tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19884395395432431902024-03-12T20:59:37.380-07:00hoplogCraftbeer and related topics. Beer judging, homebrewing, food pairing. Beer culture and regulation.Chadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10965042161895885863noreply@blogger.comBlogger46125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1988439539543243190.post-84488796150580779122013-07-08T16:12:00.000-07:002013-07-08T16:12:06.087-07:00Do You Want Brewery Lounges In Vancouver?Vancouver City Council is voting tomorrow on a set of bylaw amendments that would allow small lounges on the premises of craft breweries in Vancouver. Yes, that's right, presently they are <b>not allowed</b>! Provincial laws have changed to allow brewery lounges, but Vancouver bylaws need to be amended as well.<br />
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This is an important step in developing a better craft beer culture and industry in Vancouver.<br />
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If you like craft beer, send a letter to Council before 4pm Tuesday, July 9, 2013. It has <b>already been written for you</b> by <a href="http://barleymowat.com/2013/07/08/write-in-to-support-brewery-lounges/" target="_blank">Barley Mowat</a> - all you have to do is click a link, then hit "send".<br />
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Or if you're an enthusiast like me, you can expand on the form letter - see the letter I sent (below) if you need inspiration.<br />
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Cheers!<br />
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My letter to mayorandcouncil @ vancouver.ca:<br />
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I am writing in support of the proposed amendments to the above-noted Zoning and Development bylaw, allowing brewery- and distillery-attached lounges in Vancouver (the "Amendments").<br />
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[...]<br />
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First, I adopt the sentiments of many other craft beer-knowledgable Vancouver residents, which you have undoubtedly seen in similar form:<br />
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"<i>The burgeoning craft brewing and distilling industry supports a key demand of local residents: to purchase merchandise from, and thereby support, local businesses.</i><br />
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<i>Vancouver residents increasingly recognize and desire the high-quality products produced by local breweries and distilleries, but unfortunately have to retire to their homes to enjoy these products beyond a small sample. Allowing lounges will encourage a sense of community around these new businesses, and will support local producers with a much-needed revenue stream, encouraging further expansion of this popular and valuable industry.</i><br />
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<i>Additionally, our rapidly increasing local brewery and distillery scene has drawn the attention of visiting tourists, many of whom are dismayed to learn that the extent of their sampling is limited to a single sample per day. Adopting an amendment that will will erase this restriction, and bring Vancouver breweries and distilleries more inline with businesses in other jurisdictions, will be extremely beneficial to local businesses and residents, as it has been in such other jurisdictions.</i><br />
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<i>I trust that you will consider the interests of both local businesses and residents such as myself when you address this matter on July 9th, and vote in favour this amendment.</i>"<br />
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Further, craft breweries are often an important first step in the revitalization of urban industrial zones challenged by the perennial flight of businesses to less expensive lands in the suburbs and beyond. Unlike wineries, which are invariably located in prime rural, bucolic farm country, craft breweries are often set up in the light industrial zones of urban areas (and I believe in Vancouver, are required to locate in such zones), and are often leaders in the revival of communities in such areas. See, for example, the article at this link (the text is included at the end of this letter): <a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=198724722">http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=198724722</a><br />
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Despite what might be alleged by unrelated industry groups or overly-concerned residents, 1) brewery lounges do not (and cannot) pose a competitive threat to Vancouver's huge and well-funded liquor-primary mega-clubs, and 2) brewery lounges will not spread large numbers of intoxicated persons (creating noise and mischief) outside of the designated downtown mega-club area known as the Granville Strip and surroundings. In fact, brewery lounges are the very antithesis of the drunkenness and disorderliness I often encounter in the Granville Strip region. Such brewery lounges attract local residents and tourists alike who are interested in craft beer and related products and services - that is, beverages that are imbibed and appreciated for their complex and subtle flavours rather than purely for their alcohol content. The personal, symbiotic relationship developed between a local brewer or distiller and his/her local and foreign clientele is one involving mutual admiration, pride of craftsmanship and support of local small business - never one of profit through drunkenness. I cannot recall attending a craft beer-related brewery, lounge, pub, festival or conference where truly excessive drunkenness, noise or other mischief has been an issue whatsoever.<br />
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One has only to look south to the states of Washington, Oregon and California - and in particular Portland, OR - to see the unbridled success of urban and suburban breweries with attached lounges and few restrictions. Residents see these as cultural and community hubs, as anchor businesses in their areas, and as truly valuable assets. I strongly recommend that council look to other jurisdictions that have successfully implemented brewery lounges for guidance in this and related areas. Again, starting with Portland, OR.<br />
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In addition, I urge council not to deny the proposed amendment on the basis that it is too restrictive, as I believe several members of the Campaign For Culture have suggested you do. While I agree that the proposed limits on brewery lounges should be lessened, council should not delay the implementation of the Amendments and send them "back to the drawing board" at this late stage; new, small breweries are relying upon the Amendments to get themselves off the ground (e.g. 33 Acres Brewing and Brassneck Brewery), and any delay could harm or destroy their successful launches. Changes to the program can take place in a subsequent amendment.<br />
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I would consider it a tragedy should a handful of vocal, ill-informed residents and competition-averse businesses were to derail this vital step towards Vancouver becoming a more friendly, welcoming and liveable community; encouraging local, sustainable small businesses; and in particular realizing the immense benefits of a healthy craft beer tourism and brewing industry.<br />
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Council, thank you for considering this material, and please pass the Amendments on July 9.<br />
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Yours very truly,<br />
<br />
[me]<br />
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<a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=198724722">http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=198724722</a><br />
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A Tale Of 6 Cities Craft Brewers Helped Transform<br />
by THE ASSOCIATED PRESS<br />
July 04, 2013 12:01 PM<br />
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In once rundown urban districts across the country, craft breweries have helped to transform the neighborhoods around them.<br />
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Small business owners tackled the hard work of transforming industrial buildings, many of which had sat empty as demographic changes pulled manufacturers and residents to the suburbs.<br />
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Small-time, independent brewers have been one of the beer market's growth drivers. The number of breweries in the U.S. catapulted from 92 in 1980 to 2,514 as of May 2013, according to craft beer trade group Brewers Association. Barrels shipped have more than doubled in the past decade, and craft beer now makes up nearly 7 percent of a U.S. beer market that is growing slowly overall, according to trade publication Beer Marketer's Insights.<br />
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As the breweries churned out beer, they drew visitors and eventually new, young residents — and more small businesses.<br />
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Here's a look at six breweries whose presence helped to change their surroundings:<br />
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DOWNTOWN DIGS: Boulevard Brewing opened in 1989 in its Kansas City, Mo. Westside neighborhood, creating a brewery out of a building that had been a railroad's laundry. While it probably would have been cheaper for the company to be in the suburbs, the brewery's managers are "committed urbanists" who like the idea of contributing to the vitality of the central city as opposed to building on undeveloped land in the suburbs, says Boulevard's CFO, Jeff Crum.<br />
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The building's renovation ranged from replacing pipes to cutting out a skylight to make room for tanks. And in order to grow, Boulevard had to buy the land around it from different owners, get approvals from neighbors and get the city to rezone the land around it.<br />
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The brewery, at first, struggled to attract visitors, but now draws about 50,000 people annually as the area around it picked up alongside a broader renewal in nearby downtown Kansas City.<br />
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"Not very many years ago this would be an area you'd stay the hell away from," says Danny O'Neill, who started a coffee roaster, the Roasterie, down the street from Boulevard in 1993. Boulevard helped him find his building, and nowadays the coffee factory and brewery host tours and weddings. "Somebody has to go in there first, and I think that's the role that Boulevard played," O'Neill says.<br />
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ON THE WATERFRONT: Harpoon Brewery opened on the South Boston waterfront in 1986, when it was surrounded by auto body shops and little else. Now the brewery draws more than 85,000 people a year from tours and tastings, and thousands more from festivals. These days, the city is focused on redeveloping the area. New apartment and office buildings, restaurants and a convention center sit nearby.<br />
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Harpoon recently negotiated a 50-year lease with the city. The rent will rise over time, but generally, long leases provide protection from spikes that can happen when an area becomes so popular that property values skyrocket.<br />
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RUST BELT REVAMP: Great Lakes opened in Cleveland's Ohio City neighborhood in 1988. The downtown neighborhood was "perceived as dangerous and blighted" into the 1980s, says Eric Wobser. He works for Ohio City Inc., a nonprofit that promotes residential and commercial development while trying to preserve the neighborhood's older buildings.<br />
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Great Lakes built a brewery and a brewpub. Other breweries and businesses — a pasta maker, a bike shop, a tortilla factory, as well as restaurants and bars — followed. Newcomers flock to the neighborhood, even though Cleveland's overall population is still declining. The city repaved the quiet street next to the brewery, Market Ave., with cobblestones, and poured millions into renovating a nearby 19th-century market.<br />
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BREWERY BUBBLE: In the waterfront Ballard section of Seattle, home to fishing shops, shipyards and boat fueling facilities for decades, six breweries have sprung up in the past two years. They joined Hale's Ales and Maritime Pacific Brewing, which both opened in Ballard in the 1990s.<br />
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Hale's Ales in 1995 took over a facility that had housed an industrial hose manufacturer and before that a maker of engines.<br />
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The neighborhood has become "softer," says Hale's Ales manager Phil O'Brien. "What used to be fishing shops are little restaurants — what used to be hardware stores are now coffee shops."<br />
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While Ballard is still a hub of maritime industry, it has landed higher-income apartment buildings and has attracted restaurants and nightlife.<br />
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BROOKLYN BRANDS: When Brooklyn Brewery opened in the Williamsburg section of the New York City borough in 1996, its neighbors were mostly deserted warehouses and factories. Today, Brooklyn Brewery is surrounded by modern apartment buildings, trendy bars, shops and restaurants. There's still some graffiti, but that hasn't deterred the influx of new residents willing to spend a lot of money to live there. In the past decade, home values in the Brewery's neighborhood have more than doubled — up 145 percent, according to real estate appraiser Miller Samuel. Brooklyn Brewery and another local craft brewer, Kelso, worry that rising property values will eventually force them out of their current neighborhoods.<br />
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ACROSS THE BAY: The tech boom has made one brewpub's growth plans more complicated. In San Francisco, 21st Amendment brewery is two blocks from AT&T Park where baseball's Giants play. Along with the bustling technology sector, 21st Amendment helped to transform the city's SoMa neighborhood.<br />
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"People refer to use as the granddaddy of the neighborhood," says 21st Amendment founder Nico Freccia.<br />
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Now the company wants to build an 80,000-square-foot brewery — but property values are too high. The company has opened offices in the East Bay, and is scouting space there for the brewery, hoping to help revitalize an Oakland neighborhood.Chadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10965042161895885863noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1988439539543243190.post-59545421874035886992013-05-13T17:33:00.000-07:002013-05-13T17:33:09.923-07:00Tokyo Craft Beer BarsAfter two months travelling in the beer-wasteland known as southeast Asia, it was refreshing to hit Japan for a few days, where even the ubiquitous big-name rice lagers are a marked improvement.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">After a bread-and-water diet, even a cheap cheeseburger is oh-so-satisfying</td></tr>
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But Tokyo caters to everyone's interests, no matter how odd or unique, so there was no need to stick with the familiar. With a little help from my friend the internet, I was able to visit a few very good craft beer bars.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Juice box sake! Stock up for your kids' lunches...</td></tr>
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<a href="http://www.bento.com/rev/1412.html">The Watering Hole</a> (Shinjuku/Yoyogi)</h2>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Hello, friendly neighbourhood craft beer bar</td></tr>
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Being craft beer keeners, Mrs. Hoplog and I arrived at at the Watering Hole at the 3:00pm opening time. A few people drifted in and out, but it was certainly not crowded in the afternoon and early evening.<br />
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We decided to stick to Japanese beer exclusively, though many international taps were available, focusing largely on American craft brewers such as Rogue, Stone, Ballast Point, etc. In fact, most of the craft beer bars we visited in Tokyo featured similar lists of American beer - likely the work of the same beer importer.<br />
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The walls were filled with American craft beer swag and signs. Our server (at the end of the bar) was friendly and helpful, and spoke a few words of English (not guaranteed in non-touristed areas of Japan). She and her fellow employees had visited the most recent GABF (Great American Beer Festival), combining it with a beer-themed road trip. The highlights were captured in two charming photo albums on the bar.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Brimmer Porter with smoked pork and grainy mustard</td></tr>
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And wow, the beer was incredible, as were the small plates of food. If more Japanese craft brewers get traction and start exporting more widely, they will be warmly welcomed in any locale. They seem to have the same skill making beer that other Japanese companies have making cars, electronics and optics! If I had to sum up Japanese craft beer in a word, it would be "balance." You never get punched in the face by a Japanese beer - you simply enter a zen state that allows you to meditate on how pleasing and harmonious the beverage is.<br />
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We were big fans of the made-to-order sweet potato chips - simple, but delectable.<br />
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There's a single-person smoking cubicle covered by a curtain. I'm not sure if it was a joke or legitimate. (Japanese izakayas (food pubs) are hot-boxed by smoking salarymen in the evenings, but you can't smoke while walking down the street - you have to find a designated smoking area in order to smoke outdoors. Smokers take note.)<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Craft beer suits Mrs. Hoplog very well</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Shelf features the classics by <a href="http://www.brewerspublications.com/authors/ray-daniels/">Daniels</a>, <a href="http://www.brewerspublications.com/authors/randy-mosher/">Mosher</a>, etc.</td></tr>
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<u>Beers sampled (all highly recommended):</u><br />
Beer Buddy (Shizuoka): Chocolate Dark IPA, 6%<br />
Brimmer Brewing (Kanagawa): Porter, 5.5%<br />
Baird Brewing (Shizuoka): Suruga Bay Imperial IPA, 7.8%<br />
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<h2>
<a href="http://www.timeout.jp/en/tokyo/venue/11401/Goodbeer-Faucets">Goodbeer Faucets</a> (Shibuya)</h2>
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A few minutes of walking from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shibuya,_Tokyo#Shibuya_Crossing">Sibuya Crossing</a> brings you to the second-floor Goodbeer Faucets. Take note: this should be your first stop on any craft beer tour of Tokyo.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Love Hotel Hill</td></tr>
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Handily, Goodbeer Faucets is adjacent to Love Hotel Hill, featuring endless (often themed) hotels rentable overnight or by the hour. You know, for when you need a place to crash after imbibing too much, or in case all that sexy craft beer has put you in the mood for a little - ahem - dessert. (These aren't considered seedy like they would be in North America - if you have a tiny non-soundproofed apartment, or you share one with your parents, sometimes you just need some off-site privacy with your favourite person.)<br />
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Most seats provide pleasing low-level views of the endless numbers pedestrian shoppers.<br />
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Goodbeer is very proud of its draught system, featuring automated cleaning technology that purportedly keeps the beer sparkling fresh - which it was.<br />
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No half-empty bottles of bleach adjacent to this tap tower - the cleaning is all high-tech.<br />
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Both international and Japanese craft beers were well-represented. Again, we stuck to the Japanese stuff.<br />
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Our server was fantastic, and beyond the great beer was the reason this place was our favourite in Tokyo. Her English was quite good (she lived in Los Angeles for two years), she put in a great effort recommending beers that matched our preferences, and was consistently warm and friendly.<br />
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She even brought us copies of the "Japan Beer" periodical, available at most craft beer bars we visited. It's essentially Japan's version of the Northwest Brewing News; be sure to pick up a copy when you're in Japan.<br />
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<u>Beers sampled (all highly recommended):</u></div>
Nide Beer (house beer brewed by Baird of Shizuoka): GBF Smoke Pump Stout (Real Ale), 6% (cask)<br />
Nide Beer (house beer brewed by Baird of Shizuoka): Nide Cream Ale, 5.5%<br />
Noboribetsu Jibeer Onidensetsu (Hokkaido): American Barley Wheat, 5.5%<br />
Brimmer Brewing (Kanagawa): 1 Year Anniversary Ale, 5.8%<br />
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<h2>
<a href="http://www.timeout.jp/en/tokyo/venue/11135/DevilCraft">Devil Craft</a> (Kanda)</h2>
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When you think of Japanese cuisine, authentic Chicago-style deep dish pizza is probably not the first thing that leaps to mind. But then again craft beer isn't the first beverage one thinks of either. Happily, you can find both at Devil Craft.<br />
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Devil Craft inhabits several very cozy levels, each measuring only about 300 square feet (including stairs). It's a popular place, so if you don't make a reservation you'll probably spend the first part of your evening at the stairwell table like we did.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Stools over kegs on the landing - and enough stair traffic that you never feel lonely</td></tr>
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Our friendly bartender was from Austin, Texas, and several of the beers were American as well. We again stuck to the many Japanese offerings and weren't disappointed.<br />
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The pizza was fantastic - fresh and flavourful. I assume it was authentic, though I haven't tried pizza in Chicago yet.<br />
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The cask of Iwatekura Oyster Stout was particularly memorable - the most salty/mineral-y (and yes, oyster-y) example I've yet tasted.<br />
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For those not fond of oceanic influences in their beer, there were plenty of other brilliant options.<br />
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Devil Craft was a cool little island of pizza and craft beer; a cozy and tasty place to spend an evening.<br />
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<u>Beers sampled (all highly recommended):</u><br />
Aquila Brewery (Akita City): Akita Bijin no Beer, 5.0% (Helles brewed with Cascade)<br />
SOC Brewing (Ebetsu City, Hokkaido): North Island Weizen, 5.0%<br />
Iwatekura Brewery (Ichinoseki City): Iwatekura Oyster Stout, 7.0% (cask)<br />
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<h2>
<a href="http://www.timeout.jp/en/tokyo/venue/11373/Craft-Beer-Market">Craft Beer Market</a> (Toranomon)</h2>
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No, not the Canadian "<a href="http://vancouver.craftbeermarket.ca/">Craft Beer Market</a>" that is coming to Vancouver later this year. An unrelated Tokyo pub (actually two of them now) that serves good craft beer at the lowest prices in Tokyo, along with exceptional food. <br />
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At lunchtime, the windows fold back and young business people flood into the small, airy space.<br />
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Arriving at 12:30 was an effective strategy, as many of the tables had begun to empty and seats opened up. There was still plenty of time to enjoy the food and drink before the 2:00pm afternoon closing time.<br />
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The food was exceptional. Reasonably priced, yet very well-executed. A highly recommended lunch stop.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Each meal starts with a crisp salad</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I had the Asian-influenced curry</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mrs. Hoplog had a vegetarian pasta - one of the best I can recall tasting</td></tr>
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After narrowly avoiding a local-hopped "India Snow Saison" that was not very passable, the beer was once again spot-on. We would have stayed longer but for the mid-afternoon closing.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A sublime Japanese-made witbier</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Baskets under your stools for keeping your handbag/briefcase clean and close by</td></tr>
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<u>Beers sampled (all highly recommended except for *):</u><br />
Baeren (Iwate): Schwarz, 5.5%<br />
Shigakogen Brewery (Nagano): IPA, 6.0%<br />
*Johana (Toyama): India Snow Saison, 6.5% (made with local hops) (just a taster)<br />
Coedo (Saitama): Shiro, 5.0% (Belgian Wit)<br />
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<h2>
<a href="http://www.lonelyplanet.com/japan/tokyo/entertainment-nightlife/bar/asahi-sky-room">Asahi Sky Room</a> (Asakusa)</h2>
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Next to one of Tokyo's many canals, adjacent to the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asahi_Beer_Hall">Flamme d'Or sculpture</a> (known locally as the "Golden Turd") and within strolling distance of the new <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokyo_Skytree">Tokyo Skytree tower</a> is the headquarters of Asahi, possibly Japan's best-known megabrewer.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The building that looks like a tall glass of golden beer with a rocky white head? Asahi headquarters. How can you not like it?</td></tr>
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Upon taking the elevator to the top of the building (22nd floor, in the "beer head"), you can purchase a reasonably-priced Asahi beer and relax in a lounge with one of the best-value panoramas in Tokyo.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This view is Mrs. Hoplog-approved</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The view over my pint</td></tr>
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I was doubly happy because in addition to the view, the lounge had Asahi Black on tap. My experience with Japanese megabrewer schwarzbiers/dunkels had been limited to a couple of very stale bottles in Canada. But the fresh on-tap example did not disappoint - a refreshing, clean pint (despite being served in a frozen mug like all Japanese megabrews). But I'd give the bottled "Dry Black" a miss.<br />
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<u>Beers sampled:</u><br />
<div>
Asahi: Black (dunkel-ish) (draught) [highly recommended]<br />
Asahi: Dry Black (schwarzbier/dunkel-ish) (bottle) [not recommended]<br />
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<h2>
<a href="http://www.timeout.jp/en/tokyo/venue/11365/Popeye">Popeye</a> (Ryogoku)</h2>
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Walking several minutes south from the Asahi Sky Room, you pass the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ry%C5%8Dgoku_Kokugikan">Ryogoku Kokugikan</a>, the main Tokyo sumo wrestling stadium.<br />
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Sumo is interesting and all, but just past the Kokugikan is what one day might be a similarly historic place: Popeye, Tokyo's original craft beer bar.<br />
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Popeye started off as a fairly traditional izakaya until the owner, Tatsuo Aoki, became interested in craft beer. Things started to take off when he began introducing Belgian and Japanese craft beer to the tap list in the mid-1990s. There are now 40 taps and a couple of cask engines, and the seats are nearly full every night.<br />
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The pub retains its old-school charm with a busy collection of knick-knacks, bowtie-wearing waitstaff, and the signature yelled greetings, goodbyes and call-and-answer ordering of a traditional Japanese izakaya.<br />
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The owner Tatsuo is in attendance most nights, and is something of a legend in Japanese beer circles.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zmRr9L_HrkM/UXR0nzN7DBI/AAAAAAAAKig/pLw3FoXkRjY/s1600/IMG_7834.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zmRr9L_HrkM/UXR0nzN7DBI/AAAAAAAAKig/pLw3FoXkRjY/s320/IMG_7834.JPG" width="213" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo of owner Tatsuo and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Jackson_(writer)">Michael Jackson</a></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Clearly I needed my own photo with Tatsuo, seen here in his signature formal wear</td></tr>
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<br />
The beer? Excellent, as expected. We again kept to Japanese craft beers, and were not disappointed in the slightest.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">50 ml of wonderfully complex barleywine</td></tr>
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<div>
Happy hour at Popeye does not involve discounts on beer, but it <i>does</i> provide a free plate of food with each glass of beer served, regardless of size (excluding the more "special" beers). And it's proper, meal-worthy food! Great value.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Free happy hour sausage plate</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Free happy hour fresh ham salad plate</td></tr>
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<div>
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Popeye received a Ratebeer <i>Best Beer Bars In The World</i> Gold Medal in 2010 and 2011. Other than an overcharging problem with our bill that was eventually corrected with the help of a friendly bilingual customer, our experience was good, cozy fun.<br />
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<u>Beers sampled (all highly recommended):</u><br />
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Yo-ho Brewing (Karuizawa, Nagano): Tokyo Porter (cask)<br />
Hinomaru Ale (Jumonji-Cho, Akita): Best Bitter, 4+% (cask) [amazing pair with the fried chicken]<br />
Shigakougen Beer (Yamanouchi, Nagano): IPA<br />
Baird Brewing, Divine Vamp Series (Shizuoka): Black Bitter, 4.5%<br />
Baird Brewing, Divine Vamp Series (Shizuoka): III ("India Black Ale")<br />
Nasu Kogen (Takakukoh, Nasu): Nine-Tailed Fox Barleywine, 12%<br />
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<br />
<h2>
The Verdict</h2>
<br />
Go to Tokyo. Drink Japanese craft beer. Delight in its deliciousness and revel in the fact you were smart enough to visit.<br />
<br />
<u>Some Tokyo craft beer guides to get you started:</u><br />
<a href="http://www.bento.com/r-beer.html">http://www.bento.com/r-beer.html</a><br />
<a href="http://www.timeout.jp/en/tokyo/feature/5263/Tokyos-best-craft-beer-bars/">http://www.timeout.jp/en/tokyo/feature/5263/Tokyos-best-craft-beer-bars/</a><br />
<a href="http://www.timeout.jp/en/tokyo/feature/5278/Craft-beer-in-Tokyo">http://www.timeout.jp/en/tokyo/feature/5278/Craft-beer-in-Tokyo</a><br />
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Chadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10965042161895885863noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1988439539543243190.post-91111150773252286872013-04-04T20:17:00.002-07:002013-04-04T20:17:17.929-07:00Burmese ToddyVisiting the imminently-opening country of Myanmar (Burma) was amazing and I highly recommend it. (Though you might have to keep an eye on the news to avoid <a href="http://www.vancouversun.com/life/Jonathan+Manthorpe+Burma+religious+violence+threatens+democratic+transition/8154266/story.html">sectarian violence</a> in certain places.) An embarrassment of ancient Buddhist temples and some of the friendliest people you'll find anywhere.<br />
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<br />
Beer-wise, it's much like the rest of southeast Asia - almost exclusively macro light lager. Our bus drove by a very new-looking and certainly government- or <a href="http://www.irrawaddy.org/archives/25311">crony</a>-owned brewery in Yangon that brews Myanmar, Tiger, ABC and other beers under contract, for domestic consumption.<br />
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Far from the macro brewery, along the roadside near the Bagan temple area in central Burma, are palm sugar "factories." These are really just stands of sugar palms punctuated occasionally by a family-run thatched hut where the sugar is refined. Tourists can stop and see the process, try the wares and make a donation/purchase if so inclined.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Grinding peanuts into oil is also a merry-go-round for this kid. The ride ends when you stop whipping the ox</td></tr>
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Collecting sugar palm juice is a little like collecting maple syrup, but requires decent climbing skills. You lop off one of the branches at the top of the tree, and hang a pot below the wound to collect the dripping sap.<br />
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Every morning you must scale a rickety bamboo ladder lashed to the tree in order to empty the juice pots into a pot hanging off your waist belt.<br />
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This requires entwining your legs through the ladder so that your hands are free. While you're up there, you re-score the palm branch wound with a palm knife so that the sap keeps flowing.<br />
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The result is sweet, woody juice with more than a few dead but happy ants floating in it. Then it's off to the refining hut.<br />
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The juice is heated in metal bowls fired by the branches cut from the palms. After some hours of boiling and reduction, followed by some drying, you get...<br />
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...palm sugar nuggets, also known as jaggery. Woody and sweet, but not nearly as toothache-inducing as table sugar. Important in much southeast Asian cooking.<br />
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That's all well and good, but what does this have to do with beer? Another use for palm juice is to let it sit overnight in an open container. Wild yeast combined with the high environmental heat mean that the container will have a big, meringue-like krausen by the next morning - natural fermentation a la Belgian lambic beer.<br />
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The fermented palm juice is called toddy (at least that's what the British named it back in colonial times), and it's drunk fresh that same day as a weak beer-like beverage (probably just a couple of percent ABV). If you wait until the next day, it has "gone off" and is considered undrinkable. (I'm guessing the residual sugars would be largely gone by then, and the wild yeast would have produced many earthy and sour flavours.) <br />
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Unfortunately I visited early in the morning, and the toddy was not yet ready for sampling. But it did look inviting.<br />
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This was next to the fermenting toddy - a homemade still! The toddy is largely used to make a wash that is distilled into palm liquor. The clay oven is again fired by palm branches. On top of that is a pot filled with toddy, that is heated and evaporated by the fire. The big "wok" of water on top is for cooling the toddy steam. Underneath the wok (inside the pot) is a funnel that collects the condensate where it drips off the bottom of the wok, and feeds it through the wall of the pot, through the spigot and into the bottle sitting on the ground. The result is a powerful schnapps-like liquor. Aside from being a libation, the alcohol is also used to create tinctures from native roots and plants, which after a few months of steeping are used as salves, arthritis pain relievers and other curatives.<br />
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A good lesson that, as good as beer is, you can ferment practically anything to create an interesting and helpful beverage.<br />
<br />Chadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10965042161895885863noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1988439539543243190.post-42252221455138345912013-04-04T04:49:00.003-07:002013-04-04T04:49:23.501-07:00Cambodia Cold OnesAh, southeast Asia. Where "beer" is synonymous with "whatever taste-free, industrially-produced malt beverage you happen to have in the freezer at the moment." It's hot here, damned hot, and sometimes you just need a drink of cold water. Or pop. Or macro light lager.<br />
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Unfortunately, you're going to have a tough time finding much else. The big guys run the show, and there's not much demand for other types of beer. Southeast Asians (Thais especially) don't enjoy extra-bitter beverages, and they have a sweet tooth; developing a light and refreshing but non-bitter and over-sweetened beer... well, seems a bit like chasing your tail. No wonder this is where vodka-and-Red Bull originated. <br />
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You can sometimes find overpriced Belgian beer at tourist restaurants, but do you really want an 11% quadrupel when it's 40 C and humidity is high? Given the long, hot shipping and storage conditions for foreign beer, I wouldn't recommend trying other styles either.<br />
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<h2>
Cambodian Beer Sampling</h2>
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I thought I should at least have a quick look around before packing it in and writing off the whole region, beer-wise. And to add an extra exotic twist, I'd do it in Phnom Penh, Cambodia!<br />
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Ooo, Angkor beer, named for the ancient empire centered in Cambodia (builders of the famed Angkor Wat temples and ancient cities). A suitably exotic brand name. Left to right we have the standard light lager, followed by an Angkor Extra Stout and an ABC Extra Stout. Both stouts are 8%.<br />
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Cool - the Angkor light lager ($0.60 US) greets you with an old school pull-off tab. The contents... well, pretty much the same as Singha, Tiger, Leo and Chang in Thailand, Beer Lao in Laos and Myanmar Beer in Myanmar. (If you have a choice, Leo is the lesser of evils.) Next.<br />
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Oh my, that's not a good sign, Angkor Extra Stout. A tacky-looking beer ring on the inside of the cap seal, which has bubbled and stretched itself apart from the cap. It looks almost like the beer was boiled inside the bottle! Maybe this one got stuck in the pasteurizer? It did provide an impossible-to-miss lesson on how oxidized dark beers taste. Like sherry and red wine, stale chocolate, old canned cherries, molasses, hints of black liquorice. Bleah.<br />
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However, the ABC Extra Stout... came through with flying colours! Tasted cold, it was actually a pleasant little brew, more like a fortified milk stout than a foreign extra stout. Slightly banana-y aroma, flavours of coffee, milk chocolate, subtle ripe banana, lots of residual sweetness and medium hop bitterness. Not something I'm going to take to the beach with me, but perfectly passable nonetheless.<br />
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<h2>
Munich Fresh Beer Microbrewery</h2>
<br />
Walking home from the waterfront one night, I spied a sign for the Munich Fresh Beer Microbrewery. In previous times, my heart would have skipped a beat in joyful anticipation. However, this year I had already experienced many places around the world that capitalize on tourist fads by providing the trappings of something desirable at a high price, while ludicrously under-delivering. (I'm looking at you, Turkish "brewpub".)<br />
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Despite the branding and messaging and faux-dirndl uniforms of the female wait staff and visible (though questionably operative) brewing equipment, this was really a very busy and popular family soup restaurant/private box karaoke venue. Despite the signage, beer was secondary.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">(Substandard) live music in the main indoor room</td></tr>
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The beer list: "gold" and "stout". Clearly not the correct German terms - what they meant was "light" and "dark".<br />
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The <b><u>Hoplog Global Golden Rule of Brewpub/Microbrewery/Unknown Small Beer Producer Drinking</u></b>:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>If such a brewer offers only two beers, and they are named "light" and "dark" or equivalent names, walk away and do not look back.</i></blockquote>
Sigh. I didn't obey my own rule. So as expected, here is the "Gold" beer I ordered:<br />
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Cloudy and yeasty and weirdly fruity and undrinkable - I was 100% certain this was the crap I would be served. Yet my faith in humanity prevailed and I took a chance. Sigh.<br />
<br />
<h2>
Kingdom Breweries</h2>
<br />
Not ready to give up yet, I did a spot of internet research, and it appeared there was an actual bottle-production craft brewery in Phnom Penh, just a few kilometres north of the downtown ferry jetty. No one answered the phone, and no business hours were available (other than in online reviews), so I blindly piled into a tuk-tuk and was dropped off at their last known address, at the time I figured their office would open (1:00 pm).<br />
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Success! Kingdom (as in the "Kingdom Of Cambodia") has some decent-sized financial backers, and therefore has pretty nice digs and (until recently) a European-trained brewer. There's even a view of the mighty Mekong River across the street from the tasting room.<br />
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The brewery is in a former Nestle factory, and is therefore massive. Plenty of room to expand, and the equipment is all shiny and new and decently large for such a small brewery.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cases of bottles behind the bottling machine</td></tr>
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The brewhouse has many tanks - hot liquor tank, cold liquor tank, mash tun, lauter tun, boil kettle, rice cooker (for the "Gold" which uses rice), etc. Lots of pushbutton control, too. Fancy!<br />
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So how was the beer, served in a frozen mug (traditional in these parts)? In a word... meh. All the beer except the Gold (aka typical light lager) is 100% malt, and the brewery has gotten some good press - but apparently all of it from teetotaler journalists. The Gold is passable, but is the same as every other beer in the region (possibly a bit sweeter). The pilsner, which I was really looking forward to, was... the lowlight. It tasted like a typically premature, unfinished "cloudy pilsner" sold by unskilled brewpubs in hot-climate countries, but run through a filter (for clarity) and a pasteurizer (for flavour stability). It tasted fruity and yeasty, and not in a particularly good way. Maybe local palettes like this better than I do, but I'm skeptical.<br />
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But there's hope - their "dark" beer is an inoffensive beer along the lines of a mild or a mass-market English brown. There's a bit of caramel malt in there, not too much bitterness, restrained sweetness, and most importantly no unbridled yeast problems. Served cold, it's fine. (Except that it costs twice as much as a light lager.)<br />
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The tour cost a few dollars, but our guide was very nice and answered our questions as best she could. (For instance, there is no refrigeration room for the conditioning tanks - or for the fermenters. According to our guide they use CO2 jackets for cooling these tanks, and the CO2 is purchased from the Coca-Cola factory down the road. This seems odd and expensive to me, and some of the beer tastes like it was fermented too warm, but what do I know?) <br />
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FYI, there's apparently a "pub night" every second Friday or so at the brewery, which online reviews indicate is a lot of fun.<br />
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<h2>
Verdict?</h2>
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Kudos to Kingdom for making a go of it in a difficult brewing environment. However, I've lost any hope that there could be a decent microbrewery in southeast Asia, so I'm going to stop investigating and just enjoy the last few weeks of my travel. Until I return to sweet Vancouver in late April - land of barley, hops and good brewers - I guess it's watery Leo beer for me.<br />
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NB - Ever wonder why some breweries pasteurize their beer? In this region, it's pretty much essential. The above shop is across the street from Kingdom Breweries. Those are boxes of beer stacked under the 2:00 pm Phnom Penh sun in the middle of hot season. Imagine what your west coast IPA would taste like after that kind of treatment? At least these beers don't have much flavour to begin with.</div>
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Chadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10965042161895885863noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1988439539543243190.post-29091849180861713062013-02-25T08:08:00.002-08:002013-02-25T08:09:12.425-08:00Coromandel Brewing Company, NZWhile at a cute cafe near Cooks Beach on New Zealand's Coromandel Peninsula, Mrs. Hoplog and I noticed they carried local beer from <a href="http://coromandelbrewingcompany.co.nz/">Coromandel Brewing Company</a>. A quick web search revealed the brewery was only about 20 minutes away, and having time on our hands we decided to swing by. We were itching to try some local beer, especially since Croucher Brewing's <a href="http://brewpub.co.nz/">Brew</a> in Rotorua had been closed when we visited a few days earlier. (Like many venues in Rotorua, they inexplicably don't open until dinner time.)<br />
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After taking the scenic route along a narrow single-lane dirt road cut into crumbling clay cliffs directly over the ocean, we arrived in the quiet community of Matarangi. <br />
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The address of the brewery led us to a cul-de-sac in a very residential neighbourhood. We weren't sure if we were in the right place until we saw a minivan printed with the Croucher name parked in the driveway of what was obviously someone's private home. No one appeared to be around except for a friendly dog greeter. So we erred on the side of caution and did not disturb the premises.<br />
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Driving out, we circled to the other side of the house and noticed a small shed attached to the home - perhaps a former carport. I couldn't resist a peek in the window, and sure enough it contained some lovely copper-clad brewing equipment.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Where the magic happens</td></tr>
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Later that day I found a phone and called up Coromandel, who confirmed my suspicions that they are not set up for visitors or tours. However, within the next year they plan to install a small tasting/growler filling room, and one should be able to drop by then. But give them a call to confirm first.<br />
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So for now, the only way to sample their beer is to buy it in a local restaurant or grocery store (their batch size is only 350 litres). Which is what I did. And it's what you should do, too.<br />
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Their beer is, in a word, fantastic. "Just Buzzin'" is a seasonal rye ale finished with New Zealand's famous manuka tree honey - not only can you taste the manuka honey, it dovetails nicely with the rest of the beer. "Good As Gold" is a solid Kiwi-style pilsener - think Bohemian pilsener but with fruity Kiwi hops. "Dizzy Blonde" is a seasonal, straight up Belgian pale ale, and my favourite of the lot. And "The Dark Side" is a Kiwi twist on a bock, also lovely.<br />
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That's four very different styles of beer, all of them top-notch, and all from a brewery that is essentially just starting out. Kiwi beer fans keep an eye on this little operation, they're going places - and they've given you another great reason to visit the Coromandel area.<br />
<br />Chadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10965042161895885863noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1988439539543243190.post-45140051425887472382013-02-23T20:27:00.002-08:002013-02-23T20:27:23.228-08:00"Shaker Pint" Glasses<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-hPS7GpfP5nE/USgu-Kr65LI/AAAAAAAAI14/rBfOeu2TswQ/s1600/shakerpintglass.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-hPS7GpfP5nE/USgu-Kr65LI/AAAAAAAAI14/rBfOeu2TswQ/s1600/shakerpintglass.jpeg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Standard 16 oz "shaker pint" glass</td></tr>
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In my recent <a href="http://hoplogblog.blogspot.ca/2013/02/wellington.html" target="_blank">Wellington post</a>, I complained about pubs serving good beer in "shaker pint" glasses. Dominic from <a href="http://www.hashigozake.co.nz/" target="_blank">Hashigo Zake</a> rightly pointed out that the ubiquitous 16 oz shaker pint is cheap and hardy, and that some have come to expect or even like their beer served in such a glass. He wrote:<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
It may not be perfect for capturing aromas but a lot of people actually like the unpretentious, rugged style which corresponds to what they're looking for in a beer. The thick glass means the beer should change temperature slowly and being stackable and tough they're ideal for a bar. Best of all they aren't pig-ugly like the Spiegelau IPA glass.</blockquote>
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No arguments about the ugly and unnecessary Spiegelau IPA glass from me. But why my beef with the shaker glass? I mean, you're probably drinking beer out of one right now. They're everywhere. Most of them sport brewery logos - and isn't that an implied endorsement by the brewery of the shape and quality of the glass, not just an inexpensive method of advertising? (Answer: no.)<br />
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Here's the thing: shaker pint glasses are not really glasses. They're a piece of bar equipment that does double duty as a glass. They were a cheap vessel to serve draught beer in - and something that bars already stocked - back when the only options for beer were Molson, Labatt or O'Keefe's (in Canada).<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-w_EJbB2nA2M/USgu9LMP29I/AAAAAAAAI1s/NaykWOFP8sM/s1600/shaker+usage-Escquire.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-w_EJbB2nA2M/USgu9LMP29I/AAAAAAAAI1s/NaykWOFP8sM/s1600/shaker+usage-Escquire.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Proper use of a shaker pint, according to Esquire. Do not shake when full of beer or other carbonated liquids!</td></tr>
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If you're serving icy Molson/Bud/Coors in a frozen glass, and you're not overly interested in tasting it, then go right ahead and use a shaker glass. As correctly pointed out by Dominic, the glass is thick so it will hold its temperature well, potentially slowing temperature changes in the beer it holds. If you serve a Coors Light in a frozen shaker glass, it will probably stay icy cold longer. However, if your shaker glass isn't stored at the same temperature as your beer, it's also going to be very effective at pulling your beer <i>away</i> from its ideal serving temperature. Ever had trouble tasting very much of your English bitter (and experienced foaming issues) because it's served in a frozen glass and is too cold? Even worse, ever had a server pull a hot shaker glass right out of the scalding dishwasher, give it an ineffective one-second rinse then pour your cold pilsener into the hot glass? Yuck.<br />
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Dominic also indicated that many people appreciate "the unpretentious, rugged style which corresponds to what they're looking for in a beer." Sadly this is probably true. Me, I'm trying to convince people to actually taste what they're drinking - and it's an uphill battle against billions of dollars in beer advertising over countless decades, all of which has been dedicated to getting you to associate beer with everything EXCEPT its taste. Multinational breweries say: "Drink this beer and you'll be popular, fun, attractive, rich, intelligent, patriotic, manly (or unintelligent and attractive to the manly); drinking beer won't involve simple ingestion, but will be an <i>experience</i> you'll associate with our <i>brand</i>; but please pay no attention to the man behind the curtain, namely <i>flavour</i>. In fact, you should probably just drink to get drunk or to win contests or to look cool with our bottle in your hand - please avoid any tasting by serving icy-cold and drinking straight from the bottle."<br />
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I certainly don't want beer drinking to become pretentious and suffer from elitism in the same way wine has. But I do think that if consumers are at all interested in tasting what they're drinking, they shouldn't be selecting glassware or beer based <i>solely</i> on style or fashion. (Such as the classics "hipster-and-PBR-from-a-can", or "football-fan-and-Bud-from-the-bottle".) Perhaps it's a question of education - the shaker glass is not doing beer any favours, so it would be good for beer generally if consumers stopped expecting or demanding it.<br />
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Beyond the issues with temperature control, the shaker glass of course doesn't really capture any aroma, which is a big part of tasting a beer. And quite honestly, though some might find the shaker pint rugged and unpretentious, I find it unattractive and utilitarian, especially when compared to all the great alternatives that are available. (Just google "beer glassware".) It works, but to me it's the equivalent of a paper plate for your beer. It might be tough and manly, but it's more appropriate for Burger King than a rib eye steak.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-HV4XDTGzMNI/USjKwxR37SI/AAAAAAAAI3I/K-jWiBvMjYI/s1600/burger+paper+plate+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-HV4XDTGzMNI/USjKwxR37SI/AAAAAAAAI3I/K-jWiBvMjYI/s320/burger+paper+plate+1.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The food equivalent of Bud Light in a shaker glass</td></tr>
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Another huge issue with the shaker glass is expected serving size vs. proper pours, something I talked about in my <a href="http://hoplogblog.blogspot.ca/2013/02/a-case-for-marking-glassware.html">last post</a>. Many expect 16 oz of beer when they order a "sleeve" (i.e. a shaker glass in BC lingo), but to do that you have to fill the glass to the rim with zero head, resulting in less aroma capture, poorer appearance, wasteful spillage and an awkward first couple of sips. If you pour with the proper amount of head, then even if you announce the (sub-16 oz) volume of your pours, those people habituated to the shaker glass will still feel under-served. It's a lose-lose situation, though marking the fill level of the glassware would help.<br />
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In Canada I haven't seen any size of shaker glass except the standard 16 oz version. Getting away from this standard shaker also provides the opportunity to employ different and potentially more appropriate sizes of glass depending on the beer being served.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-1hueV3rV3UE/USgu89eOYqI/AAAAAAAAI1k/BHFvpKpgmBo/s1600/nonicsmall.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-1hueV3rV3UE/USgu89eOYqI/AAAAAAAAI1k/BHFvpKpgmBo/s320/nonicsmall.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">One of the many alternatives to the "shaker pint": classic "nonic" glasses designed for British session ales. The 24 oz size would leave you with 4 ounces of head even on a 20 ounce imperial pint. Thin glass, stackable, the bulge provides chip resistance and easier grip for sweating glasses, and they're attractive. A step up from the shaker glass</td></tr>
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There are plenty of glassware articles on the web if my past couple of posts haven't exhausted you already - even the <a href="http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2011-12-11/features/sc-food-1209-drink-beer-glasses-20111211_1_glasses-pint-spiegelau" target="_blank">mainstream media</a> occasionally takes notice. My opinion is: don't obsess over glassware - going the Belgian route and demanding a specific, unique glass for each beer is clearly overkill (though it does guarantee you get an appropriately-shaped vessel). A couple of different glasses, loosely appropriate for the styles of beer served, is a reasonable expectation of any pub. But I think drinking flavourful beer in shaker glasses is a recipe for a non-optimal drinking experience, for beer being either under-poured or improperly poured, and ultimately for perpetrating beer's image as icy, pale, tasteless, and not deserving of the same respect as other beverages. It's not the end of the world to drink a beer from a shaker glass, but it's very easy to do much better.<br />
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<h2>
Home Glassware</h2>
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While a bit delicate to be stocked at a rough-and-tumble sports bar, my favourite all-around beer glass, the one that I use for all my beer drinking at home, is Spiegelau's stemmed pilsener glass. It's a great glass for nearly any beer you might encounter, is made of lovely thin crystal, and has a surprisingly large volume (a standard 330 mL bottle barely fills it to two-thirds) providing plenty of room for a tall head and aroma capture - or for more beer.<br />
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But if you know and love your shaker glass, by all means stick with it. There's no one way to drink a beer!<br />
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Chadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10965042161895885863noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1988439539543243190.post-2422691465483336742013-02-23T20:17:00.000-08:002013-02-23T20:17:02.878-08:00A Case For Marking Glassware<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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As many of you might already know, many bars in Vancouver (and other areas of Canada too) advertised their beers as "pints" when in fact they were not. The standard "shaker pint" glass, so often used to serve beer (much to my disappointment - more on that later) is 16 oz when filled to the brim. So pubs sometimes made the mistake of advertising "pints" of beer when in fact they meant a 16 oz glass (commonly known in Vancouver as a "sleeve"). A pint in Canada is 20 oz.<br />
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Pubs in Canada have to serve the volume they advertise; and because we don't have standardized drink sizes like the UK does, pubs also have to post (somewhere in the pub) the volume of every size of drink they sell (so you know how much beer you're paying for). Many pubs failed to abide by these rules, though <a href="http://camravancouver.ca/" target="_blank">CAMRA Vancouver</a> has had some recent success with their <a href="http://camravancouver.ca/advocacy/fuss/">F.U.S.S.</a> (Fess Up to Serving Sizes) campaign, and as a result many more bars are now posting their drink volumes as required.<br />
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So it's great that your expected drink volume is now probably posted somewhere in the pub. But then you order a beer, say a "medium sized" beer of 14.5 oz, and your server presents you with a glass of beer. You look at it a minute, then realize hey, I have no idea if this is really 14.5 oz or not, and I left my measuring cup at home. It might be a 14.5 oz or larger glass, as might or might not be etched on its base. But the beer was poured properly - with an attractive one inch of head - so you really don't know if the volume that ended up in the glass is 14.5 oz. Plus, there's probably some variation depending who is doing the pouring, and the second glass might not contain the same volume as the first.<br />
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<tr><td><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-zo3yePh8kQw/USgu9Ik5KaI/AAAAAAAAI1o/iOFfN20EjgU/s1600/Cheater+Pint-hoosierbeergeek.blogspot.com.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-zo3yePh8kQw/USgu9Ik5KaI/AAAAAAAAI1o/iOFfN20EjgU/s320/Cheater+Pint-hoosierbeergeek.blogspot.com.jpg" width="222" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px;">Interesting example from <a href="http://hoosierbeergeek.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Hoosier Beer Geek</a> of something approaching fraud</td></tr>
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Now let's look at it from the pub's point of view. Let's say the pub serves beer in sleeves (16 oz shaker glasses) as is so common. The pub can fill this glass one of two ways:<br />
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1) <u>Right to the brim.</u> This gives 16 oz of beer, which is often the amount expected by customers who are used to this common size and shape of glass. But it doesn't leave space for head of any sort, compromising the aroma and attractiveness of the beer. The bar will have to pour very carefully to eliminate this head, and will probably waste some beer spilling or shaving the head in order to squeeze the full volume into the glass, cutting into profits. (This isn't a problem for beers that were originally served in shaker glasses - Molson, Labatt, Bud, etc. all have practically zero head, and not much aroma. Some English bitters and a few other beer styles also have minimal heads.) A decent craft beer won't look or smell as good as it could in this situation. </blockquote>
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2) <u>Pour 1 inch of head on top of the beer.</u> The beer will look and smell good, but it will only be about 14.5 oz. This is no longer a 16 oz sleeve of beer as your average consumer understands it. The pub could post its glass volume as being 14.5 oz, but many consumers will say, "why isn't my glass full?" since they are used to getting a full, headless pour in that glass elsewhere. Plus they are only looking at the sandwich board outside that's advertising the beer specials, and probably won't hunt for the posted glass volumes. Also, most customers won't break out a calculator to know how the price of that 14.5 oz compares to 16 oz elsewhere, they will just know they're getting less beer here than at other pubs that do a brimming (improper) pour into that same glass.</blockquote>
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Pubs could use a more interesting, better looking and better-performing vessel than the shaker glass, which avoids the Catch-22 of customer-expected pour volume vs. proper pouring technique. But the customer and the pub still can't really determine what volume is actually being poured. What's to be done? <br />
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I think the ultimate solution is to use glassware that provides some head space and that is <i>marked with the fill volume </i>- which is hopefully a nice, round number like a pint or a half litre, etc.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ZkrlXRldKko/USjUMaH0o0I/AAAAAAAAI4Q/0EEIER4a4PE/s1600/Weizenbier+marked+glass.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ZkrlXRldKko/USjUMaH0o0I/AAAAAAAAI4Q/0EEIER4a4PE/s320/Weizenbier+marked+glass.jpg" width="161" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Such a simple thing, that little line near the top</td></tr>
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Marking beer glassware is either the law or expected practice nearly everywhere in Europe. The <a href="http://metricviews.org.uk/2007/11/would-lined-beer-glasses-solve-the-pint-problem/">United Kingdom</a> has had similar serving size frustrations but is still well ahead of Canada and the US. Marking glassware is subtle, effective, and results in full pours without overfills, no wasted beer, good presentation, and no customer disputes. The only possible argument against marking glassware is that it would "cost too much" for pubs to purchase it. I don't buy that argument. It doesn't cost too much for the Europeans, and if your glassware supplier is gouging you for having a couple of marks placed on your glassware, it's time to find another supplier - maybe one that also supplies European pubs.<br />
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So how about it, Vancouver - and BC - and Canada? Do you consumers want to know you're being served the amount of beer you paid for, without suffering a brimming, headless pour? Do you pubs want to reduce beer waste, present beer properly and avoid attracting customer dissatisfaction? Then let's put some little lines on our beer glasses.<br />
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And please, we're a metric nation, so put the markings on a 100 mL interval. Then we'll have at least a modicum of volume standardization.<br />
<br />Chadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10965042161895885863noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1988439539543243190.post-23322397569537912202013-02-13T11:55:00.001-08:002013-02-13T11:55:12.950-08:00WellingtonIf Nelson is the center of craft beer production in New Zealand, Wellington is probably the center of craft beer consumption. There are some big similarities to Vancouver - including many hipsters, and enthusiastic coffee and craft beer consumers.<br />
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This cafe and craft beer culture is deserved and long-earned. The Wellington Museum of City and Sea even displays an antique beer-drinking manual from the area...<br />
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Teetotallers nearly instituted prohibition in New Zealand - 47% voted in favour at one point in the past. And for years pubs had to close at 6pm. Which meant that working men who all got off work at 5pm had less than one hour to do their night's worth of drinking, with the obvious result of massive binge drinking. It was a happy day when pub hours were extended.<br />
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Fortunately, Wellington now has more lenient liquor laws and some great craft beer drinking opportunities.<br />
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<h2>
Hashigo Zake</h2>
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If you want to drink craft beer in Wellington, this is the place to come, period. A cool subterranean bar unabashedly dedicated to craft beer. The focus is on New Zealand beers, but with a good dose of various international beers, particularly in bottles.<br />
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The bright red off-street entrance announces the Asian look-and-feel.<br />
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The staff was helpful and knowledgeable, and able to provide clear suggestions and descriptions without dumbing down the information provided. Bravo. I immediately felt comfortable and informed.<br />
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Asian decor abounds. And a video monitor of tap offerings is a nice splash of high-tech.<br />
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Mike's Taranaki Hefeweizen beside Townshend Aotearoa Pale Ale. Purchasing a half-pint gets you a decent-shaped goblet, but many full pints get a more utilitarian shaker-type glass, like most venues in New Zealand. Sigh.<br />
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This is a chill venue to contemplate a complex craft beer solo, or to engage in animated discussions with several good friends. Make it your first stop - you'll probably want to return for more before you leave town.<br />
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<h2>
Malthouse</h2>
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The Malthouse is only a couple of years old, and is situated on a high pedestrian traffic area of downtown. As such, it has more of an after-work pop-in-to-the-local-for-a-pint feel than Hashigo Zake's more loungey, sophisticated vibe. Though its prices are just as high - if not higher - than Hashigo Zake.<br />
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Unfortunately, there's a smoker-friendly porch area right in front of the pub, whose doors are always open in summertime. So hopefully you enjoy smelling/tasting cigarette smoke in your beer, or the great-looking pizzas Malthouse serves.<br />
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The Malthouse has some great beer on tap, and a nice bottle selection. But it's a bit too busy after work to get more than a few words of advice on what to drink from the heavily occupied bartenders. <br />
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A brief break in the crowd at the bar - time to order some beer, quick!<br />
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Oh, and the crowd is back. Nice problem to have at a pub!<br />
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Full glasses are served in the ubiquitous and terrible shaker pint glass. Half glasses are served in... half-size versions of the shaker pint! Double sigh. Please, craft beer bars, serve your beer in <i>any other type of glass</i>, so we have a hope of smelling/tasting it. A different glass would also leave some room for head to improve the drinking experience, instead of brimming under-sized glasses like this.<br />
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I don't want to be too down on the Malthouse - their beer selection is great. But they need a couple of tweaks before they can compete with Hashigo Zake for pure beer drinking pleasure.<br />
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<h2>
Tap Haus</h2>
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I didn't have a chance to sample anything at the Tap Haus, a beer restaurant that loudly proclaims its pedigree. But the specials on the sandwich board didn't look promising: Corona, Carlsberg and vodka + Red Bull. Not disappointed to give them a pass.<br />
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<h2>
Garage Project</h2>
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What's with this abandoned gas station?<br />
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Sweet - it's the small-volume and highly-respected <a href="http://garageproject.co.nz/" target="_blank">Garage Project</a> brewery. Not quite so small as when they started out with only a little Sabco-style pilot system, but still pretty boutique.<br />
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Some new & bigger brewing equipment, and some barrels - nice.<br />
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Garage Project is not presently set up for tours or tastings. But the gang was hard at work both brewing and putting together their tasting and growler-filling room, which was still about 2-3 weeks from completion. They were nice enough to say a friendly hello to a Canadian home brewer, and sold me a T-shirt featuring the logo of their wicked Double Day Of The Dead beer I had sampled previously. <br />
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Definitely one of the coolest beer T-shirts I've come across. Be sure to watch out for these guys - they started out nano-style, have garnered great respect in New Zealand, and can never keep up with demand.<br />
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<h2>
Fork & Brewer</h2>
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Fork and Brewer bills itself as a craft beer and food pairing restaurant. Its menu offers beer pairing suggestions (not uncommon at pubs these days), and beer is used as an ingredient in many dishes.<br />
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The view at the top of the entrance stairway is of working brewing vessels - not just for show. Fork & Brewer makes several styles of its own beer, in addition to offering many others on tap. And the brewer is often around if you have questions or want to thank him - he's hard to miss in his big hair and beard and old school metal T-shirt.<br />
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These are both half-glasses of beer. Inexplicably, one is served in a terrible half-size shaker pint, and the other comes in a huge and decent goblet. Odd.<br />
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I have to admit, I was skeptical of Fork & Brewer - the interior said "mostly-empty high-volume bar" rather than restaurant, and I was starting to think they might be all talk and no action. But their beer was fine if not mind-blowing. The Thai beef salad was very good, and the pairing with their pilsener - definitely not a memorable beer on its own - was stellar! So no cause for complaint here, my meal and the beer pairing were both very good.<br />
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The big barrel-esque tap tree at the bar has 40 taps, but many are duplicates of the Fork's in-house beers.<br />
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There's a skinny porch off to one side where you can catch some rays - but unfortunately it's also where the smokers flock, so goodbye tasting your meal or your beer if you're out there.<br />
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Wellington lived up to its craft beer and cafe culture billing, in addition to being a funky, oddly Vancouver-esque stop. Big thumbs up.<br />
<br />Chadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10965042161895885863noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1988439539543243190.post-87119540217949234772013-02-12T19:07:00.001-08:002013-02-12T19:07:26.217-08:00AucklandI didn't do any beer exploration in Auckland. However, while walking around the downtown core one day, I stumbled across this beautiful old post office...<br />
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...which is now a <a href="http://www.theponsonby.co.nz/" target="_blank">Belgian Beer Cafe</a> (a New Zealand chain of pubs). Belgian beer is anything but cheap in NZ, so at first I was skeptical. (Though the New World supermarket chain has been blowing out 750 mL bottles of La Trappe Tripel, Dubbel and Quadrupel for $7.00-$8.50 NZD, which is an amazing deal.)<br />
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But then I saw it was 1/2 price mussel day - and I still hadn't had any of New Zealand's famous green-lipped mussels. Well, twist my arm. The mussels were big and flavourful without being fishy, and served with bacon and shallots in a witbier cream sauce. Nice.<br />
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The cafe was having trouble replenishing its stock after the Christmas vacation rush (understandable, given that Belgium is on the other side of the globe), and several beers were unavailable. So I went with a Kwak - not a particularly good pairing with mussels, but a comforting warmer for a cloudy day.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mrs. Hoplog-approved</td></tr>
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Not bad surroundings at all.</div>
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People in BC, be happy that you've recently been able to get some Westvleteren 12 for what some would consider reasonable prices. Check out how much 330 mL (minus sediment) costs at the Belgian Beer Cafe:</div>
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That's about $86 CDN at present exchange rates. Gulp.</div>
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Chadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10965042161895885863noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1988439539543243190.post-334343401838884102013-02-07T00:56:00.005-08:002013-02-07T00:57:11.783-08:00More Christchurch Goodness<br />
Before flying to New Zealand's North Island, we had another 1/2 day to spent in Christchurch. Which was fine by us, since it involved staying with the ever-helpful Matt S and his wife Kate, and drinking Kiwi beer. Thanks, Matt and Kate!<br />
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We visited The Twisted Hop for a happy hour beer - great IPA there, among other choices. One of my favourite NZ breweries.<br />
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Then we stopped by Harringtons for "flagon" fills - there is a filling station adjacent to most of their bars. NZ doesn't usually do glass growler fills, instead they fill plastic PET (pop) bottles in the 1L-2L size range. <br />
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Lots of selection at Harringtons!<br />
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Then it was off to Matt and Kate's place for dinner and some beer in the warm February evening sun.<br />
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We assembled a lovely selection of Kiwi beers for the night, and Matt even dug into his cellar for some special bottles, which which I very much appreciated.<br />
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One special bottle was a collaboration beer led by Epic Brewing and made in conjunction with... well... practically every brewery in New Zealand. Very tasty, and very, very Kiwi!<br />
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The possibly most interesting beer was also the last - a really wonderful barleywine intimately connected with the Christchurch quakes. The Twisted Hop (where we had beer earlier that day) had a brewery in Christchurch's Central Business District. They did some seismic upgrades, so their brewery was well-equipped to survive an earthquake. When the second (big) earthquake hit, they had a barleywine in the fermenter, bubbling away. Their brewery survived the quake, but the brewery itself was in a region so ravaged that it was designated a "red zone" that no one was allowed to enter (since a building might fall on you at any moment). So Twisted Hop had to stand by while their brewery stood idle for 6 months - with a barley wine sitting untouched in a fermenter. Once they were allowed back to the brewery, Twisted Hop bottled the extra-conditioned barley wine and sold it under the name "Red Zone," for obvious reasons.<br />
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And Matt shared one of these rare bottles with me. I really can't thank him enough. An amazing story, and an amazing beer. It was wonderful.<br />
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<br />Chadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10965042161895885863noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1988439539543243190.post-37932316724689871742013-02-07T00:39:00.003-08:002013-02-07T00:39:28.709-08:00Rebuilding Lyttelton, NZA quick example of the direction many cafes/pubs are headed in the earthquake-ravaged Christchurch, NZ area. <br />
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Lyttelton was hit particularly hard by the quakes - it's a lovely little town situated in a bowl that slopes down to the sea. The destabilization of these steep slopes resulted in much destruction, as well as many areas that are now simply too unstable to venture on to.<br />
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Enter The Porthole, a really well-designed shipping container cafe and pub.<br />
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Here is what used to sit on The Porthole's location, prior to the earthquakes - a couple of neighbourhood institutions.<br />
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But now there are three heavily-modified shipping containers plus a roof and a patio, together with a lot of light, air and coziness.<br />
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Cheers to Lyttelton and Christchurch, and best of luck with the reconstruction. If The Porthole is any indication, the earthquake disaster has a <i>huge</i> silver lining.<br />
<br />Chadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10965042161895885863noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1988439539543243190.post-72503777719292253912013-02-07T00:27:00.003-08:002013-02-07T00:27:18.996-08:00Queenstown - move along, move along......no interesting beer adventures here.<br />
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New Zealand's self-proclaimed adventure capital is picturesque enough, especially if you like packed streets, dense motels and highly organized paid recreation activities. But forget about finding great beer.<br />
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<li>The best craft beer bar in town recently closed down.</li>
<li>The big pub is a Monteith's house (like Granville Island's regular offerings - owned by DB).</li>
<li>The other pub of note is an Emerson's house (a step up from Monteiths, but recently purchased by Lion), and the servers (ours was from Toronto) were of standard ski hill quality - worse than useless.</li>
<li>The homebrew shop in town is poorly stocked and is entirely focused on allowing teenage ski lifties to get drunk for cheap.</li>
<li>The brewery and tasting room in nearby Arrowtown have also closed down.</li>
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'Nuff said.<br />
<br />Chadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10965042161895885863noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1988439539543243190.post-76742827268219748052013-02-07T00:26:00.000-08:002013-02-07T01:17:08.559-08:00West Coast, South Island, NZ<h2>
Mussel Inn - Onekaka, NZ</h2>
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From Riwaka, NZ, one can take an incredibly twisty road up and over a mountain and into the Golden Bay area. It feels a little - no, make that a LOT - like the Shuswap area of BC. Farms, mountains, water, earthy hippie-types everywhere. And when you get to Onekaka, you will find the famous Mussel Inn<br />
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If a place ever belonged in the Shuswap, this is it. An overgrown, weathered-wood beer garden, peppered with slightly cranky hippie locals, a staff band that might or might not be playing that night... all good stuff.<br />
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And of course, there's the Inn's own beer and cider. The fresh version of their Captain Cooker manuka beer was bracing and herbal (a version of which Captain Cook was said to have brewed in order to ward off scurvy, much like spruce tip beer). Though to be perfectly honest, I wasn't blown away by their other beers. (Crannog Brewing - actually located in the Shuswap - is in no danger of losing its crown.) But it was still a cool place to visit.<br />
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If you forget your mobile phone at the Mussel Inn, go back for it in a BIG hurry. If you don't, and if the phone remains there for more than a few hours, they will nail it to a tree - right through the screen. You've been warned.<br />
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West Coast Brewing - Westport, NZ</h2>
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As seen in a Westport, NZ homebrew shop window. Home distilling is clearly legal in NZ.<br />
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Right behind the far-too-grand art deco municipal hall in Westport is West Coast Brewing.<br />
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Unfortunately, due to some kind of licensing snafu, it's not open to the public. At all. Very unfortunate.<br />
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But fortunately, only a couple off blocks down the main street is Portabello, a restaurant run by Buck, a fellow from Oregon, and his Kiwi wife. They have the complete lineup of West Coast beers, and they also have an extremely good-value steak special for dinner. Go there and have the IPA, which is excellent. <br />
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<h2>
The Hard Antler - Haast, NZ</h2>
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Haast, NZ is tiny. There's only one pub in town. It's a Monteith's house (only serves Monteith's and other DB beers). But you've gotta love the local colour.<br />
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Antler tap handles.<br />
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And antlers everywhere!</div>
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Huge, original-growth native wood plank tables, too heavy for one person to move.<br />
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A particularly good specimen.<br />
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Local hunting heroes adorn both the pub stools in person, and the walls in photos.</div>
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<h2>
Wanaka, NZ</h2>
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Wanaka = the Okanagan with better mountains and far fewer people. It's a fantastic place to unwind for a few days. Its also home to a cool little <a href="http://www.pembrokewines.co.nz/" target="_blank">bottle shop</a> just a couple of blocks from the beach that has some interesting beer, and lets you drink it in-house.<br />
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Dr. Hops World Pale Ale is a really great, small-batch, contract-brewed pale ale made with around 7 hop varieties. Well worth a sample.<br />
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Pot - Kettle - Black is one of Mrs. Hoplog's favourite sayings, so naturally we had to try it as well.<br />
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Just a few kilometres from downtown Wanaka is the kitschy transport and toy museum.</div>
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Beside the museum, once you get past the fierce and intimidating guard dog, you arrive at...<br />
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Wanaka Beer Works - the local Wanaka brewery.<br />
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The brewing room has a window onto the museum's gift shop next door. The brewery is operated by a local couple - the Belgian husband works his butt off doing all the brewing and packaging work, while his very pregnant Kiwi wife conducts tours and pours beer while trying to corral her precocious three-year-old girl at the same time. A very, very busy family!<br />
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The tour included three beer samples. I enjoyed their standard NZ pilsener, and found their seasonals pretty interesting if not exactly quaffable - they featured ingredients such as sage, nettles, edelweiss flowers, etc. In general I didn't feel the brewery had any kind of theme to their beers, which were all pretty off-the-wall; which I suppose increases anticipation for each new beer release.<br />
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The tasting room wall included a list of all New Zealand breweries. New Zealand's population is only slightly bigger than BC's, and it appears to have a similar number of breweries (in the neighbourhood of 50).<br />
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Chadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10965042161895885863noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1988439539543243190.post-69420086319756948302013-02-06T23:27:00.001-08:002013-02-06T23:27:30.412-08:00Motueka and Mapua, NZJust down the road from Nelson, NZ is Motueka - yes, another town that shares a name with a type of Kiwi hops. Just like the adjacent town Riwaka. I was clearly in proper beer country.<br />
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Golden Bear Brewing - Mapua, NZ</h2>
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In the seaside hamlet of Mapua is the highly-recommended Golden Bear Brewery. (Or as Kiwis seem to pronounce it, the "Golden Beer Brewery". Either way works for me!) There is nothing to Mapua other than a tiny stretch of wharfside shops anchored by Golden Bear. But it's absolutely worth a visit.<br />
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We arrived around 7pm to a surprisingly large crowd and a Radiohead-like hipster band playing in front of the brewery. Sweet.<br />
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A bar graces the front of the shiny clean brewing space. It was packed, and the beer was great.<br />
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A pallet of fresh wort packs was prominently displayed near the entrance - Kiwi home brewers take note! You too can brew Golden Bear beers.<br />
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A view from the tables. What's that grey building across the parking lot?<br />
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Oh yeah, The Smokehouse. Incredible fish'n'chips, served Kiwi style - the whole order rolled up in a giant piece of blank newsprint. Very highly recommended.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">You can also pick up some smoked Kingfish to go...</td></tr>
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People were hanging out, conversing, dancing, and having great social fun in this, the focal point of the tiny berg. We even met a lovely couple from the Riwaka area who invited us to stay at their place and have dinner with them, etc. etc. Rural New Zealand really is full of wonderful people. After the band packed up at around 9pm, everyone disappeared instantly and the bar began closing up - so if you visit, come early.<br />
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<h2>
Moutere Inn</h2>
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This is apparently the oldest operating pub in New Zealand - though I believe there's some kind of dispute about this with a place near Wellington. But these guys have a fancy sign, so it must be true.<br />
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Unfortunately, we arrived before the place opened, so had to content ourselves with exterior photos.<br />
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Oh God - we're at the junction of two different types of hops! (Nelson Sauvin and Motueka).<br />
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<h2>
Monkey Wizard Brewing - Riwaka, NZ</h2>
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In tiny Riwaka (a little farming village), in the former premises of a butchery, is Monkey Wizard Brewery. It's a small husband-and-wife operation, but is well-patronized by locals. You can get samples at the growler-/flagon-filling storefront. The Riwaka couple we were staying with graciously bought a couple of flagons to go with dinner.<br />
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I tried a few samples, including their super-exclusive Steampunk Strong Ale, which is brewed using ambergris. Yes, you read that correctly, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambergris" target="_blank">ambergris</a>. Definitely a first for me.<br />
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While this is a cool way to make your beer sound special, but I'm not sure it did much for me. First of all, there's no way they could add very much ambergris to each batch, because it's so expensive the price of the beer would quickly become astronomical. (Ambergris is on the order of $20/gram.) Second, I'm not sure what ambergris tastes like, so I don't know what to look for - I might have detected something vaguely salty in the beer, but that's about it. And third, Monkey Wizard served all of its tasters in frozen glasses, so I couldn't taste much in the samples anyway. But still, a cool idea.<br />
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Monkey Wizard is apparently for sale. If you're looking for a comfortable rural NZ brewing existence, give them a ring.<br />
<br />Chadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10965042161895885863noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1988439539543243190.post-61956203987062793152013-02-06T22:49:00.001-08:002013-02-06T23:28:13.051-08:00Nelson, NZNelson, on the northern coast of New Zealand's South Island, is the epicenter of New Zealand brewing and hop growing. (If you've heard of Nelson Sauvin hops from NZ, well, the town <i>is</i> called Nelson...)<br />
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Nelson is a smallish, laid-back seaside town with an amazing coffee and beer culture for its size. There are <i>chains </i>of pubs that exist mostly in the Nelson region. There's even a <a href="http://www.craftbrewingcapital.co.nz/" target="_blank">Nelson Craft Beer Trail</a>, though it's perhaps not quite as easy to navigate as the <a href="http://www.visitbend.com/Bend_Oregon_Activities_Recreation/Bend-Ale-Trail/" target="_blank">Bend Ale Trail</a> we did last year. (But then again, what is?)<br />
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<h2>
The Free House</h2>
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Probably Nelson's premiere craft beer establishment, The Free House is located in an old wooden church set back from the street in a grassy beer garden.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Hallelujah, my craft beer drinking brothers and sisters!</td></tr>
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The place was packed with locals on a sunny early evening. Though we ended up chatting with a couple from Ireland. A nice neighbourhood vibe. There isn't a kitchen, but you can bring food in - Indian from across the street seemed popular, and smelled amazing.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Is that a holy halo surrounding my glass of Twisted Hop Hopback IPA?</td></tr>
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A great selection of beer from around New Zealand, served through Crayola-coloured tap towers.<br />
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After a couple of pints, the upright piano in the corner seemed to be calling my name (and others were playing it from time to time, too), so I managed to bang out a couple of tunes while my coordination was still as good as "mediocre".<br />
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If you have trouble finding The Free House, it might be because it's behind a yurt where they often host music shows (cover charge applies). In sum, when in Nelson, The Free House should be your first (and possibly second) stop.<br />
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<h2>
McCashin's Stoke Brewery</h2>
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McCashin's has a bit of history. It originally started as a cidery many decades ago, as this region was (and to a degree still is) a big fruit-growing area. In 1981, Mac's opened and became the first non-national-brand brewery in New Zealand (there were only two other breweries at that point - Nelson alone now has about eleven breweries). It did well enough that in 1999 it was purchased by Lion Nathan, one of New Zealand's two national-brand macro brewers that have traditionally dominated the beer scene in NZ. <br />
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[Lion Nathan is owned by Kirin of Japan (and consequently, by Mitsubishi). The other national beer brand is DB, owned by Asia Pacific Breweries (of Tiger Beer fame), which is mostly owned by Heineken. These (inter)national companies also own many of NZ's liquor retail stores. I note that DB successfully registered a trademark for the word "Radler" over many protests - which is tragic and nonsensical, given that the "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radler" target="_blank">radler</a>" is a well-known German beer-based drink.]<br />
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Anyway, the McCashin sale involved a 10 year non-competition clause under which the original owners agreed not to brew any of their own beer. However, Lion Nathan only bought the brand, not the brewery, and the McCashin owners continued to brew as before but under contract to Lion Nathan. Lion finally moved production elsewhere, and shortly thereafter the non-competition covenant expired, and McCashin's immediately launched their new "Stoke" brand of beer.<br />
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The Stoke brewery has a very cozy cafe attached, which also served great coffee. For $10 you get a brewery tour, as well as an opportunity to sample Stoke's entire lineup of beer and other beverages in very small taster glasses. This is fantastic - normally one is relegated to selecting only 3-4 beers to try. This was everything, including their great ginger beer, lemon-lime and bitters, fruity alco-pops, the works.<br />
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The cute little pilot brewery, for developing new beers. Aww.<br />
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Beer is one of the few things where <i>nursery</i> and <i>hazardous chemicals</i> naturally go together.<br />
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A continuous flowing water jacket runs down the exterior of the big tanks on the left - these are cider tanks, and that's how they have always kept them cool (through evaporation).<br />
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One of the former big concrete cider fermentation "rooms" dating back to the 1930s - which were coated in beeswax to seal them up effectively. Apparently, decades ago, about double the usual amount of sugar was accidentally added to one of these rooms full of cider. It couldn't be sold as it would have been a fumy, alcoholic mess. But the accountants said, heck no you're not throwing out all of this valuable apple juice! And so that cider has sat, sealed up in its tank - for over 60 years! McCashin's is going to start pulling a bit out each year and bottling it in limited runs - it has apparently achieved a somewhat brandy-like character.<br />
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No, I did not get a taste. :-(<br />
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I'd recommend The Free House and McCashin's if you have limited time in Nelson. If you can linger, pick up the Nelson Craft Beer Trail map and continue the festivities.<br />
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Chadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10965042161895885863noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1988439539543243190.post-32928586855037669112013-02-05T22:41:00.000-08:002013-02-05T22:41:01.537-08:00Marlborough, NZMarlborough - home of New Zealand's famous Sauvignon Blancs, among other wines. And like most of New Zealand, it's not without some good craftbeer, too.<br />
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Of course Mrs. Hoplog and I stopped by a couple of small, well-known craft breweries in the region.<br />
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<h2>
Dodson Street Bistro/Renaissance Brewing/8Wired</h2>
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Across the street from our campervan park in Blenheim, NZ was the Dodson Street Bistro and Beer Garden. It's also the home to Renaissance Brewing, whose beers may be found throughout NZ. And 8Wired Brewing (available in Vancouver, BC) has the same address as well.<br />
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German specialties, cakes, craft beer AND a beer garden? Sold.<br />
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The Renaissance brewery wasn't open for tours at the hour we visited, but you could see it through a window in the pub area.<br />
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And a charming little sunken pub it was, with a bit of German flavour. The servers were eager to please, if not entirely knowledgeable about the beer they were pouring.<br />
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We were able to sit in the beer garden for about 5 minutes before the rain started up and forced us inside, but on a sunny day with a bunch of other beer drinkers it would be gangbusters.<br />
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Brewery roof visible over the garden entrance to the pub.<br />
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The Bistro side also peeks onto the beer garden.<br />
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A sampler of mostly "usual" Renaissance beers.<br />
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For those still sober enough, you can even engage in chess in the beer garden, regardless of weather.<br />
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Renaissance/Dodson is worth a visit if you're in the region. And they're clearly proud of what they have to offer.<br />
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<h2>
Moa Brewing</h2>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The view from Moa's beer garden. Grapes.</td></tr>
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In the middle of the Marlborough vineyards is the Allan Scott winery, as lovely a place to sample some wine and have a bite to eat as any in the region. (Recommended.) The Moa Brewery was started up and run by the Scott's son, and is located across the street from the Allan Scott tasting room.<br />
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They're clearly not afraid to be cheeky about their position, infiltrating a prime winemaking region.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Often a sign of good things...</td></tr>
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The Moa is a recently-extinct native New Zealand bird - a large, flightless grazer that was quickly knocked off after the Maori first arrived from other parts of Polynesia. A Kiwi icon.<br />
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This is one of the reasons why so many breweries have a hard time gaining the reputation of wineries - they are usually located (because of cost) in the light industrial sectors of cities, and not in bucolic wine country like most wineries. Moa does not suffer from this problem, having their brewery and beer garden in the middle of vast vineyards.<br />
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The tasting room was being refurbished, but Moa was still pouring samples & answering questions.<br />
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Tours weren't available, but you could look at the operation through a window in the tasting room. Or just walk around back to where the brewery is located - about half of it spills out of the main building, with no roof or walls, just tanks and pipes. Cool.<br />
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The highlight on the day we visited was Moa's limited-run double IPA. An excellent beer, one of the best of the style I've tasted. Ah, hop heaven.<br />
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Allan Scott Winery supplies wine to New Zealand's permanent Antarctic base, "Scott Base." Moa had planned to send their "Dark" beer to Scott Base too, packaged in plastic PET bottles (no glass containers are allowed on the base). Something didn't work out with the shipment - it might have been delayed or rejected or who knows what. At any rate, Moa had a wall of cases of Antarctic-destined beer that they were blowing out at fire-sale prices. (To be fair, it tasted like something had gone a bit off in the bottling and/or subsequent storage process, losing hop character and gaining some sourness and slight oxidative characteristics compared with the retail glass-bottled version.) Being poor long-term world travellers in high-alcohol-tax New Zealand, Mrs. Hoplog and I jumped at the chance to grab some "backup beer" at around $1/bottle.<br />
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Moa was a lovely place to visit, and has the added advantage of being surrounded by wineries which can give your palette a rest from all the barley and hops.<br />
<br />Chadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10965042161895885863noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1988439539543243190.post-45608454169765494212013-02-05T19:20:00.002-08:002013-02-05T19:20:26.225-08:00Christchurch, NZChristchurch is a cool city, despite the fact that it was <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Christchurch_earthquake" target="_blank">ravaged by earthquakes</a> only two years ago. Perhaps in part <i>because</i> it was ravaged by earthquakes. There has been much thought put into how the city should be rebuilt, and a lot of ingenuity applied to keeping businesses and daily life going. For example, shipping containers are all the rage for new cafes, shops and bars - such containers were used as temporary shelters and barriers just after the quakes, and they've run with the idea.<br />
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Case in point - Smash Palace, which is directly across the street from one of the area's many, many ruined churches. This isn't a construction site, it's the finished open-air pub:<br />
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Scaffolding and plastic sheets for "walls."<br />
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A bus for the bar.<br />
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A portable building plus a shipping container for the kitchen.<br />
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Add some patio lanterns, and you've got a cozy, Portland-esque beer garden that serves simple but excellent burgers.<br />
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As well as some great beer, such as Twisted Hop's Hopback IPA on tap, and Liberty Brewing's Yakima Monster IPA (very Pacific Northwest style).<br />
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In fact, Christchurch was my first stop in New Zealand, and craft beer - real, small-brewer craft beer - is everywhere. No offence to Australia, which clearly has some good beer, but New Zealand is kicking your butt when it comes to craft beer, at least in my experience. Very happy times!<br />
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This Three Boys Oyster Stout was an absolutely fantastic seasonal. Poured nicely despite the unfortunate choice of green glass bottles.<br />
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The Central Business District (CBD) was hit particularly hard by the quakes - most of it is still closed while they work to dismantle the unstable buildings. Even the cathedral for which Christchurch is named is being taken down. But there are some great opportunities to be pursued among the destruction. For example, the other end of this partially collapsed building on the edge of the CBD (above) survived the quake just fine, and has become:<br />
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Cassels & Sons new pub! Instead of trekking to the edge of the suburbs to their brewery, you can now enjoy great beer, tasty food and a huge, laid-back patio with views of tourists taking walking tours of the damaged CBD.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Subtle poetry I can appreciate</td></tr>
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Lots of British-style beers were on tap, but I particularly liked the ESB. This is also where I discovered that New Zealand cask ales are never served colder than 9 C. I respect the attention to detail, and I don't like frozen beer, but this is definitely on the warm side for me. No matter, bring them on!<br />
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True to form, we seem to schedule most of our holidays so that they naturally miss all of the best festivals. Such as this one, happening one week after we leave New Zealand. Sigh...<br />
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A random bottle I picked up at the grocery store turned out to be fantastic: a rye Cascadian dark (black IPA) from Renaissance Brewing in Blenheim (NZ wine country). We marked Renaissance on our itinerary as a place to visit if possible.<br />
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There were so many good coffee shops and eateries that we didn't have time to visit all of them in just a day or two. Such as the above container-based beer garden Revival (one block from Smash Palace), with permanently on-site Lebanese food truck.<br />
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But we did make a point of visiting Pomeroy's, Christchurch's answer to Vancouver's <a href="http://www.alibi.ca/" target="_blank">Alibi Room</a>. Comfortable surroundings, good beer selection, and even a guided beer tour by Matt S (@MattSNZ), a <a href="http://www.vanbrewers.ca/" target="_blank">VanBrewer</a> who recently returned to his native Christchurch.<br />
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If you have a chance to visit Christchurch, take it. If you like beer, jump at the chance.<br />
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Chadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10965042161895885863noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1988439539543243190.post-72587018679486042722013-01-12T19:19:00.002-08:002013-01-13T02:19:00.509-08:00Melbourne BeerMelbourne, while not as geographically grand as Sydney, has a wonderful bohemian tradition of local and crafty food, drink, shops and even hipsters. Which is probably why it is often compared to Vancouver. Heck, a seemingly faux craft beer bar has even crept its way into the Cairns airport - and Melbourne must be even more beer-developed.<br />
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By chance Mrs. Hoplog and I ended up in a small hotel directly across the street from the old Victoria Brewery building. The building is now filled with shops instead of brewing equipment, but Victoria Bitter is still possibly the most popular beer in Australia. (Note: Fosters is next to invisible in Australia; it's all Victoria Bitter and Carlton.)<br />
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Mrs. Hoplog and I didn't have easy access to a good craft beer store, so we grabbed some random craft beers at the local bottle shop and had an impromptu tasting.<br />
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4 Pines is actually from Sydney, but all of them were solid. The Cascade beers (hey <a href="http://www.hoplogblog.blogspot.ca/2012/11/trade-marks-cascadia-and-beer.html" target="_blank">Steamworks</a>, there's another use of the term...) from Tasmania were mixed - the original pale ale wasn't great, but the stout was excellent. And the Mountain Goat was a Steam Beer - the reach of Anchor Brewing's trade-mark for "steam" doesn't appear to extend to Australian beer, so it's actually labelled "steam" instead of "California common".<br />
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<h2>Little Creatures</h2><br />
We popped by the Little Creatures pub in the hip Fitzroy neighbourhood. Little Creatures is a Western Australian craft brewer that is big enough you can find it almost anywhere. The pale ale is a good fallback choice when nothing else is available.<br />
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Until recently, the main space contained long communal tables like a Bavarian beer hall.<br />
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The beer was solid - probably a step up from Granville Island's usual offerings. <br />
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But with the typical $10/pint prices, we felt like our limited beer dollars should be spent on something more local and/or interesting.<br />
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It was definitely surprising how much more craft beer costs than mass market light lagers in Australia. For example, the above special at a boutique hot dog/sausage cafe - $10 for a beer and a brat. But if you want a craft beer, add $3. If you figure that's $4 for the brat and $6 for the beer, that's a 50% premium for the craft beer. The same rule of thumb holds true in bottle shops. In contrast, ordinary craft beer in BC is usually about the same price as the big-name light lagers in the same shop or restaurant.<br />
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<h2>Mountain Goat Brewing</h2><br />
Temperatures in Melbourne soared above 40 C, and the bushfire danger increased from Extreme to CATASTROPHIC. (Yes, they print it in all-caps.) Rather than drive around the countryside waiting to be burned alive, we decided to stay in the air conditioning, only venturing out for a thirst-quenching visit to <a href="http://www.goatbeer.com.au/" target="_blank">Mountain Goat</a> brewing when the sun was low in the sky.<br />
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The thermometer in our cab read 43 C as we departed. If that's not time for a refreshing, well-carbonated beer, I don't know what is.<br />
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Mountain Goat is housed in a very Yaletown-esque brick warehouse space, lending it a homey Pacific Northwest craft brewery look and feel. This is perhaps not surprising, given its origins. One of the founders took a trip to Vancouver in the mid-90s, where a friend took him out to various pubs to sample our locally-made craft beers. He was amazed and inspired by what he saw and tasted, and so resolved to start a microbrewery from that moment - voila, Mountain Goat.<br />
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</div>The brewery is only open to the public on Wednesdays (when tours are given) and Fridays, serving their beer and lovely pizzas.<br />
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Mountain Goat's beers were great. A lightly spiced (barely-detectable chocolate, ginger, etc.) dry stout hit the spot surprisingly well on this warm day. As did a thin Summer Ale with a huge punch of passionfruit hop aroma and flavour. The Steam Beer was a tasty part of their staple line. <br />
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Perhaps the most interesting was their Black IPA (Cascadian Dark Ale) run through a randall (infuser) full of pepperberries. This batch was not nearly hoppy enough to be called a Cascadian Dark Ale/Black IPA, and was slightly too roasty as well, but with the pepperberries it was floral, herbal and spicy but still clean, and a great treat regardless of style.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Mountain Goat is a must-see when in Melbourne. Take note!</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
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</div><h2>Local Taphouse, St. Kilda</h2><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">We stopped by the Local Taphouse in the St. Kilda neighbourhood for a late lunch one day. In a word: fantastic. This appears to be the Alibi Room of Melbourne (as far I am aware). Many wonderful beers on tap and in the bottle, all of them interesting, rare and/or very local.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
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It was heaven. We had been hoping to find such a perfect craft beer nerd support centre in Australia, and after several weeks we had finally found one! <br />
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The duck confit made a nice snack as well. The food was stellar.<br />
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<h2>Wine On Tap</h2><br />
While shopping at the surprisingly good Queen Victoria Market in Melbourne, I ran across a wine stand filled with large oak wine barrels - that were actually filled with wine! <br />
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This was ReWine - a company that purchases wines from various vintners, ages it and/or relabels it, and sells it direct from the barrel in refillable bottles. You get a few dollars off the next bottle if you bring it back for a refill.<br />
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So essentially it's a wine growler shop. But it made me think - maybe <a href="http://vancouverurbanwinery.com/" target="_blank">Vancouver Urban Winery</a> and other <a href="http://freshtap.com/" target="_blank">FreshTap</a> venues like <a href="http://www.tapandbarrel.com/" target="_blank">Tap And Barrel</a> could get in on the accelerating beer growler craze in Vancouver, but from the wine side. <br />
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<h2>Beer Deluxe</h2><br />
We almost missed Beer Deluxe, since we didn't spend much time in the touristy epicenter of Melbourne's Federation Square where it's located. However, we came in on a quiet afternoon, and discovered an excellent selection of both Australian and international beer, well trained staff, and competitive prices.<br />
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As an added bonus due to the lack of patrons, I had an in-depth craft beer chat with a very knowledgeable bartender, who also gave Mrs. Hoplog and I samples of most of their draught offerings between our other beers. Great service, great beer, definitely recommended.<br />
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Chadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10965042161895885863noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1988439539543243190.post-21616503825811486322013-01-12T17:59:00.002-08:002013-01-12T17:59:55.928-08:00Aussie HomebrewI didn't meet many Australian homebrewers in my travels. However, I did spy a homebrew shop in the small town of Marysborough on the Sunshine Coast, and stopped in for a look around. <br />
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(For you Mary Poppins fans - I known you're out there - Marysborough was the birthplace of PL Travers, author of Mary Poppins.)<br />
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It looked much like your average neighbourhood homebrew shop, perhaps leaning more towards wine-making than beer. Liquid yeast wasn't stocked, as there wasn't enough demand to keep the fresh stuff on hand, and high Australian temperatures favour hardier dry yeast.<br />
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Apparently homebrewing is very popular even in this rural area - not surprising given the high price of commercial beer.<br />
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The proprietor mentioned how strict the authorities were regarding the tasting and serving of homebrew at the shop - they basically couldn't do it, even though they held brewing classes and such. This is much the same as Canada.<br />
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However, Australia has British Columbia, Canada beat in at least one major respect - distilling!<br />
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That, my friends, is a 5 litre distilling condenser, and it's sold as such at the homebrew shop. Home distilling is not allowed in BC, but it's perfectly fine in Australia as long as your condenser size is 5 litres or less. So the above unit is even labelled as a distilling device.<br />
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The homebrew shop also sells larger units - I believe the one above is approximately 15-20 litres. Since the rules don't allow distilling on equipment over 5 litres, these big ones are labelled as "condensers" and can't be advertised as useful for distilling alcohol.<br />
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Sláinte, Australia!<br />
<br />Chadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10965042161895885863noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1988439539543243190.post-23586022036620159572013-01-12T17:45:00.002-08:002013-01-12T17:45:21.399-08:00Gold Coast Beer<br />
Did some travelling on Australia's Gold Coast, from Brisbane down to Byron Bay.<br />
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Brisbane</h2>
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My first encounter with something tangentially beery was at the Brisbane Museum: the largest museum-displayed crystal of gypsum in Australia (several hundred kilograms). Brewers of Burton-style ales should appreciate such a gem.<br />
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What else did Brisbane hold? Not much, apart from the Alibi Room! No, no, not <i>that</i> <a href="http://www.alibi.ca/" target="_blank">Alibi Room</a>. This was a local pub in New Farm with cheap eats and a pretty standard line of beers (ending with the Australian equivalent of Granville Island beers). But Mrs. Hoplog and I had to try it out anyway.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Alibi Room down under</td></tr>
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The big macro brewer in the area is XXXX Gold, or "Queensland for Beer" as the slogan goes. They offered "tours", but it appeared these were more of the Guinness-theme-park variety and cost more than $20 per person, so we gave it a miss.<br />
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<h2>
Byron Bay</h2>
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We popped in to Byron Bay - the legendary hippie surfing destination - just long enough to see that it's now full of tourists and beach poseurs and not a lot else. But on the way out of town we saw road signs reading "brewery." You don't have to tell us twice.<br />
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Well this seemed promising, and it's only about 1 km from downtown. Byron Bay Brewing used to sell generic light lagers manufactured for them by other breweries. But several years ago it was purchased and turned into a proper craft brewery catering to its own huge premises as well as some other local establishments.<br />
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Would you look at that, there's an actual working brewery in there! They even offer tours, and the brewers are busy brewing something in full view of the patrons.</div>
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Good selection.<br />
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And surfboard-shaped tasters are available - very appropriate.<br />
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Happily, the beers were great. Not a dud among them. We were very happy travellers - this was a far better option than trying to look cool on the overcrowded beach. Not to be missed in Byron Bay!<br />
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Their brewery capacity was quite large, but apparently they are able to sell most of the beer at the brewpub itself. Impressive.<br />
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You even get a friendly "water dragon" to go with your beer.</div>
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Chadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10965042161895885863noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1988439539543243190.post-38095449525254193412013-01-12T17:24:00.000-08:002013-01-12T17:24:00.825-08:00Beer Down Under - SydneyAh, long term travelling. It's great, don't get me wrong. But sometimes you face dilemmas. Such as when you want to sample a bunch of local craft beer, but you're in Australia where everything is unbelievably expensive for poor backwater Canadians, and you're on a tight budget. What do you do?<br />
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For starters you drink a lot less beer. :-(<br />
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The Aussie dollar is really strong ($1.06 CDN), and you have to use a lot of them to buy anything. Fortunately, all taxes are included in prices, and there is not a culture of tipping, so that's like getting a 30% discount compared to eating out in BC (12% HST + up to 18% tip). Even so, it's costly.<br />
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Also, craft beer in Oz is quite expensive relative to other products and even other alcoholic drinks such wine and mass-market light lagers. A 330 mL bottle of "normal" craft beer will generally cost you $4 AUS. Pints are $10-$12 for "normal", and more as the alcohol content increases.<br />
<br />
Despite being in beer survival mode, I did manage to try a craft beer or two here and there. Though nothing terribly exotic.<br />
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<h2>
Red Oak Brewing</h2>
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In the heart of Sydney's business district is Red Oak, and their theme is beer and food pairing. They have tasting events and the like. Cool stuff.<br />
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Like most Aussie pubs they don't do tasting flights - in order to get a taster you have to order a food pairing "tasting board", where they pair a gourmet tidbit with each small sample of 4 beers.<br />
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The food was excellent. And the beer was well done, if not exceptional or overly adventurous. I felt the pairings, while appropriate, were generally safe as opposed to mind-expanding. The pairings worked, but none resulted in a dish that was greater than the sum of its parts. (A bit like <a href="http://www.hoplogblog.blogspot.ca/2012/04/den-dyver-beer-pairing-dinner.html" target="_blank">Den Dyver</a> in that respect.) Still, a worthwhile concept, and one that will hopefully help to legitimize craft beer as a proper beverage.<br />
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The beer is no longer brewed on-premises, so tours weren't available.<br />
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<h2>
Diageo</h2>
<br />
Walking past Lavender Bay, we spotted a major Diageo office. You might remember them as the corporate overlords for companies (oh, I'm sorry, I mean "brands") such as Guinness, Jose Cuervo, Tanqueray, etc. as well as Bushmills and Oban which I toured in the British Isles last year. I swear I felt the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sauron#Eye_of_Sauron" target="_blank">Eye of Sauron</a> upon me as I strolled past. (Or maybe that's just because I'm writing this from New Zealand...)<br />
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<h2>
Lord Nelson Brewery</h2>
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Dean, head brewer of Lighthouse Brewing in Victoria, also brewed for the Lord Nelson earlier in his career. Situated in the "Rocks" neighbourhood a stone's throw from the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge, it has a solid lineup of British-style ales with a matching interior. Unfortunately the brewer wasn't around, so we couldn't get a tour.<br />
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Some hoppy refreshment on a very warm Sydney day. The Lord Nelson is definitely worth a stop if you're in town; and let's face it you're going to be at Circular Quay next to the Opera House at some point anyway, why not walk up the hill for 5 minutes and have a proper pint?<br />
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<br />Chadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10965042161895885863noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1988439539543243190.post-66272151608780488822012-11-27T02:21:00.002-08:002012-11-27T02:21:38.985-08:00Trade-marks, Cascadia and Beer<b>[NOTE: Nothing in the following post, or anywhere in this blog, is legal advice; it should not be interpreted as such. Everything is my personal opinion. Period.]</b><br />
<br />
Please check out the excellent exposé from Barley Mowat regarding <a href="http://barleymowat.com/2012/11/22/the-grinch-who-stole-cascadia/" target="_blank">Steamworks Brewing's recent attempts</a> to prevent other Canadian breweries from using the word "Cascadia" (or its variants) in relation to their beer. This led to a huge social media backlash in and around Vancouver, BC, causing Steamworks to release a <a href="http://barleymowat.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/cascadia-trademark-response.pdf" target="_blank">response</a>. Barley Mowat followed up with a great <a href="http://barleymowat.com/2012/11/24/steamworks-speaks/" target="_blank">post pointing out the inadequacy</a> of the response.<br />
<br />
Craft beer nerds all know that "Cascadian Dark Ale" is a newer but increasingly popular style of beer. Cascadian Dark Ale originated in and uses ingredients indigenous to the region known as "Cascadia" (British Columbia, Washington, Oregon and Northern California). Such a style of beer is difficult to make, but when brewed succcessfully, it's incredible.<br />
<br />
So understandably, many people were upset when it appeared that someone was trying to stop brewers from calling some of their beers what they are: Cascadian (either brewed in this region or using ingredients identified with the region) Dark (the colour is clearly dark for a beer) Ales (brewed using saccharomyces cerevisiae yeast). Namely Steamworks Brewing and its owner, Eli Gershkovitch, who also owns a Canadian trade-mark registration for "Cascadia".<br />
<br />
There's often a lot of confusion and misunderstanding when topics involving trade-marks or corporate spin arise. So I'm going to try to shed some light on general trade-mark themes related to this issue, and will try not to be overly duplicative of Barley Mowat's posts. (Again, not legal advice, just personal opinion and commentary.) For a more complete primer on trade-mark law, consult your friendly neighbourhood IP lawyer (I can refer you to several)..<br />
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<br />
<h2>
Trade-marks</h2>
<br />
In a nutshell, a trade-mark is a mark (usually some words and/or a graphic) used to distinguish goods you sell from those someone else sells. If you didn't "mark" your product, it would be generic and people wouldn't buy your products over those of your competitors. Your sacks labelled "rice" would look just the same as Frank's sacks labelled "rice," though his are half full of sawdust. Of course you'd prefer people to recognize (and buy) your own great products (even if you do it by artificially inflating the recognition/value of your mark through advertising bombardment... but that's a pet peeve, and I digress...) So you label your sacks "Jake's" rice.<br />
<br />
Anyhoo, say people really like the taste and value of "Jake's" rice, so it starts selling well and people start buying it over other brands. What's to stop someone else (Frank) from labelling his rice sacks with "Jake's" and piggybacking on the goodwill in Jake's trade-mark to make more sales?<br />
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Trade-mark law, that's what. If Frank labels his sacks with "Jake's", this will cause confusion in the marketplace - people will think that Frank's rice is really Jake's. And trade-marks are all about avoiding confusion about who makes a product. You can create confusion even if the spelling isn't identical (e.g. Frank uses the label "Jayke's", printed in the same font as "Jake's").<br />
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In the olden days, you would get common law rights to <i>exclusively use a mark</i>, just by adopting that mark (that no one else was already using), i.e. labelling your goods with it. This is still true today. If you labelled your goods with "Jake's," then no one else was allowed to sell rice marked "Jake's" in the same markets as you - you could take them to court if they did. Of course, if you only sold Jake's rice in Vancouver, someone else could label their rice "Jake's" in a different market where the original Jake's was unknown (like Newfoundland) - no harm and no foul. (To let others known that you are using a common-law trade-mark, you can put a little "TM" after it.)<br />
<br />
Proving who used what mark first was a bit tough, though - he said, she said. Enter trade-mark <i>registration</i>. This is a national (each country has its own) register where you can certify genuine ownership of a trade-mark, upon evidence that (among other things) no one else has been using it to mark the same category of goods. (You always claim trade-mark rights to specific categories of goods - like "lumber" or "sewing supplies" or "beer" - because you aren't likely to think that Jake's lumber is made by the same people as Jake's sewing supplies. The two can co-exist. Consider, for example, <a href="http://parallel49brewing.com/" target="_blank">Parallel 49 Brewing</a> and <a href="http://www.49thparallelroasters.com/" target="_blank">49th Parallel Coffee Roasters</a>.)<br />
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Registering a trade-mark gives you powerful rights to it. You get exclusive use throughout the whole country (not just the region where you're selling); it's pretty tough to dispute that your mark shouldn't be yours, and it's easier to claim that others are infringing your mark. (You can show others that you're using a registered trade-mark by putting a little <span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 16px;">®</span> after it.)<br />
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<h2>
Is Your Trade-mark Distinctive?</h2>
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As mentioned, the point of adopting a trade-mark is to distinguish your products from those of others. Therefore you want to use a distinctive trade-mark, so it's less likely to be confused with someone else's. (Remember: avoid confusion about who makes something!) Calling your spark plugs "Thunder-Blaster 9000 Special Release Techno Wazoo" plugs is probably better than calling them "Better" plugs. Especially when 18 other companies are already making "More Better" plugs, "Better Than Better" plugs, "Betterest" plugs, etc.<br />
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The most distinctive trade-marks are "coined terms" (i.e. made-up words). It can't be argued that someone else was using the mark first if you made it up. Lucent. Intel. Google. You get the idea. <br />
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<h2>
What Am I Selling?</h2>
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It can sometimes be a bit tricky to identify the difference between a trade-mark and a description of the product being sold. Trade-marks indicate who makes a product ("Jake's"). A description tells you what kind of item you're buying ("rice"). On labels, it can be tough to tell if or where the trade-mark ends and the description begins.<br />
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What would happen if you tried using a product <i>description</i> as your <i>trade-mark</i> for the product? e.g. calling your rice "Rice (TM)"? Well, first of all it wouldn't be very distinctive, and could be confusing, because everyone else is selling rice too. And second of all it would be massively unfair - extremely anti-competitive - for you to use a trade-mark to prevent your competitors from trying to sell their product without being able to name it or describe it. Imagine trying to sell a sack of rice without using the word "rice." Ugh. So that's not allowed. Canada's <i>Trade-marks Act</i> is pretty clear about this:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
s.12(1)(b): "...a trade-mark is registrable if it is not... clearly descriptive... of the character or quality of the wares... in association with which it is used." </blockquote>
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So if a mark <i>clearly</i> describes the character or quality of what you're selling, in general you shouldn't be able to <i>register </i>it as a trade-mark.<br />
<br />
So what if someone manages to sneak in a trade-mark registration for "Rice"? Or some other mark that is somehow descriptive (in a certain context) of what you're selling? The <i>Trade-marks Act</i> has you covered there as well:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
s.20(1): "...no registration of a trade-mark prevents a person from making<br />
...(b) any bona fide use, other than as a trade-mark,<br />
(i) of the geographical name of his place of business, or<br />
(ii) of any accurate description of the character or quality of his wares...<br />
in such a manner as is not likely to have the effect of depreciating the value of the goodwill attaching to the trade-mark." </blockquote>
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This seems to say you can't start using "Rice" as your own trade-mark/brand name if it's already registered, but you <i>can</i> use the word to describe what you're selling, or to indicate where your business is located (e.g. Rice City, British Columbia) - as long as you're not doing something that will probably mess up the value of the registered "Rice" trade-mark.<br />
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<br />
<h2>
"Cascadia" and Beer</h2>
<br />
So it would seem you wouldn't want to use "beer" as a trade-mark, not that you'd necessarily be able to register such a mark anyway. And if you did, you couldn't prevent others from <i>describing</i> their beer as "beer".<br />
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It's logical this would apply to sub-styles of beer as well. You can imagine how tough it might be for a registered trade-mark owner to prevent a brewery from selling beers described as the following, given s.20(1) of the Trade-Marks Act:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
(Place of business of breweries located there) + (description of character and quality)<br />
Bohemian Pilsner. (place + description)<br />
Munich Dunkel. (place + description)<br />
American Pale Ale. (place + description)<br />
Northern English Brown. (place + description)<br />
Cascadian Dark Ale. (place + description)</blockquote>
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Perhaps you can see (or at least those who have had fewer than 3 beers) where I'm going with this...<br />
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<h2>
Cascadian Dark Ale - A Style And A Description</h2>
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The internet has no end of information on the burgeoning Cascadian Dark Ale style. At this year's National Homebrewers Competition (the largest brewing competition in the world), one of the presentations at the <a href="http://www.bjcp.org/" target="_blank">BJCP</a> judges' reception was about the development of the style, and its possible (perhaps soon to be "likely") inclusion in the next version of the BJCP Style Guidelines. The presenter had a long list of breweries in Canada and the USA who were already brewing a CDA - some calling it a Black IPA (nonsensical as that is), but the majority using "Cascadian Dark Ale" or variations thereof.<br />
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I think there's no disputing that Cascadian Dark Ale is a style of beer, and that it's a very descriptive term.<br />
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<br />
<h2>
"Cascadia"</h2>
<br />
It appears Mr. Gershkovitch is trying to get various craft breweries to stop using the word "Cascadia" (or its variants) in association with the beers they brew. Even assuming that his registration of "Cascadia" for beer is not vulnerable to attack, and assuming that the adjective "Cascadia<u>n</u>" is as non-descriptive as the noun "Cascadia" (I would disagree), it seems he might be able to prevent others from using variants of "Cascadia" in their beer <i>trade-marks</i>. But you'd have to call up your IP lawyer and dig into related caselaw to get a better idea.<br />
<br />
However, I don't think it's at all clear that Mr. Gershkovitch could prevent brewers from using Cascadian Dark Ale as a <i>descriptor </i>for their beers. It's obvious to me that the phrase widely recognized as a beer style in the craft beer marketplace, and that it's a clearly descriptive term for such beers. Section 20(1) of the <i>Trade-marks Act </i>should apply. <br />
<br />
I wonder what would happen if all the brewers in the province named their Cascadian Dark Ales with a different trade-mark (like "Burly Man" Cascadian dark ale), and separated the trade-mark ("Burly Man") from the beer style description (Cascadian dark ale) in size or placement on the label? Would you really need to licence a trade-mark that you weren't even using as a trade-mark, but as a descriptor of your product? (s. 20(1)) And if you were the holder of a trade-mark registration for "Cascadia" for beer, I wonder if you'd be worried that your mark was now very similar to the generic name for a style of beer, and that it wasn't very distinctive; and I wonder if you'd want to get others to just go away and stop using that name to describe their beers?<br />
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And I wonder what would happen if, in a show of solidarity, all other BC brewers identified the location of their breweries as being in CASCADIA, on every single bottle of beer they sell? Section 20(1) might allow it. And it's trendy - <a href="http://apexbar.com/" target="_blank">Apex</a> in Portland (and probably others) do this.<br />
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<h2>
Corporate Press Release Spin</h2>
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I see a pattern in modern corporate crisis management that Barley Mowat sagely identified the beginnings of: a crisis explodes on social media; corporation quickly releases a carefully worded press release designed to make the general public feel good while providing no commitment to act; the angry public is placated and never follows up; after a brief time-out, corporation continues as usual. I've seen this many times, from both sides.<br />
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I hope that the craft beer community in BC develops a longer memory and a more critical eye, and does not simply accept corporate responses without some thought and follow-up.<br />
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Here are some additional thoughts (to Barley Mowat's) based on the Steamworks "Team Steam" <a href="http://barleymowat.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/cascadia-trademark-response.pdf" target="_blank">response</a>:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"...we were the first to use the term Cascadia with beer..."</blockquote>
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Since that was essentially a requirement for Mr. Gershkovitch to register the mark in the first place, that's a bit of a throwaway comment. (I note he abandoned a trade-mark registration application for "Cascadia" in the US some time ago - we can only speculate why.)<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"...a name we came up with in 1995 because we were farsighted about the concept of Cascadia..."</blockquote>
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Except that the Cascades have been called that since at least 1825. The region has been called Cascadia since 1970, though the related independence movement far predates that. Cascade hops - the most famous North American craft beer hops, born in and grown in Cascadia - have been around since 1971. A different company applied for registration (reg #TMA414145) of the "Cascadia" trade-mark for flavoured soft drinks 5 years before Steamworks applied for their registration, and innumerable companies predating Steamworks sell their wares under the Cascadia name. 1995 was late to the game on that time scale.<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"...other breweries were using the name Cascadia or Cascadian in the names of their beers..."</blockquote>
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Of course they are, and they have been for a while now - Cascadian Dark Ale is a well-recognized style of beer. There's no mention in the release of how many breweries were using "Cascadian" as a description of the beer or the place it was brewed (as discussed, probably allowed) vs. as a distinguishing trade-mark. Also no mention of how Team Steam thinks their claim to the trade-mark noun Cascadia also extends to the descriptive adjective "Cascadian".<br />
<br />
Interestingly, Team Steam pointedly avoids writing "Cascadian Dark Ale" anywhere in their letter. Pretending that this product description or beer style doesn't exist under this name won't change reality. Do a Google search for Cascadian Dark Ale. Or just Cascadian Beer. The horses left the barn years ago, no need to pretend the barn door is still closed. <br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Our approach was “no worries, use up the existing stock of your labels/packaging we don’t want you to suffer any financial hardship”."</blockquote>
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How kind. But funny that the <a href="http://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/T-13/page-12.html#docCont" target="_blank">Trade-Marks Act s.22(2)</a> mentions that a court might want to order this even if Team Steam had sued and won.<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Our plan is to license the trademark to other true B.C. craft breweries for a very nominal fee ($1 perhaps) which is legally needed to protect the trademark for all."</blockquote>
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Oh my, where to begin...<br />
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Licensing is how companies get other companies to recognize their trade-mark rights without the time, expense and fuss of a lawsuit. If you agree to a licence, you are recognizing that the owner owns the trade-mark, that it's a valid trade-mark, and that you aren't able to use those words in the way you want without such a licence. It's cheap and easy for the trade-mark owner - just the cost of a letter, some postage and solicitor fees to draw up the contract. The more companies agree to the licence, the more ammunition you have to convince the next companies that they need a licence. And if the trade-mark gains good value, you can start jacking up the licence fee.<br />
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Second, the idea that a trade-mark is being protected "for all" is, in a word, bullshit. This trade-mark has one owner: Eli Gershkovitch. It is not being somehow held in trust for the general, free and unlimited use of all Canadian craft brewers in perpetuity! If it was, it could not be used to distinguish the goods of one company from another and would cease functioning as a trade-mark. In fact (and at the risk of repeating Barley Mowat's message), in order to preserve his registration rights, any such licence will necessarily allow Mr. Gershkovitch to have <i>control over the character and quality of the goods (beer) produced</i>.<br />
<br />
Licensing is a way companies can <i>control what other companies do</i>. Say you make Jake's rice, a high-quality rice. You contract out your production to Frank's, and get him to make Jake's rice for you. If your contract doesn't give you the right to control the character and quality of Frank's rice, and potentially to cancel his right to use the Jake's name if he steps out of line, then you've essentially just sold the Jake's name to him for free. Jake's is no longer Jake's, it's just Frank's by another name - "Jake's" no longer distinguishes your rice from Frank's, so it's meaningless. So: licences need to give you control over the character and quality of goods produced.<br />
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Furthermore, it's likely any "goodwill" associated with your licenced use of a trade-mark will accrue to the trade-mark owner, not to you. For example: you make a fantastic beer and decide to sell it under the "Big Big Beer" trade-mark, which you licence from the owner. Under a typical licence agreement, any good reputation or value acquired by "Big Big Beer" because of the great beer you sold under that name is owned by the Big Big Beer owners, not you. It's not inconceivable that if the Big Big Beer owners didn't like what you were doing with that great beer, they could yank your licence and start selling a totally different beer under the same name, and there's nothing you could do about it.<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"I hope this sheds some light on the subject and we can now get back to brewing and enjoying great B.C. craft beer!"</blockquote>
<br />
As a craft beer drinker, I certainly would love it if Team Steam did stick to brewing in the future. Then I wouldn't be writing such long posts while on vacation! (Though I'm heading to a place with no electricity and no internet for a few days today, which will be welcome.)<br />
<br />Chadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10965042161895885863noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1988439539543243190.post-39366249314433413852012-11-19T18:26:00.001-08:002012-11-19T18:26:28.060-08:00New Brewery at the End Of The WorldI recently spent a couple of days in Punta Arenas, Chile - one of the most southerly cities in the world, home to high winds and bad weather, penguin colonies, and the famous Straits of Magellan (the original westerly entrance to the Pacific).<br />
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It's also home to <a href="http://www.hablemosdecerveza.cl/" target="_blank">Austral</a> beer, which has been around in one form or another for over 100 years. However, since Austral is more or less a widely distributed macro light lager, I wasn't falling over myself to tour their facilities. Especially when a new brewery had opened up downtown barely a month ago! Enter <a href="http://www.cervezahernandodemagallanes.cl/" target="_blank">Cerveceria Hernando de Magallanes</a> ("Magellan Brewery"), located less than 100m from the Straits of the same name.<br />
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Wow, what an incredibly swank building in an otherwise run down old port neighbourhood! Somebody is investing in future tourist dollars. Not a bad bet, since Punta Arenas is on the main tourist route between Tierra Del Fuego and Chile's popular Torres Del Paine National Park. And you can take a penguin tour while you're here.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">El Penguino de Magallanes</td></tr>
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One of the co-owners was on hand to pour us a couple of samples. She was was very generous with her time, and using a combination of broken Spanish, French and English, I gathered that she and her husband had developed this brewery after her husband had homebrewed for a couple of years. They've certainly put a lot of effort and capital into the venture, as the small brewery is beautiful and spotless. They've started shipping to some restaurants and a couple of grocery stores in town, mostly in bottles.<br />
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As usual, the beers on offer were the colour-coded blonde/red/black triumvirate that first-timer craft breweries feel the need to provide in South America. We sampled the red and black - and again, as expected, the red was bottled prematurely and had fermentation issues (huge crust of brown yeast on the bottom of the bottle; yeasty, sour and strong vegetal flavours), while the stout was mostly passable. However, given that they've only been at it for a few weeks, good on them - and hopefully they'll work out these issues in the near future. They certainly have the technology to make good beer.<br />
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Lovely, shining though small equipment. If they gain any popularity, this will quickly become undersized. Everything is piped in stainless steel (no hoses), the walls sport modern electronic controls and clean cable conduit runs - it looks like little expense was spared.<br />
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You can see the Straits of Magellan across the street as you have a taste.<br />
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Sexy brewery equipment is showcased through the interior windows.<br />
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The best part of the beers/brewery so far is the labelling and historical imagery. Let's hope this kind of quality will soon extend to the beers.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small; text-align: start;">Arrgh, it be a treasure chest of sweet malty booty!</span></td></tr>
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So while I wouldn't recommend Hernando De Magallanes beer quite yet (though the stout could work in a pinch), it was great to have an early-stage view into one of the newest and most remote craft breweries in the world. I've now had craft beer at 64 degrees N (Iceland) and 53 degrees South (Punta Arenas) - it's blanketing the world! Craft beer drinkers rejoice and keep supporting your local craft brewers who truly care.<br />
<br />Chadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10965042161895885863noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1988439539543243190.post-43619608846587375052012-11-17T06:55:00.001-08:002012-11-17T06:55:41.414-08:00Better Bariloche BrewpubsFortunately, my craft beer experiences in Bariloche, Argentina got better and better.<br />
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Konna Brewpub</h2>
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Located mere steps from Club Andio Bariloche (the local trekking/climbing organization) is newish Konna, a climber-themed pub showing rock climbing videos on a couple of plasma screens. It's cozy, and like most places in town has a happy hour early on. As with most smaller breweries in Patagonia, they had Rubia (light), Rioja/IPA (variously an amber or an IPA) and Negra (dark, in this case a sweetish porter). <br />
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I had a pint of the IPA, and... well it was a yeasty mess. When will I learn? Ask for a sample first! But I felt obligated to finish.<br />
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The owners of the hostel I was staying at knew the Konna crew, and apparently they're aware of the "yeastiness" issues in their lighter beers, and are working on it. Glad to hear it! Apparently the porter is the way to go at Konna, so I had one of those too.<br />
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While not perfect (and conveniently hiding some off-flavours with roast), the porter is quite drinkable, and is definitely the drink to have at Konna.<br />
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My hostel owners introduced me to one of the owners, and after a chat she very kindly phoned up the brewmaster at Berlina and arranged for me to visit their brewery on a Saturday (when they are normally closed to the public). Very much appreciated, and a great sign of the camaraderie among craft brewers in Bariloche!<br />
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<h2>
La Cruz Brewpub</h2>
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Just off the lake road west of Bariloche, at around the 5-6km mark, is La Cruz, a casual but friendly suburban watering hole.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A bit rainy for the outside tables</td></tr>
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I arrived exactly at opening time - despite these photos, the place filled up completely within 20 minutes. Very popular, and with good reason. Friendly staff and GREAT BEER.<br />
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The tasters were all good, but the IPA really stood out as a lovely, drinkable beer. I ordered a couple. This is a must-visit when in Bariloche, just a 10 minute bus ride from downtown. The food looked good as well.<br />
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They used to brew in the back room, right behind the bar. But like many brewpubs in the area, they've moved production off-site in order to get more space and potentially bottle & ship their wares.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Check out the lace on the IPA. Fantastic!</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Generous head on top of a great IPA</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Yes La Cruz, I believe I will</td></tr>
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<h2>
Berlina Brewery</h2>
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Mrs. Hoplog and I bussed out to Colonia Suisse (touristy hippie enclave near Bariloche) to visit Berlina's brewery, tucked away in a sunny and idyllic patch of forest. We nearly got turned away since we showed up outside visiting hours, but Konna's call to brewmaster Bruno Ferrari saved the day and he generously showed us around the brewery, answered questions and poured some samples. Many hearty thanks to Bruno for his hospitality!<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Brewmaster Bruno Ferrari</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Conditioning tanks at 8 C</td></tr>
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Bruno is from South America, but he was trained as a brewmaster in Berlin. The brewery has a homey, relaxed feel, but the operation is of a decent size and there are clearly some skilled people behind it all.<br />
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Above, the semi-homemade pasteurizer Bruno uses for his bottled products. Given shipping temperatures and distances, and not using preservatives (unlike every other foodstuff in Argentina and Chile...), Bruno filters and pasteurizes all his bottled product.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bruno pulling me a sample</td></tr>
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Oh wow, I even got to drink some beer straight out of the conditioning tank - special. Bruno had two IPAs available: a special, local single-hop variety, and their "standard" IPA that features northern hemisphere hops. In a word, heaven. The standard IPA was clearly the best beer I had in Bariloche, and (to date) South America. Simply wonderful, even if the hops don't stay quite as fresh as Bruno would like as they're shipped halfway around the world to get here.<br />
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Now that's proper craft brewing - asado (slow grilling) on the back yard grill for lunch.<br />
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The brewery looks like a house, adding to the homeyness, though it's all business inside.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bottle storage shed</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Some fledgling hops planted in the backyard</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Equipment shed</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Recipes and notes on the tiled brewery wall</td></tr>
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Above, to get you through a long day of bottling, you obviously need Yerba Mate - the South American sip-at-a-time herb drink drunk from a gourd with a metal straw. Canada has Starbucks cups, Argentina has mate cups and hot water thermoses.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A proper IPA - so very welcome</td></tr>
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<h2>
Blest Brewpub</h2>
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For our last night in town, Mrs. Hoplog and I decided to hit two brewpubs in a row, both 100m from each other at about the 11.5km mark of the lake road: Blest and Berlina (their pub, not brewery).<br />
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Blest is probably the best-known and oldest brewpub in Bariloche. They certainly had the knickknacks and kitsch down pat, as well as a big store full of tourist swag.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Oh my, perhaps I should have brought something from a BC brewery for the wall...</td></tr>
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We dove into a sampler paddle, and... well... given how people had been raving about Blest, I was expecting a bit more. Don't get me wrong, the beer was much better than most other brewpubs in town and was perfectly fine. But it didn't blow me away. The stout in particular was incredibly metallic (I'm thinking an overdose of water treatment). My favourite was probably the Frambuesa, oddly enough, and the Cider they had on offer, though I'm not normally a fruit beer guy.<br />
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Blest's barroom brewing equipment. Pretty unlikely they still brew on this stuff since it's actually IN the taproom. <br />
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The service was pretty disengaged and aloof, and cancelled out any coziness otherwise provided by the warm surroundings. While the beer was decent and Blest is worth a visit, we didn't waste any more time and headed down the road to Berlina instead.<br />
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<h2>
Berlina Brewpub</h2>
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Wow, these people really have it together. What a location and what at nice setup at the brewpub.<br />
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Umm, yeah, that all seems perfect beyond belief. What's missing?<br />
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Ahh, that's it, one of Berlina's fine ales! (Though Bruno is German-trained, Berlina only makes ales, not lagers. I imagine this might be because lagers have a much longer turnaround time for a batch of beer, and they require different (and colder) temperature control.) Here I am having the finished version of the young stout Bruno poured for me from the conditioning tank the day before.<br />
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Are you kidding, that's a single serving of club sandwich? Yes. Portions are big, and tasty. I think we have a winner.<br />
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<h2>
Verdict?</h2>
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If you visit Bariloche, make a bee-line to La Cruz and to Berlina's brewpub. Also visit Berlina's brewery (weekdays only) and combine it with a half-day trip to Colonia Suisse. If you're unable to leave downtown Bariloche, the milk stout at Manush or the porter at Konna will do in a pinch. By all means visit other brewpubs, but perhaps temper you expectations accordingly - the craft beer scene is fairly new here, and many brewers are valiantly struggling to make a go of things, tune their systems and recipes, etc.<br />
<br />Chadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10965042161895885863noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1988439539543243190.post-34682503868604878532012-10-25T11:02:00.000-07:002012-10-25T11:02:20.039-07:00BarilocheAt the National Homebrewers Conference this year, I attended a <a href="http://www.bjcp.org/docs/LagerYeast.pdf" target="_blank">presentation</a> by Dr. Diego Libkind (who called in via Skype) on the Patagonian origins of European lager yeast. He threw up a gorgeous photo of his hometown - Bariloche, Argentina - and mentioned they had several craft breweries. I was sold!<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">View from the hostel patio</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Not a stock photo - I actually took this a few kilometres from downtown!</td></tr>
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Aside from gorgeous mountains, lakes, skiing and hiking, chocolate and ice cream, there were in fact several craft breweries in town, and Dr. Libkind was nice enough to suggest a few for Mrs. Hoplog and I to try.<br />
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<h2>
Bachmann</h2>
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First up was Bachmann, a small operation in a cute house.<br />
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Tasters were available, and revealed that their schwarzbier was well worth another taste. All beers were low in alcohol and bitterness, and nicely brewed.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My name is Chad, and I approve of this beer</td></tr>
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<h2>
Antares</h2>
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Next up was Antares, a bigger brewpub with several locations, who also sells their beer in bottles.<br />
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The interior was certainly full-on craft beer bar, and it was busy.</div>
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The beer selection was excellent, though the quality was a bit lacking compared to Bachmann. Only one beer was what I'd call bad, but none of them were "great." (A lot of forgettable recipes and low-level flaws.) Still, it was a well organized operation that is clearly seeing a lot of success. Some higher-alcohol beers were present, but no hoppy/bitter beers (except the barleywine).<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Nice range of beers, but I'm trying hard to forget that Octoberfest seasonal at the bottom right, ouch</td></tr>
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<h2>
Manush</h2>
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We had to wait until Tuesday for Manush to open, but it was worth wait. Very cozy, some nice beers, great food, and truly outstanding service. A must-visit for a meal in Bariloche.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-qnRN_5-pJD4/UIl0kaoZobI/AAAAAAAACxg/I0VLxo6bNHI/s1600/IMG_0405.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-qnRN_5-pJD4/UIl0kaoZobI/AAAAAAAACxg/I0VLxo6bNHI/s320/IMG_0405.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Happy Hour - 6 until 7 or 8 in Argentina - means 2 for 1 beers, but per person, no sharing!</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-F2p0KAazJJk/UIl1BOfv4iI/AAAAAAAACxo/3kJLtENwlio/s1600/IMG_0406.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-F2p0KAazJJk/UIl1BOfv4iI/AAAAAAAACxo/3kJLtENwlio/s320/IMG_0406.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A pretty nice little milk stout at Manush. The Kolsch and Pale Ale were quite passable too</td></tr>
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A couple of preliminary observations on Argentinian craft beer:<br />
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<ul>
<li>Cerveza artesenal exists in Argentina, and the movement seems to be progressing nicely.</li>
<li>My perception is that smaller craft breweries have difficulty controlling fermentation temperatures. Perhaps large-scale refrigeration and/or heating is an expense they can't bear. Anyway, many beers are a bit fruitier and "warmer" than usual, and some struggling yeast flavour is common.</li>
<li>Craft beer is subtle here - brewers aren't cranking out hop bombs and huge imperial stouts. I would guess this is similar to a decade ago in BC, when beer consumers' palettes were still used to macro lager and were not ready for bigger, full-flavour beers. So don't expect it to taste like Portland, OR here. At least not yet.</li>
<li>If you have allergies, note that most craft beer bars provide all tables with a free snack of peanuts.</li>
</ul>
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More Bariloche brewpubs still to come.</div>
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Chadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10965042161895885863noreply@blogger.com0