Thursday, November 15, 2012

November 15, 2012

Fresh Baird Beer... The First Hashigo Zake Smartphone App... The 2012 Santa Session... Other Things To Look Forward To...

Fresh Baird Beer

It has been a while since we took delivery of any kegs from Japan's Baird brewery. But they recently made a switch to using plastic key kegs for exporting and we put in an order. When that shipment turned up at our warehouse last week with two of those kegs suffering catastrophic damage en route, the choice of keg was looking slightly problematic. The silver lining is that there's nothing wrong with the beer in the 16 kegs that survived the journey.

So next week we get to put a Baird beer in the New Release Tuesday slot. It's Big Red Machine Fall Classic Ale, a beer released in October every year since 2005 to mark baseball's "World Series". The "Big Red Machine" is a reference to Bryan Baird's childhood and the Cincinnati Reds team of 1975 that won the "World Series".

Big Red Machine won a bronze medal at the 2008 World Beer Cup in Category 19 - "Cellar or Unfiltered Beer".

The First Hashigo Zake Smartphone App

Many regular customers will be used to the sight of our especially regular customer, Robin Sheat, toiling at a laptop in the Red Room while sipping quality ale. We should have foreseen that all that beer-fueled work would yield something inspired. Because a couple of weeks ago he made the first "Hashigo Zake" Android app available. It hooks into the data files we hold on our website to generate our own menu and presents that menu in a more productive and interactive form.

While the app is still quite simple we're in awe of Robin's enterprise and willingness to work with our own haphazard file formats. Serious geek cred.

If you're reading this on an Android device, perhaps consider following this link: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=nz.net.kallisti.android.hashigozake.

Now, strangely, the idea of creating a version of this app for Apple devices doesn't excite Robin. So we're left with an unintended google-bias in our 3rd party application manifest. Perhaps iOS developers don't like good beer.

The 2012 Santa Session

As predicted last week, we can now announce details of the 2012 Santa Session. It's our chance to celebrate the end of a thoroughly enjoyable year with many of our favourite customers - particularly SOBA members, who get to join the fun for just $20. Not only is the price the same as last year, participants will be able to take away their souvenir glass afterwards!

Anyone interested will need to book, which is done via our webstore: here.

Other Things To Look Forward To

8 Wired have a new pale ale, which we'll have on tap soon.

As promised last week, Liberty XPA (Extra Pale Ale) is very close.

There's a new batch of Funk Estate's Black IPA, which these days is going by the name Funk'nstein. Funk Estate's owners remain oblivious to what an awesome name Blaxpoitation would be for this beer, having all been born in the '80s.

We were saving a keg of Twisted Hop Marmalale, but apparently the brewery need the empty keg back, so we'll have no choice but to put this on shortly.

For those who like their pilsners and wheat beer to taste authentically German, we have Waldhaus Schwarzwald Weisse on tap now, with Diplom Pils coming soon.

As well as next week's New Release, there will be more Baird on tap soon with Suruga Bay Imperial IPA returning.

Finally, since this has been a relatively short dispatch, anyone dissatisfied can find extra reading here.

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