Doctor's Orders Brewing

I've just finished a story on Doctor's Orders Brewing which will get published on Brew News in the next few days. I'm really excited to publish it and have people read it.

I think the coolest thing about people like the Doc is that his success isn't a whiz bang overnight type of thing. He's been working at it for years and in the process he has given so much to craft beer, so freely. He started Ale Stars, he was one of the first members of Aussie Home Brewer.

It so important that craft beer isn't a fly by night category trend. It's a life long love affair with beer and Darren really illustrates that well. I'll link to the article as soon as it's up.

British Beers

I love a good British ale. Sitting in a pub with a wooden bar for a few hours, sinking pints of mild ales, ESB and brown ales, is a past time I don't intend on giving up any time soon. Noting the difference between a cask poured IPA to it's draught brother is a learning experience that you can't come upon in any other way.

The British invented many of the styles that have been popularised by the American craft beer movement and have been distorted to create the huge, flavoursome beers that dominate the high end of the market.

So understanding British styles, should be a mandate for any enthusiastic craft beer drinker. If you find yourself in this category, I would suggest checking out this guide to British Styles put together by Serious Eats. It's a little beginner, but may be of interest to anyone who doesn't know much about the origin of styles.

Nicest Friends in the World

I don't know of anyone quite this generous.

Coming soon.. please help

I'm struggling with writing all my posts recently, but I'm back and going to try to do one post per week minimum. BUT I NEED YOUR HELP.

I have a bunch of posts planned but I don't know what to do first, so I want you guys to tell me what you are most interested in, then I will write about it.

Here's the options:
- A wrap up of my recent USA trip which includes a visit to Seattle, Portland, The City, San Diego and LA.
- A review of the L2 Beer Industry Digital IQ report
- How to be little; rough digital ideas for tiny breweries (I intend on publishing usable strategies that could easily be implemented and will make profit)
- Micro brewing is not a Trend; an article on why Marketers need to stop calling craft beer a trend and see the bigger picture.
- Beer Tweets; why twitter is more important for craft brewers than any other channel.

That's it. Hopefully I can get each of these articles done in the next couple of weeks, if you really want to see one of them, just leave a comment below.

Vic on the Park & The Projects, Beer & Cider Festival

Small is the new big, or something along these lines. That's what the people are saying. The back of the previously shabby Vic on the Park is a fairly small space and not very inspiring for the likes of a beer festival. So it's a surprised and a joy to see the area nicely filled with a beer sipping community on a fine sunny Saturday in March.

The car park/basketball court translated nicely into this micro festival, with about 7 tents lining the back wall and the beer garden providing the shade.
Each of the brewers (see below) brought around two beers (in some cases a beer and a cider), with the exception of 4 Pines who brought all of their beers and Mountain Goat who snuck in a few seasonal beers to keep the regulars happy.

There wasn't much new or exclusive on offer, but I don't think it was a negative. While bigger beer festivals tend to get a lot of press, little events like this are what make the beer community grow. Of the 300 plus people who were at the event, only a few were familiar faces. The rest were locals who, maybe for the first time, were getting into and having a conversation about craft beer.

Beer highlights for me was the very crisp and roasty Pinchgut BLK PLZ, a beer that nicely handles the trend of making black versions of traditional beer styles. It retained the dryness and crisp smack of the pilsner while just letting on a nice little coffe aftertaste.
Other Beer highlight would be the Mountain Goat Rare Breed Before The Dawn Black IPA, another blackened up style, this time the IPA was a bit more powerful than the pilsner. Floral, citrus aroma, IPA body but then a big hit of roasted malts that combine with the hops gave a dark berry finish.

Hopefully the Vic and The Projects continue to do more events like this, but maybe, with a little less cider. For photos of the event try The Vic & The Projects facebook pages.

One Month of Sobriety

I decided to stay off the beers for the whole of Feb. As a beer lover and sometimes blogger it seems like a pretty strange choice but I had a few of personal reasons and February is a great month, maybe its the clean four weeks  maybe it's the last month of summer. For whatever reason I have stayed completely sober for the whole of Feb and in under three hours I will have done twenty eight days of no drinking.

More interesting than the why, is the what I learned. Here are a few out takes from what I learned from having a full month off drinking:

1. Alcohol isn't good for you. When they say 'what's your poison' they mean it, alcohol can poison you. That doesn't mean you shouldn't drink it or you should stop forever. It just means you should be aware of how much you're taking in, not just in alcohol, but in energy and excessive consumption.
2. Taking a break is healthy! It seems like the logical counter point to the first point. When you stop drinking, your body changes. I've noticed I don't get as fatigued when I exercise and that I've been eating less. It's good, I've even lost a little weight. People say that beer isn't the reason for beer bellies. This is true, but beer and alcohol in general does have effect on your overall health. 
3. You don't need to drink, especially if it sucks. Why do we drink bad beer when it's the only one available? Its senseless, aside from getting drunk, all drinking bad beer does for me is make me angry and make me fat. I'm angry enough about bad beer without drinking it and I don't need to get any fatter, I hate myself enough already.
4. Drinking is not a stress relief. I had a few fairly stressful days in Feb. My first instinct was to drink, but when I resisted I learnt something. It's much easier to deal with a problem if you keep your head clear and deal with it front on. Drinking is a great avoidance technic, but it doesn't solve anything, which sounds like something someone says at a horrible conference on success, but it's true and its easy to forgot when you are feeling a little hot headed.
5. Drinking great beer RULES. By far the hardest moment I had during my month off was when my Beer Masons pack arrived. Looking at all those taste delights made me remember what I loved most about beer. Enjoying one or two super delicious, complex, interesting beers is something I will always love.
6. Its not hard. You just stop. You set a date to start and a date you want to reach. Not doing something is about the easiest thing you can do. It also saves you money, it cleans your liver out and you feel good for it. 

I have no regrets about my little jaunt into sobriety. I don't intend on quitting alcohol full time any time soon, but I have given myself some perspective on the role that it plays in my life. I want to reduce how much beer I drink and focus on quality, drinking unique beers that are new, tasty and enjoyable.

So, with that aside, now on to the hard choice of deciding on my first beer for March. Tell me in the comments which one you think I should tuck into. I'll write a review here as well.

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?

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.