January 17, 2013

The Envelope Please... Moon Dog Brewer Visiting... We're On The Road... Anniversary Weekend... Rye Chai IPA... Myele Manzanza... Fringe Fest...

The Envelope Please

The votes are in - 40% more of them than last year - the tabulations are complete, and we can announce the results of our survey of what our customers thought was good in 2012. If you support Wellington breweries - and Garage Project, Yeastie Boys or Tuatara in particular - the news is pretty good. Ditto if you're a fan of Taranaki's (and Wellington's via the Hurricanes catchment) Liberty. And as we explain here, the dominance of Wellington breweries in this survey is a new phenomenon.

Rather than paste in all three pages of results here, we encourage readers to follow the link and take in these results at your leisure.

Moon Dog Brewer Visiting

This week we put our first ever Moon Dog beer on tap and the adventurous of you might have noticed some of their provocative bottle labels staring out at you from the fridges. We're actually bringing in Moon Dog beer in sufficient quantities to share with other outlets and to support this effort, brewer Josh Uljans is making a flying visit to Wellington in just over two weeks.

So on Saturday Feb 2 Josh will be on hand to pour one or two servings of their strong lager (or Imperial Pilsner?) Love Tap, kiss babies and, above all, answer whatever questions our valued customers might have regarding their unconventional range of beers. Exact start time is t.b.c, but assume early evening.

We're On The Road

As hinted at above, Hashigo Zake's business interests do go slightly beyond the four walls of 25 Taranaki St. A couple of examples are coming up.

Firstly, a week today, on Thursday January 24th, we're supplying a number of beers to Brothers Beer in Auckland - a new craft beer takeaway, rigger filling station and bar, set in a former council workshop in central Auckland - for their US tap takeover. If you have Auckland friends who love intensely favoured beers but rarely get to try them, feel free to suggest a visit to next Thursday's US Tap Takeover at Brothers.

Next month we're returning to Christchurch's Great Kiwi Beer Festival with a truck full of beer to run the "World of Beer Marquee". Again the beers we'll be taking will generally be familiar to Hashigo Zake regulars, but this will be a once-a-year opportunity for Cantabrians to drink like Wellingtonians. Feel free to fire up your South Island friends with talk of how lucky they're going to be if they make it along to Hagley Park on Feb 23.

Anniversary Weekend

Meanwhile, back in downtown Wellington, we have our own anniversary day to celebrate. And our way to do this is to look inwards and celebrate the spectacular flowering of the Wellington brewing industry. So from 5pm tomorrow Friday until the close of business on Monday our taps are pouring Wellington beer only.

We promise that you'll be as pleased as we were at how easy it is to come up with a range of beer with all the variety and quality we demand.

Rye Chai IPA

Is 2013 the year of Rye? We're suddenly seeing plenty of impressive beers with high proportions of rye malt. Or will 2013 be the year the brewers run out of patience with rye and refuse to ever use it again?

Next week's new release is Garage Project's Rye Chai IPA. Made, as it is, with Northern Brewer, Amarillo and Simcoe hops and a percentage or rye malt, there are a few similarities with a recent De Molen release. But this beer also has tea and chai spices including cardamom, cinnamon and clove. It will be on tap from 5pm on Tuesday.

Myele Manzanza

This Saturday's music comes from Myele Manzanza. This is probably the first time that our musical lineup has been led by a drummer, potentially making this an interesting test of our relationship with Zibibbo upstairs. But we have great expectations.

As always, the tariff-free entertainment starts at 10pm.

Fringe Fest

Marketing for this year's Wellington Fringe Festival is well underway. For the first time ever we're hosting a Fringe show in the form of Adam Page's collaboration with comedian James Nokise.

Bear Empire

Bear Empire is a new Auckland brewery with (so far) very limited output. We've been lucky enough to get the first kegs to reach Wellington of their Guerilla Black IPA and Sabateur Red Pilsner. They'll be on soon, either just before or just after our weekend of Wellington beer.

January 10, 2013

Faux Controversy

Last weekend 20 people took part in an unusual tasting here at Hashigo Zake. The theme was “faux craft” beers. The idea was to put the claims of the makers of faux craft beer and the prejudices of many of us involved to the test, by serving them blind alongside recognised and award-winning examples of their respective samples. A write-up of the event is here.

Now the organisers of this tasting also happen to run Craft Beer College, and we understand that the tasting is going to be repeated (with refinements based on participants’ feedback), possibly on February 16, and be open to Craft Beer College’s customers to join in. We encourage anyone curious about the relationship between beers known as “craft” and beers knows as “faux craft” to get involved. But be warned that you may run the risk of being labelled “pious”, “elitist”, “unhinged” or simply a “wanker”.

Santa Session Hangover

Back in December our attempt to add a little extra gloss to the Santa Session by getting commemorative glassware made was undone by a slow turnaround with the etching. But they did eventually get here, so if there are any Santa Session participants who'd like the souvenir glass that they never drank from, please come on down and ask.

Moon Dog Launch

Last week we foreshadowed the arrival of beer from the radical Melbourne brewery Moon Dog. After a delay getting to us from the port we're assured that they'll be here by Tuesday. Which makes Moon Dog Dasher's Envy the ideal new release for next Tuesday. It will be on tap from 5pm and we may have some of their bottled range in the fridge by then as well.

Dasher's Envy is a Christmas beer. According to website The Crafty Pint it's "a dark ruddy brown ale with a thick, treacly body, the spices are of the cakey variety and the aromas darkly sweet and fruity with a spot of what appears to be marzipan thrown in too."

We also have Moon Dog's Love Tap in a keg, but we'll wait to put that on because brewer Josh Uljans has pencilled in a trip to Wellington later this month. If and when that happens we've a feeling that some of you will have questions for him.

Survey Time

We announced this year's annual survey last Thursday and within a couple of days had as many responses as last year. This is great news but we'll resist the temptation to close the survey early and crack on with the analysis. Instead we'll close it next Wednesday and announce the findings on Thursday.

A glance at the responses in so far suggests that there are some definite changes in our customers' perceptions of what has been good, so we're all going to have fun picking over the results.

Anyone who wants to add their $0.02 worth should follow this link forthwith.

Gypsy Jazz

Gypsy Jazz returns to our lounge this Saturday night in the form of youthful local practitioners Black Spider Stomp. No change in venue (our lounge), start time (10pm) or cover charge (nil).

More Belated Christmas News

Every second item today seems to refer back to the season of selective goodwill. Here's another. Many of you will remember the fuss we made just before Christmas over Garage Project's The Chosen Few - the white truffle infused Belgian ale. We've heard that the funds raised from the sale of just 20L of the beer amounted to a very reasonable $930. And we're assured that this contribution made a big difference to the organisers of Aro Valley's "Room At The Inn" Christmas Dinner - wherein disadvantaged or housebound people got a decent feed. And not a peep from talkback radio! Back pats all round.

Finally, don't forget that we plan to come over all local on Wellington Anniversary Weekend and serve only Wellington beer. That's Jan 18-21.

January 3, 2013

Happy New Year... The Best of 2012... Single Hop IPAs... Music this Saturday... New Release Tuesday... Victory at Sea... Wellington Anniversary Weekend...

Happy New Year

Welcome back, all of.. well.. some of you. We wish our customers all the best for 2013. We also thank those of you who stayed in Wellington over the Christmas and New Year period and made it worth our while staying open. We'd also like to thank all the Wellington hospitality businesses who helped us by either closing or applying surcharges.

Our Best of 2012 Survey

The observant among you would have noticed that it's now 2013, so it's now a sensible time to reflect on 2012. We've had a lot of fun with our survey over the last two years, it's time we rolled out this year's version.

Little has changed. There are one or two more questions. And this time every multiple choice answer allows you to write in an alternative. We'll keep an eye on any of these and will add any (sensible) alternative answers back in as options for future respondents.

Anyone who wants to be influenced by last year's results can check them out at http://hashigozake.co.nz/2011survey.pdf.

You may take the survey here. We'll keep it open for a week or two and announce the results at a glittering, $200-a-head awards dinner later in the month.

Single Hop IPAs

One of Mikkeller's recurring experiments is the Single Hop IPA series. In the past we've been able to showcase a number of these and we recently received a load of kegs from the latest round of parallel single-hop brewing. It's going to be an education for many of us, with varieties like Galena, Super-Galena, Mt Hood and Cluster plus a few old favourites like, Citra, Amarillo, Cascade and.. ahem.. Sorachi Ace.

For those unfamiliar with Mikkeller's Single Hop series, these are IPAs brewed with recipes that vary only in the single hop variety that each one uses. They're all 6.8%, and usually delicious - unless the hop used is a "problematic" one.

Super-Galena is waiting in the wings and we'll be working through them steadily after that.

Music This Saturday

We decided not to interrupt our programme of live music over this period and we're pretty pleased with the result. It has kept Saturday nights (and New Year's Eve) humming at a time of year when supposedly you're all out of town.

This Saturday it's the return of Neil Billington, this time with his own blues band, which includes some pretty familiar names. The Chicago blues start at 10pm.

New Release Tuesday

After last week's Mikkeller two punch, we're sticking with a European brewer and launching what should be a flavour bomb from De Molen. It's their Rye Amarillo/Cascade IPA. After a succession of big De Molen beers packed with coffee, malt or both, an American hopped rye IPA at a mere 6.6% ABV will seem like light relief. But we've got a feeling this won't lack for flavour.

As usual the new release gets newly released at 5pm on Tuesday.

Victory at Sea

We've just had word that our first new consignment of Ballast Point Victory at Sea in two years is somewhere in the Wellington metropolitan area. It's likely that we'll have it available in bottles by the weekend and maybe even on tap soon.

For the uninitiated, Victory at Sea is a 10% ABV Imperial Porter flavoured with coffee and vanilla. It was wildly popular last time we got it in and we understand that it was the inspiration for Mike's brewery's recent (very good) Coffee Vanilla Porter. This time we've got more than the staff can drink on their own and hope to see it get out to plenty of other outlets.

Wellington Anniversary Weekend

Anniversary day is just a few weeks away. As a parochially Wellington-based business we're keen to celebrate our city's birthday. So over Anniversary Weekend we'll be dedicating all our taps to Wellington-brewed beer.

Even a year ago this would have been an awkward thing to attempt and would have required a lot of cooperation from the breweries to make sure we had enough volume and variety of beer. This year we look forward to not only having great local beer occupy the taps for more than three days, we'll have no trouble sticking to our usual practice of steady rotation.

The Wellington Anniversary Tap Insurgency will start on the evening of Friday, January 18 and continue through until the end of Wellington Anniversary Day, January 21.

December 27, 2012

Music This Saturday... New Year's Eve... New Release Tuesday...

Music This Saturday

As a central city, underground bar we choose to deny the need for New Zealand's traditional summer shutdown and urban evacuation. And so it's very much business as usual here, right down to our weekly institutions including this Saturday night's musical slot. This week it's taken by Darren Watson's Underground Blues Band. If you've ever wanted to take in one of Darren's gigs but were perhaps discouraged by their sheer popularity, this Saturday may be your best chance to find a comfortable pozzy, cradle a nice sipping beer and take in the glory of authentic blues played in a subterranean environment.

The doity old blues played filthily (Darren's words) start at 10pm.

New Year's Eve

Having been in business a few years now, we can look back at our own records and tell a little about how our customers behave when certain annual events roll around. And we have definitely learned that for our customers an increment to the portion of the date denoting the year has about the same significance as a typical Saturday night. Which is fitting since both occasions are equally predictable and momentous, even if one happens 52 times more frequently.

So this year we're treating December 31 (next Monday) quite a lot like a Saturday night - we'll get ready to serve a few more rum and cokes and pinot gris and we'll have musical support from the Nick Granville Trio from 10pm, at no charge. And we expect, in fact we promise, a lot less mayhem and carnage than you'll see on Courtenay Place.

New Release Tuesday

Another institution carries on serenely over the New Year period. New Release Tuesday will be back on New Year's Day with a Mikkeller two punch in the form of Hop Burn High and Hop Burn Low. These are top and bottom fermented versions of what are otherwise identical beers. The wort for both is essentially that of an Imperial IPA. And they both come through at a nice round 10% ABV. Fortunately the 2nd of Jan is also a holiday.

They'll both go on tap at 5pm on New Year's Day. Or perhaps, since few if any of you will be coming from a day job, we'll flick the switch earlier in the day.

December 20, 2012

Business as Usual... The End of Time... Two New IPAs... Upcoming Music... IP Watch - Enduring Freedom Edition...

Business as Usual

At the risk of boring regular readers, we'd like to emphasise once again how little will change for us over the next few days. We have no choice but to close on Christmas Day (starting from 11:30pm the night before) but will be trading as usual from Boxing Day until Good Friday next year. Our Saturday gigs in the lounge won't stop and there will even be an extra New Years Eve show (see below). And we'll apply none of those annoying holiday surcharges.

The only component of our regular offering to suffer will be New Release Tuesday. With Christmas Day a Tuesday it would just seem wrong to have it a day late or early during a period when many of our regular customers are away, so New Release Tuesday will have its first hiatus since it started as an institution earlier this year. But it will be back on New Year's Day.

Strange as it may seem this email will be back next week. It's hard to tell what we'll have to say and it's unclear whether anyone will be reading it, going by those terribly useful out-of-office replies you send back to us. You know, the ones detailing everywhere you're going and what awards you've won lately. Oops - no that's just Luke Nicholas.

The End of Time

Joseph Wood has been talking up La Fin du Temps, his Mayan-doomsday beer, on the social networks. On facebook today he wrote:

...Brewing the beer was a labour of love. For the best part, I absolutely do not enjoy using whole flowers in my brewing system. Regardless, I had a fairly generous 10 grams per litre of the whole flowers throughout the boil and in the hopback. Then the yeast… well, let’s just say that at 1.091… you need a LOT of yeast to ferment the wort....

...I am extremely proud of this beer. When a brewery is known for its ability to produce big hoppy beers, and big malty beers it can be a struggle to break the mould and attempt something different. I would describe this beer as an imperial Saison… but please don’t let the style connotations guide your experience.

The full text is at Liberty Brewing's facebook page.

It's our habit to put new releases on at 5pm. We could wait until 7:30pm and make a little extra income by making everyone buy other drinks first, but who would be that cynical?

But tomorrow we suspect a lot of you will be drifting home from your jobs a little earlier than usual, so we'll aim to get this beer on nice and early in the afternoon (subject to it being delivered from our warehouse nice and early).

Two New IPAs

Last week we described Ryefix IPA, a collaboration between Australia's Northdown and Denmark's Beer Here, brewed at Invercargill and being sold by us. It's proven to be a pretty rich, tasty IPA and we've already been through a keg over the last two nights. It's available in bottles right now and will be back on tap in the near future.

Also out in time for Christmas is ParrotDog's new American IPA that they're calling PitBull. It seemed a pretty apt name even before the Matts set about intellectualising it:

How quickly and easily America forgets its heroes. Owned by three American presidents and given the highest military honours of any other breed, the American Pit Bull Terrier is a very misunderstood dog. It was even used as America’s canine military mascot during the First World War. However, it’s own extreme power and aggressiveness – which ultimately led to its much less-than-favourable status in today’s society – cannot be underestimated.

And neither can this beer. PitBull has a huge, pungent American-hopped aroma that leaps out of an equally sized rich, golden malt base. The finish is very bitter. This is our most aggressive beer yet in terms of malt, hop and alcohol levels – you've been warned!

Pitbull, which is a limited release, will be on tap very soon.

Upcoming Music

Popular blues band The Nick Granville Trio return this Saturday and will also be back for an extra performance on New Years Eve. And the equally popular Darren Watson will be back with his Underground Blues Band on Saturday the 29th.

IP Watch - Enduring Freedom Edition

Our regular updates from IPONZ regarding trademark activity have had surprisingly few shockers in the last week or two. What has been interesting is a sudden rush by a few brewers that we actually respect to trademark some of their well known and original beer names.

So we're casting a slightly wider net to bring in a shocking misuse of a term we like. Following a tip-off from Hugh of Hopscotch in Auckland we've learned that there's a bar in Ponsonby called Freeman and Grey whose beer taps are 100% controlled by Lion Nathan but are calling themselves a "freehouse". Hugh has taken it up with the Commerce Commission. We wish him luck. Next thing Lion Nathan will be opening their own chain of "Cult Beer Bars". Today's nonsense suggestion is tomorrow's business plan.

December 13, 2012

Immediately below Beer Decadence... The End of Time... Rye IPA... Music This Saturday...

Beer Decadence

As foreshadowed in last week's email, next Tuesday Garage Project will unveil what might be the most extravagant beer ever made commercially in New Zealand. The story began when Boundary Road mailed five dollar notes to 22,000 people and Garage Project invited recipients to donate them to a "fermenter fund". The amount raised wasn't quite enough to fund any serious stainless steel purchases, so instead it was used to fund the purchase of the most expensive ingredients possible for a beer.

The result is a Belgian Blonde Ale fermented with a Champagne Yeast, and conditioned on White Truffle infused Honey and fresh grated White Truffles. And we'll be launching this affront to brewing's blue collar roots on Tuesday at 5pm.

The End of Time

Plenty of people seem to have been conflating the alleged Mayan prediction of the end of the world (scheduled for 21/12/2012) with the numerically quaint date of 12/12/12. So really, anyone celebrating having survived yesterday is in danger of looking pretty silly in eight days time.

But for many the question is not "will the world end next Friday?" but "how will we survive?". Yes apparently the end of the world is somehow survivable. Just as well because there's not much point flogging Let's Get Ready to Rapture coffee mugs if you aren't around to spend the proceeds.

But as even the Decembertwentyfirstists admit, they aren't quite sure how the end will come, so it's hard to see what measure will really see any of us through. In other words, we guarantee that the survival strategy we are about to give is as effective as any and every other one.

That strategy is to come along next Friday and inoculate yourself against the end by drinking Liberty Brewing's La Fin du Temps (incorrectly called La Fin du Monde last week) which is an experimental, small batch, strong Saison. Then when you wake up on the morning of December 22 try to remember that we're something like eighteen hours ahead of Mayan daylight time.

Rye IPA

A month or so ago we were visited by Adam Betts of Melbourne distributor Northdown and Christian Skovdal Andersen of Danish brewing company Beer Here. They were on something of a tour, mixing white water rafting with some white-knuckle brewing at Tuatara and Croucher, that we believe will result in some collaborative releases in the near future.

They also visited Invercargill Brewery to make a Rye IPA hopped only with Australian "Ella" hops. The resulting beer is Ryefix IPA. At the time of writing kegs and bottles of this beer are on their way north to us and in a day or so we'll be rushing this onto our shelves, taps and to our wholesale customers.

Incidentally Ella hops were once known as "Stella" (just as a slightly better known Australian hop is called Galaxy) until an objection from whichever corporate entity now owns the Stella Artois. No we're not making this up.

Music This Saturday

We host a new musical act this Saturday, just in case there was a danger that some of our regular acts became too much of a good thing. They're Scarlet, a two piece jazz and soul combo. They're on at 10pm on Saturday with the now traditional $0 cover charge.

And just quietly, the 2013 Fringe Festival programme came out yesterday, and there's a small development in our role as a performance venue.

Finally, and still on the subject of live music, Hashigo Zake's management mourns the recent tragic death of the unique performer and uncannily nice Wellingtonian, Steve Andrews.

December 6, 2012

Beer Decadence... More Beer Decadence... Tropical Beer... Music This Week... Christmas Rituals... Something Free!...

Beer Decadence

Way back in late 2011 a certain company specialising in the production of RTDs and green bottle beer that we'll call erm... "Independent" launched a beer brand that we'll call ahm... "Boundary Road". As part of an early brand-building exercise they enlisted volunteer tasters who would later receive a letter with a $5 note paperclipped to it, a little like this.

Many of us were puzzled by this practice of signing up members of the public then just sending out five bucks as reward - an amount that on its own was token but if done 22,000 times dwarfs the annual advertising budget of most of New Zealand's craft breweries. Since Boundary Road didn't seem to need to the cash, Garage Project invited recipients to donate their Hillaries to a Garage Project "fermenter fund".

Now the eventual use that the collected monies were put to will be explained next week. But in the meantime Garage Project invites those who passed on their Boundary Road notes to remind us who you are by getting in touch (replying to this email will do). And maybe leave a little of the evening of December 18 free.

More Beer Decadence

Allegedly the Mayan calendar ends next Friday (December 21) and the world's going to explode. Liberty Brewing have taken this little understood threat seriously and are inviting us to accept the planet's fate and drink a beer fit for the end of the world. Although going by reports from New Plymouth this beer's yeast doesn't appreciate the urgency of the situation and is taking longer than expected to ferment out. But Joe is confident that by Friday December 21 his La Fin du Temps strong saison will be ready to drink.

Now for many of you the 21st will be your last day of work for 2012. (Perhaps it was the upheaval that would be caused by the sudden departure of most of New Zealand's workforce on December 21st that clouded the view of the future for the Mayans, inadvertently triggering today's confusion.) It seems a perfect circumstance for a radical, big new beer from the extraordinary Liberty brewery.

Tropical Beer

Our next Tuesday New Release is another from Singapore's Jungle Beer. In Singapore's climate it seems their fruit-infused wheat beers are enormously popular, to the extent that there are several variants. And international visitors frequently comment on how Singapore-like Wellington's early summer is. Tragically we missed out on the durian-flavoured beer, but we did pick up a couple of others, including this week's new release - Tropical Wheat - Pink Guava and Soursop.

Now before anyone thinks we've sold out and are stocking beer-flavoured alcopops in the style of Stone's notorious (and fictional) Extreme Lemony-Lime, there's another side to this beer. It turns out that Soursop is something of a wonder-fruit with cancer-curing powers. We look forward to demand for this beer resembling the great 1999 mussel-rush.

And speaking of beers perfect for the Wellington, ahem, summer, it was about a year ago that a visit by Nøgne Ø's Kjetil led to the release of Summer Sommer, an attempt by him and Garage Project to create a southern hemisphere Christmas beer, using rye malt and pohutakawa honey. For a tiny batch of beer it over-achieved, picking up a trophy for Best Speciality beer at the Australian International Beer Awards earlier this year. There was even a video made.

Next week Garage Project release the first large batch of Summer Sommer. We look forward to putting it on tap, and if pieces fall into place it may back up our fruity, wheaty friend in Tuesday's new release slot.

Incidentally there are hopes that a batch of Summer Sommer will be brewed at Nøgne Ø some time in 2013.

Music This Week

On Saturday night The X-Ray Catz return to mine the mineral-rich ground beneath the meeting point of rock and roll, rockabilly and swing.

We'd like to offer discounted admission to people with dancing shoes, but there's no charge to start with. From 10pm.

End of Year Rituals

This will be our business's fourth Christmas & New Year period since opening and over the years our attitude to the holiday season hasn't changed. And that is that our duty is to maintain as consistent a service as possible for our regular customers. So apart from Christmas Day, when we're legally required to stay closed, we'll be opening as usual at noon every day. And we will not apply any of those annoying holiday surcharges.

Experience tells us that new year revelry and quality beer don't necessarily go hand in hand and we've learned not to expect New Year's Eve to be a big night for us. Nevertheless we owe it to our customers to provide an alternative to whatever it is you call what goes on in your average Courtenay Place establishment. So we will have live music on New Year's Eve from the Nick Granville Trio.

Our annual survey, which we believe leads to the most reliable and considered report on what's good in New Zealand craft brewing, will be back very early in the new year. (Because no-one would be stupid enough to choose Best Of 2012 awards before the end of the year, would they?)

Something Free!

Thanks to Sky TV we have a couple of massive "Summer of Cricket" posters. Free to a good home.