Phew
What a strange few days it has been. After the extremely enjoyable Day of the Dead releases and celebrations late last week, Tuesday brought the bombshell of the sale of Emerson's and we got in something of a debate by press release, blog post and radio interview. Still on Tuesday we launched two chilli beers then yesterday we hosted some of our busiest mid-week trade ever thanks to the US election.
There has been an awful lot said in a short time about the Emerson's sale, so for now we'll just repeat the gist of our stance. That is that Emerson's new owners are a brewing company whose products we decline to stock as a matter of policy. Emerson's investors deserve congratulations and thanks for twenty years of magnificent, pioneering work for which they will now, finally, receive financial reward.
But from our point of view, and unlike the sale of Emerson's, yesterday's presidential election was a victory for good beer. Our take on White House Honey Porter, brewed on Garage Project's pilot system by our own Dave and Dylan, turned out to be actually quite nice. It's a pity it ran out so quickly. And a home brewer (yes, that's a stretch) was returned to the White House.
New Release Tuesday
After two chilli beers from the Pacific Rim next week's new release also features unconventional adjuncts, but comes from Scandinavia. Yes it's another new Nøgne Ø beer with a pretty intriguing name and description. It's called Citrus Hystrix, which happens to be the botanic name for Kaffir Lime, which is in the beer in some form, along with tangerine juice, rye and oats. It's categorised as an IPA, but since we haven't tried it yet ourselves we can't add much more. But reviews on ratebeer are promising and we're looking forward to this a lot.
Nøgne Ø Citrus Hystrix IPA goes on tap for the first time on Tuesday at 5pm.
Saturday Night Gig
The Kirsten Te Rito Trio bring funk back to our lounge this Saturday night from 10pm. As always admission is rounded down to $0.
On Tap Now or Soon
Our lineup is changing as frequently and unpredictably as ever right now, as we juggle special releases (like yesterday's election beer), Tuesday releases and a handful of remaining luxury leftovers from the Pacific Beer Expo. Even on a Thursday it's risky to try and predict what will be on tap on Friday night.
But we'll give one beer a fanfare, although it may not get on tap until next week. It's a new beer from Liberty called Extra Pale Ale. It's designed as a hoppy but very light and easy drinking pale ale. Joe is confident that it will be a hit over the, ahem, "warmer" months. It's packed with Amarillo hops and for many of us the Amarillo version of his West Coast Blond beers of the last couple of summers was the pick of that series.
Some Upcoming Dates
Tuatara's American Pale Ale has always been incredibly popular with our customers and it's about to become available again. In fact we're talking to the brewery about hosting a (re-)launch of the beer in the near future. Stay tuned for more details.
The 2012 Santa Session will take place on Tuesday December 4. We aren't taking bookings yet - all going well we'll open bookings at the same time that next week's email goes out. The format will be more or less the same as the previous two years. We'll bring in lots of the slower moving products from our warehouse, work through them one or two beers at a time and pour liberal samples to all those taking part. We promise extremely good value for money, particularly for SOBA members whose tickets will be discounted.
This very day Liberty's Joe Wood is brewing a new, high-gravity beer that he plans to release in several bars simultaneously on December the 12th - or 12.12.12.
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