September 29, 2011

Next Week's Festivities #1... Next Week's Festivities #2... Rogue... Garage Projector... Red Rackham... Another Pacific Beer Expo Teaser... Sport on Telly... Snack Foods...

Next Week's Festivities #1

At the time of writing two pallets of beer from Nøgne Ø are fighting the traffic created by busloads of tourists and making their way from some northern port to our warehouse. This is the first time we've shipped beer directly from the Nøgne Ø brewery rather than via their Australian importer. As a result we had much more choice than before, particularly with respect to kegs. Not only that, we managed to snag space in a refrigerated container for the journey from Europe, which is pretty fortuitous.

The icing on the cake is that this more direct method of shipping has resulted in lower prices. Yes, you read that right - we've saved some money and are going to pass those savings on.

To celebrate, we're hosting a tasting on Tuesday of Nøgne Ø beer. By coincidence Tokyo-based beer writer Tim Eustace happens to be in Wellington. Tim has been associated with Hashigo Zake since well before we opened and is also a long-standing friend of Nøgne Ø's founder Kjetil Jikuin. He thought he was in Wellington to watch rugby, but we're coercing him into providing his insight into Norway's most adventurous brewery.

More details and bookings are at the Cult Beer Store.

Next Week's Festivities #2

We've had a steady flow of overseas visitors over the last couple of weeks and the influx should reach a new peak over the next 10 days or so, with the capital's last four games in the tournament we are forbidden to name. The question on everyone's lips is: what will we do with these foreign guests between games?

We have a solution for next Monday at least. We're taking a mini-bus to Martinborough for a thinking person's tour of good drinking and eating. Sadly Martinborough is without a brewery these days, but nearby Carterton has Crooked Cider so our tour will take in their business to break the monotony of one great Martinborough pinot after another. There will be a high quality winery lunch too. If you have an out of town visitor with gaps in their schedule send them down to us. More info is available at the bar.

Rogue

Nøgne Ø isn't the only brewery that we are taking a delivery from this week. After about six months asking, negotiating and, well, head-scratching, we've finally got a long awaited refresh of our stocks of Rogue.

There isn't a single beer in this shipment that we haven't had before, but the long absence of beers like Dead Guy, Chipotle Ale and Mocha Porter should make up for any lack of novelty.

Having said that, there is one innovation of a sort in this order. The high strength "XS" beers that previously came in magnificent but daunting 750ml ceramic bottles now come in 207ml bottles. You can expect to see them on our shelves by early next week.

Garage Projector

The Garage Project are all about experimentation and next week it's time for yet another unexpected turn. Their next beer is their lowest in alcohol so far at 4.5% and their first wheat beer. In their own words:

A light golden straw colour, this beer is based on the Belgian Wit style but with an orange and cardamom twist. This is not a hop driven beer. Instead it has an aromatic hit from the late addition red grapefruit, tangelo, orange and lemon peel, camomile flowers, vanilla bean and freshly crushed green cardamom.

Apparently they're still trying to settle on a "witty" name.

But there are several other pieces of good news too. Firstly the brewers have decided that it's time to start revisiting some of the early beers and are making random kegs of some of these re-tests available to us. Waiting to come on soon are twenty litres of a slightly modified Trip Hop.

More good news awaits in the news below regarding the Pacific Beer Expo.

Red Rackham

An unplanned Yeastie Boys release has turned up on our doorstep. We're not sure how open Stu and Sam want to be about this little misadventure, but we think that this love child of one of their regular beers and an interloping yeast strain may have more legitimacy than they realise. When there was indecision about whether to recognise this strong, amber and oddly Flemish-accented beer, we said send it to us. The result - Red Rackham - will be on tap very shortly.

There is an unfortunate consequence of this improvised beer. See below under today's news regarding the Pacific Beer Expo.

Another Pacific Beer Expo Teaser

For the first and hopefully last time, we have some bad news to announce. The aforementioned "improvisation" that led to the Yeastie Boys Red Rackham has thrown out their production schedule. As a result His Majesty 2011 won't be ready by Labour weekend. We're confident that this week's announcements will make up for that setback.

Now for the good news.

Liberty Brewing will be present at the festival. In fact Joseph Wood has said he'll come down from the 'Naki for it. He'll be bringing a new batch of his C!tra Imperial IPA. This may just be the closest he's come to what was the beer of 2010 for some of us - his Summ!t Imperial IPA. (We'd encouraged Joe to brew Summ!t again, but sadly the hops weren't available.)

And speaking of lower North Island nano-breweries, Garage Project will be rubbing shoulders with our iconic Pacific imports too. They have no fewer than three beers planned, starting with the in-theme Ring of Fire. This is a strong pale ale hopped with some of the most famous varieties from the four countries included in the festival. That means Sorachi Ace from Japan (though grown in the US), Centennial and Amarillo from the US, Galaxy from Australia and Nelson Sauvin from the South Island. Whose accent will be heard above the din?

But over-delivering on variety has been Garage Project's signature. They've invested in a couple of 20L casks for "gravity dispensing". This is a posh way of saying the beer comes straight from a hole in the container. The beauty is that of all possible means of dispensing beer this one should have the least potential for interference from oxidation.

For these two dispensers they are brewing two beers. One is an ANZAC beer, inspired not by sacrifices on foreign fields, but by anzac biscuits. It's brewed with oats and golden syrup and is hopped with a combination of Kiwi Motueka and Australian Galaxy hops.

The second is a thoroughly English-inspired pale ale but made with all New Zealand-grown ingredients. It has New Zealand grown Fuggles, Goldings and Styrian Goldings and Canterbury Gladfield Ale malt and has been given an extra long boil for flavour and colour. Like next week's witbier, it's still waiting for the humorous beer name generator to be rebooted.

Finally, the arrival of our new shipment from Oregon's Rogue means we can add their American Amber Ale to the lineup.

Sport on Telly

We've had a lot of fun showing many of the matches from the tournament we mustn't name in the bar. But we face the coming weekend with a slight sense of discomfort. Some of our favourite customers have loyalties to other sporting codes that happen to have quite important games coming up this weekend.

First there's the grand final of the AFL, which coincides with one or two rugby games. If our friend Steph can rouse enough people with similar tastes we'll have no choice but to give in to her wish and give this event priority. To this end she has enlisted the Australian High Commission, who called to lobby on her behalf just now. So we may just create a diplomatic incident if we don't give in.

Then on Sunday evening there's another grand final coming from Australia, this time in a sport we believe is known as "loigue". Again, if we sense that the will of those gathered is to give this game preference over the event we can't name, then so be it.

Snack Foods

We're quite excited about the latest addition to our range of snacks. Nuts and beer have gone together for a long time but we think we've found a pretty exceptional take on the humble nut to offer our customers. So from today cholesterol-free, protein-packed New Zealand-grown Chilli Macadamias are on the menu.

September 22, 2011

A New Tasting... Garage Projecture... More Pacific Beer Expo Info...

A New Tasting

Our own tasting programme has taken a back seat lately with Beervana and a certain event that we can't name confusing things. (In all seriousness we can't name it - we were "inspected" last Friday to make sure we had no signage naming the event that we were showing on our TVs!)

But around the end of this month a pretty special shipment from our favourite Norwegian brewery, Nøgne Ø, arrives and it deserves to be celebrated. Not only that, the event that we can't name has brought to Wellington Tokyo-based beer writer Tim Eustace. Tim was associated with Nøgne Ø long before they became the brewing legend they are now - he even came up with the name Dark Horizon for the brewery's legendary 17% Imperial Stout. So while he's in Wellington we're co-opting him to help present a run through our new supplies.

More details and bookings are at the Cult Beer Store.

And while we're on the subject of tastings, it's time we started dropping hints about an event in November. It will be another single-brewery tasting but the brewery will be a local one. It isn't one we've had a full tasting of before, but it is one of our most regular and popular suppliers.

Garage Projecture

The boys will be back with another experimental beer next week and it's another change of direction after Salt and Pepper Porter and Aro Noir.

Next week's beer is Hazel, Maple Mild. It's described as "a strong mild ale, infused with roast hazel nuts and secondary fermented with pure Maple syrup. The finished beer pours with a dense rich head and has a distinct nutty, toffee character."

We're rapt that the Garage Project continues to give everyone a reason to leave their jobs on a Tuesday evening.

More Pacific Beer Expo Info

It's many months since we first heard rumours that Renaissance Brewery had developed a barley wine. But the interval between the rumour and the fact has been excruciating. We believe this has been caused, at least in part, by a delay in the delivery of the 330ml black bottles that the beer is being packaged in. Luckily a month or so ago the brewery were good enough to let Hashigo Zake's staff sample a little, so we can vouch for the beer's quality.

So the beer that will be known as Tribute Barley Wine 2011 will finally be released on October 21st. While the Pacific Beer Expo won't be the official launch event, we think it's pretty fortuitous for all concerned that we can add it to our lineup the following day.

Since we're announcing the inclusion of a barley wine, maybe this is a good time to announce a beer in an even rarer style - Baird West Coast Wheat Wine 2011. This will be more of a preview of this beer, rather than a launch, as it isn't released in Japan until November.

Here are some of the already announced beers in the lineup:

• 8 Wired Double Brown
• Baird Kiwi Strong Pale Ale
• Feral Barrel Fermented Hop Hog
• Ballast Point Victory at Sea Coffee Vanilla Imperial Porter
• Yeastie Boys His Majesty 2011
• Rogue American Amber Ale
• Feral Boris Imperial Stout

So that's nine exceptional beers announced. There will be around twenty more, all of comparable quality and rarity.

As well as drip-feeding information about the beers available, we've been slow divulging other details about the festival. So here are a few more:

• Every attendee will receive a souvenir festival glass and eight starting tokens. Two of those tokens will only be redeemable for food. All other tokens can be exchanged for food or drinks.
• Drinks will be served in 100ml samples, costing a token each. Extra tokens cost $2.50 each.
• High quality, beer friendly food will be available. Every item on the food menu will cost either two or four tokens.
• Any unused tokens can be redeemed afterwards at Hashigo Zake for 80% of their original value.
• The festival's two sessions will have two halves. At the half way mark (4:30pm) the lineup of beers will change and a number of beers will be taken off and replaced. A few will be available throughout both halves. The programme will make it very clear what beers will be poured at each serving station and at what times.

Note that all beers will cost the same - no distinction is made for strength, style or country of origin. This is because we have faith that the beers being served are of a uniformly high quality.

September 15, 2011

Another Pacific Beer Expo Announcement... Garage Projectile... Closing Time... Excessive Phone Charges... Two Lagers... Cook Islands Beer... The Current Major Event...

Another Pacific Beer Expo Announcement

Following last week's thesis investigating why bookings for Saturday drastically outnumber those for Sunday, we were offered a deceptively simple alternative explanation. (Cheers Brent). Perhaps not everyone realises that the 22nd and 23rd of October are the Saturday and Sunday of Labour Weekend.

Any readers who were unaware of this detail of the New Zealand holiday calendar need not be embarrassed. Just go ahead and buy a ticket for both days.

Now for more details about the beer on offer over Labour weekend at the Boatshed:

• We can announce that after a far too long absence, fresh beer from legendary Oregon brewer Rogue is on its way. And so a keg of their American Amber Ale will join the fun.
• Joining the one previously announced Feral beer, we can add that we will include the one and only keg of Feral's Boris Imperial Stout currently on New Zealand soil.

And here's a reminder of some of the lineup that has already been announced:

• 8 Wired Double Brown
• Baird Kiwi Strong Pale Ale
• Feral Barrel Fermented Hop Hog
• Ballast Point Victory at Sea Coffee Vanilla Imperial Porter
• Yeastie Boys His Majesty 2011

Garage Projectile

Next week the boys are promising a full 40 litres of their next research brew. So we may even let people buy a large serving, although at 7.8% maybe a small serving will be more appropriate.

The beer is called Aro Noir - Dark Side of the Street. It's described as a pitch black, full bodied Stout, with a powerful malt base of English Pale Optic Malt, Dark Crystal, Roast Barley and Black Malts. The hop bill is all American with the citrus grapefruit character of Centennial and Cascade hops.

Jos added that it is definitely brewed on the dark side of the street, and it's entirely possible that their location on the north side of Aro St, at one of the Aro Valley's narrowest points, has the least direct sunshine of any address in Wellington.

Closing Time

Some of you (whom we won't name here) are uncannily attuned to when we open, but we don't often talk about when we close. We usually shrug it off by saying that our opening hours are "midday until late". Each night we close when our evening staff decide that there doesn't seem to be much point staying open any more (or when our liquor licence runs out at 3am, which is pretty unusual).

Occasionally this vagueness about closing time catches someone out and we have a disappointed would-be customer. Or maybe someone chooses not to come because they simply don't know whether we're still open.

So from now on we're adding a little more certainty to our opening (and closing hours). Here it is in a nutshell:

• We open daily at midday.
• From Sunday to Thursday we close no earlier than 11pm.
• On Friday and Saturday we close no earlier than 1am.

Implicit in the above is a commitment to stay open past those times where there is obvious demand.

Excessive Phone Charges

Occasionally Hashigo Zake's own staff find our phones running out of power and conduct a panicky search for an iPhone (or micro-USB) cable to plug into our laptop behind the bar. We've also had the occasional request from customers to charge their phones for them.

To make life easier for all of us we've invested dollars - honestly, several of them - in a universal phone charger that will stay plugged in at the bar for the use of staff and customers. It's at the end of the bar with the Mike's dispenser and hand pumps. It works with iPhones, phones with micro USB ports and a couple of others.

And fittingly this innovation comes just as the Dominion Post gave our free wifi a nice plug: http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/wellywood-or-what/5621682/Wellington-Unlocked-Free-Wi-Fi.

Two Lagers

We're not sure exactly how this happened, but we've somehow ended up with not one but two pale lagers on tap at once. Not only that - neither is from New Zealand. It could be decades before this happens again.

The beers in question are Green Flash Fizzy Yellow Beer and Waldhaus Diplom Pils. Perhaps the name Fizzy Yellow Beer was inspired by the slogan of Green Flash's neighbour, Stone Brewing.

If you take into account the presence on our taps of Golden Ticket's Emperor Strikes Black we currently have no fewer that three lagers on. Truly unprecedented.

Cook Islands Beer

We will have the beers of a brewery completely new to us on shortly. Matutu Brewery is based in the Cook Islands, and after extensive research spent on the beaches of Rarotonga we've been persuaded to pick up a couple of kegs of their Mai Lager. Look for it on tap during the next week.

The Current Major Event

As promised, we're showing every rugby match on two screens, but you can stay blissfully oblivious in the lounge. For anyone wondering whether we've been swamped by hordes of unnecessarily-friendly, blokish rugby fans, be not afraid! If anything the evenings of matches have been relatively quiet, while we've had some good natured, multi-national groups taking in the afternoon matches.

During last Friday's match between the All Blacks and Tonga we experimented with streaming the celebrated "Alternative Rugby Commentary" through our speakers. As amusing as this commentary was, it was out of sync with the pictures and lacked any of the sounds we expect with a rugby game (crowd noise, Wayne Barnes's thoughtful adjudications). So we'll hold back before putting it on again and invite customers to give their opinion on their preferred soundtrack for certain games.

September 8, 2011

More Pacific Beer Expo Announcements... Two and a bit Years... The Tournament We Dare Not Name... The Big City We Dare Not Mention... Garage Projection... Correction...

More Pacific Beer Expo Announcements

Tickets are selling particularly fast for the Saturday session of the Pacific Beer Expo. There are a couple of theories attempting to explain this.
One is that many of you want to leave the Sunday free to watch the final of the rugby tournament that it isn't safe for us to name. The festival will finish at 7pm, a full two hours before that rugby game. We specifically wanted to give people time to get comfortable in a nearby tavern, go home or completely ignore it.
Another theory is that some people are afraid that certain rare beers in our lineup will be emptied on the first day. Here's why this won't happen. (1) We believe the overall quality of the beers on offer will be so consistently high that few if any beers will be "singled out" and quickly drunk. (2) In the event of that happening we will take steps (including weighing kegs if necessary) to ensure that no more than half of the supply of any one beer is consumed on the first day. Actually, at the rate tickets are selling the smart option is to come on the second day where there may be less competition for the same supply.
We can also give some more information about what exactly is going to be on offer. Here are a few specifics:

• 8 Wired Double Brown - an Imperial Rewired with a touch of Coffee.
• Baird Kiwi Strong Pale Ale - another manifestation of Baird Brewing's liking for New Zealand hops.
• Feral Barrel Fermented Hop Hog.
• Ballast Point Victory at Sea Coffee Vanilla Imperial Porter - the final keg of the 2010 vintage.

Already announced:

• Yeastie Boys His Majesty 2011

(All predictions about what actual beers will be served at the Pacific Beer Expo are made in good faith and with the best information available at the time. However we cannot guarantee that every beer announced will make it on the day.)

Two and a bit Years

We've been celebrating two years of business this week.
Over the last few days then we've received some very articulate and considerate messages from suppliers and customers. We are lucky as a business to have your support.
Thanks also to Gavin and everyone at The Hop Garden, where our staff celebrated the birthday with some memorable food and drink. Likewise thanks are due to Hayley, Dylan and Denise who made it possible for everyone to get the same night off.

The Tournament We Dare Not Name

By the time you read this the event that may or may not be the biggest thing to ever happen in New Zealand is as good as under way. Now since this email is promoting a commercial activity and we aren't an official sponsor of the event in question, it may be a crime under MEMA for us to name the event. (But it wouldn't be a crime for a hotel to charge $1500 for a room on the night of the final - go figure.) And the odd rugby-sceptic among you might like us to take that as a hint that we should ignore it altogether.
But the fact is that the ability to appreciate good drinks can be found in rugby followers as well as rugby sceptics, and it may even be found in foreign rugby supporters. So as with many major sporting events we are happy to be the thinking supporter's option for a welcoming tavern.
We're confident that our targeted advertising will attract a subset of visiting supporters that is completely compatible with our normal clientele. We want you, our valued, regular customers to feel no need to deviate from your usual pattern of patronage.
So our usual goals with respect to sport apply:

• If you want to remain oblivious you can - we still aren't putting a screen in the lounge.
• We'll put live games on one or both of our high def TVs if there's support for it.
• If there isn't a meaningful game to watch, we'll turn the TVs off, although we will consider sincere requests to show replays of games.

But our goodwill to visiting supporters doesn't end there. From Saturday and every day until October 10 we're running an afternoon tasting letting visitors get to know New Zealand craft beer. The samples will be judicously picked from our range, the guidance will be as well-informed and witty as our staff can come up with and there will be some brief notes for everyone to take away.
So when your out of town guests start to stink like fish after three days send them down to us. The vital details are: bookings not needed, start time 3pm, price $25.
But it doesn't stop there. We know that certain good friends of Hashigo Zake will be spending some quality time in Wellington in the week leading up to the quarter finals on October 8 and 9. To help entertain them we're organising a guided trip to southern Wairarapa for a day on October 3. Food, wine and probably other beverages will feature. More details will follow, but feel free to reply to this email to register interest.

The City We Dare Not Mention

We in Wellington like to be ever so slightly patronising about Auckland, our (only numerically and geographically) bigger city. But this week the marketing and sales wing of Hashigo Zake Corporation descended on Auckland in a bid to raise the quality of the imported craft beer available. Our findings may surprise you.
Oases of craft beer exist but are better disguised than we're used to. For instance, who'd have thought that the Liquorland chain would be dotted with pockets of resistance to blandness at places like Newmarket and Forrest Hill? Check out these two shelves at Newmarket Liquorland, packed with high quality imports to back up a fine range of local craft beer.
This week Mt Eden's Village Winery joins the family of enlightened outlets stocking some of the same imports that Hashigo Zake's regulars enjoy. One of the nicest surprises must be the French wine bar and bistro called Winehot which is a stone's throw from Eden Park but will be serving infinitely better beer than what will be on offer at any world cup matches. But the last word in beer in Auckland remains Galbraith's Alehouse and its great to see their legendary lineup augmented by the occasional Californian gem.

Garage Projection

The boys at Garage Project are well ahead of schedule in their quest to develop 24 unique beers in 24 weeks. So they've been threatening to take a week off. But NOT YET! Another beer is ready and it's Salt and Pepper Porter. In their own words: A full bodied, robust porter, seasoned with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper to the boil to give a sense of body and fullness to the palate with a restrained fuggle hop character.
Now as if brewing in tiny batches wasn't making the point, this week's beer is another of the Garage Project's extra tiny batches. It will be available in small servings only and we make no commitments about how many minutes from 5pm on Tuesday it will be available for.

Correction

Last week, while attempting to lecture Moa Brewing about the wrongs of their marketing methods, an over-zealous spell-checker inexplicably turned our description of Hansie Cronje from being "deceased" to "diseased". We apologise for that error. If only Moa would apologise too. (For the record, they issued what has been described as a "non-pology".)

September 1, 2011

Our Birthday... Moa... Beer Highlights... Garage Projectory... The Pacific Beer Expo News...

Our Birthday

A year ago the one year mark really felt like something to crow about. It even moved some of our most faithful customers and supporters to confide that they had never expected us to survive a year.

But what a difference another year makes. Between our first and second birthdays no fewer than five bars have opened in central Wellington that promote themselves on being specialist, independent beer outlets. Anyone would think that we at Hashigo Zake have been getting rich.

So while reaching the two year mark is a really big deal to us, we don't assume that everyone else thinks so. What's more, next week is somewhat overloaded with the launch on Friday of an event that we've all been obsessing about (in our own ways) for several years, and anyone would be nuts to try and compete with the New Zealand v Tonga match for drinkers' attention.

So we'll mark two years of doing what we do in two simple ways. Firstly we hereby humbly and sincerely thank everyone whose moral and material support has kept us thriving for two years.

Secondly we'll serve a special Birthday Brownie to the first 150 people who come down to the bar next Tuesday evening. This will coincide with next week's Garage Project release.

Moa

Ah Moa... such good beer, such an objectionable marketing strategy.

For those who haven't heard, Moa launched another advertising campaign recently, picking out another group guaranteed to have defenders who would take the bait. This time it was bribe-taking Pakistani cricketers. To be fair, more Pakistani cricketers have been caught taking bribes to change events on the field than any other country's cricketers, and picking on the world's most notorious match fixer, a deceased, white South African, well that really would have been in bad taste.

But the justification behind Moa's leg-pulling isn't the point. What we object to is the repeated, cynical use of the easily offended to get additional, free publicity.

So rather than get involved in a tedious round of complaining and name-calling on the web, which simply gives them the publicity they're seeking, we're just going to stop selling Moa for a day or two. Next time it will be for a bit longer.

Beery Highlights

Regular readers might have noticed that we struggle sometimes to give good notice in this email of upcoming tap beers. The fact is that two years on we have a greater variety of sources of tap beer than ever before. We also have offsite refrigerated warehouse space at which we've built up a private supply of goodies that could keep an army of beer-geeks satisfied for months. Not that beer-geeks would ever take up arms.

So even we are struggling to keep tabs on the variety we can call on.

One of those ever growing sources is the importing company Malz & Hopfen Ltd, run by regular customer Dave Waugh. Last night we put on the first keg to come to us through him. It's the Waldhaus brewery's Schwarzwald Weiss. As much as we love the freshness and sheer intensity of some of the local wheat beers, it makes a great change to experience the balance and subtlety of an authentic German weizen. It's on tap right now.

Other noteworthy tap beers coming on soon include:

• ParrotDog's second beer - BitterBitch IPA. This is the full blown IPA that they intended to make initially, but for reasons the Matts can explain one day a slightly different beer came out first time round.
• Feral's Hop Hog IPA - this is probably the beer that wins most customers over to West Australia's Feral Brewery. If you thought last weekend's Karma Citra was good, we expect you to be even more impressed with this.

Garage Projectory

Details of next week's instalment just came in on the telex. The scary news is that just as each week's beer sells out progressively faster, next week's is to come in an ever smaller quantity than usual. So we'll probably be forced to restrict the pour size for this release.

It's called Red Rocks. It's described by Pete as a rich ruby red ale with a nice caramel malt body, steeped with what was probably an excessive amount of whole cone sauvin.

It will be available at 5pm on Tuesday and for several minutes afterwards.

The Pacific Beer Expo

This week we have two pieces of substantial news to reveal about the Pacific Beer Expo.

First of all tickets go on sale at around about the time that most of you receive this email. At the time of writing they are in an armoured van being transported from our printer's secret location to Hashigo Zake. They should be on sale in the bar by 5pm. Interestingly we had our first customer asking for tickets bang on opening time at midday, today. Perhaps demand will be high...

They are also on sale on our web store here.

The price is $40, although we are charging a little extra on the web store to cover transaction charges that we pay our web host.

One of the very bright people assisting us with the festival made a last minute suggestion regarding ticket sales as well. For an extra $35 we will throw in a festival t-shirt. This will represent a $5 discount. These shirts haven't been printed yet, but we'll post them later to mail order customers or hold them for customers here at the bar. The design will incorporate the main features of the poster, which you can see here.

Secondly we can announce that Yeastie Boys will release His Majesty 2011 at the festival. This year's release is described as a Burton IPA - it uses pale English malts, East Kent Golding and Fuggle hops, a characterful yeast and "burton-ised" water to emulate a traditional Burton-on-Trent IPA. It should contrast nicely with the Californian hop-bombs that will be available alongside it.