end we had spent two hours plus at this bar, learning all about beer.


A few weeks later I sat at that bar and told Janet that I had just got my RSA certificate, she passed me a celebratory beer and asked me when I could have my first shift. I walked at Redoak for a year and a half, and although I haven't worked there for some time now, my love of beer hasn't subsided. I am constantly seeking out new beer experiences, breweries, new beers, beer pubs and great food and beer experiences. I have gone to beer festivals, started home brewing with my brother Tom and even done some stewarding for beer competitions. It's a hobby and a love.


I hope that in this blog I can share with you my love for beer, a few of my favourite experiences and new places and people, as well as some of my opinions on where beer is as an industry, not as a business person, but as a drinker and beer enthusiast. I promise that I wont, review beers or brewers, that's for Beer competitions and is inherently wrought with potential issues. I wont be negative about something, there is no use in me beating on about something I don't reccommend, I'd prefer to spend my time on stuff I've loved, or thoughts I think are "beer positive". I also promise to always respect everyone's opinion, some people love beer in a different way to me, all I can do is share my perspective.


Please feel free to comment and follow me on my RSS feed.