Drinking In The Cook Islands

Having completed a solid eighteen months of hard labour punctuated only by a short break at Easter to tile the kitchen, the Trouble and I decided it was high time that we took a holiday. Destination of choice was Rarotonga, the largest of the Cook Islands, a place where we felt reasonably confident we could do literally nothing for eleven days or so.

Of course, ‘doing literally nothing’ is a next-to-impossible task; even the most hardened practitioner of transcendental meditation and similar neo-spiritual hoodoo will tell you that spending six months in the lotus position sniffing a josstick  constitutes doing something (and something rather uncomfortable at that). I think the closest I have come to this is the trance-like state I practised entering during the many stoppages of train activity during rush-hour at Liverpool St station, an experience I will doubtless find time and space to whine about at length at some point in the future. And even that was punctuated by liberal consumption of Double Whoppers.

Anyway, point being, what we actually mean by ‘doing literally nothing’ is performing activities which generate the greatest amusement returns for the least effort. In the pantheon of such activities, drinking must rank as the finest and noblest. The ability to site oneself literally anywhere on the globe and generate solid hours of entertainment simply by application of various fluids must strike as one of the highest achievements of civilisation.

I have conducted what might generously (and mendaciously) be described as a full and thorough survey of the drinking experiences on offer on Rarotonga. As a guide to the intrepid, I will fully catalogue here my various adventures, starting with a general survey and moving thence to the beer on offer.

So what do people drink on Rarotonga? Well, seems that the principle form of libation is the cocktail. This comes in several formats; the Pina Colada, Mai Tai, Daquiri, a thing involving as much alcoholic chocolate as one can cram into a glass (e.g. crème de cacao, Baileys, coffee liqueur, cream, chocolate syrup, milk, chocolate milk, lumps of chocolate, milk liqueur, &c), another thing involving Blue Stuff and lemonade, and variations on the above. A similar menu appears available in most establishments on the island.

These drinks have a remarkable homogeneity to them, being pretty uniformly served in a tall plastic tumbler and garnished with a slice of fruit, a maraschino cherry and a local flower. They get boring pretty quick, although the Trouble seems fond. As one of my other hobbies is the consumption of popular science volumes (‘Secrets of the Universe for the Ungarnished Idiot’ and so forth), the Trouble and I whiled away a happy few minutes speculating on the presentation of  a ‘Pina Collider’ (coconut, Malibu, white rum and pineapple juice served in an elegantly stabilised Higgs field). Unfortunately the wellspring of booze/physics comedy fell dry pretty quickly afterwards.

I think the problem with this stuff is its unchallenging blandness and lack of ambition, both in terms of presentation and flavour. Of course, what you’re really after in these situations is something that is served in a hollowed-out pineapple or coconut, sports fifteen little umbrellas in elaborate formation, and has enough fruit attached such that it resembles Carmen Miranda’s headgear. The lack of such flair seemed to highlight, rather than reduce, the vulgarity of the drinking experience, more’s the pity; we seemed to be expected to pretend we were experiencing something intensely classy, whereas it’s really just a bunch of cheap booze and sweetener sloshed into a plastic beaker.

Waiting staff were universally nice, though, and this seems as good a place as any to mention that Rarotonga is beautiful beyond definition, and the drinking holes, hotels and restaurants clean, well run and welcoming to a fault. Frankly, you could be drinking malt vinegar from a tin bucket and it’d still be a privilege to be in the kind of place you find yourself. But the air of plasticity could do with a little leavening.

Aroa Beachside Inn - patronised by an international cabal of lethal assassins

One notable exception to this trend was the highly-recommended Aroa Beachside Inn (which I think is also an hotel). Run by an American chap whose name I forget, this is a definite case of ‘much more like it’. The bar itself, perched beachside, offers wonderful views of the Rarotonga sunset, and is suitably shabby, jerry-rigged, and covered in the kinds of ‘humorous’ aphorisms to be found in any self-respecting bar the world over (‘free drinks tomorrow’, ‘tipping is not the capital of China’).  It felt like home; or, to be more accurate, a (Rarotongan) pub, which was wonderful. I think there’s another piece brewing about the delightful universality of bar/pub culture, but I will save that for another day.

The cocktails at Aroa are a much more honest affair than those presented in the classier establishments round town. Served in jam jars, I’m hoping as a tribute to Michael Madsen’s character in Kill Bill part 2, the notion of cheap booze and sweetener is brought to its natural and happy conclusion. I have particularly cheerful memories of the Long Island Ice Tea, which was three-quarters of a jam jar of every kind of white spirit, a dash of something limey, and the briefest of introductions to a coke bottle. The Aroa Special is ‘your favourite kind of booze – in a cocktail’, which promises much, although I didn’t try it (beer cocktail? I should have done). Anyway, this is my number one pick for a destination. People, setting, service and atmosphere all lovely. Excellent barbecue served up Tuesday and Saturday.

And now to the beer bit, which is presumably why you’re reading this. In my usual fashion, I’d undertaken some meticulous and extensive research on the subject of beer on the Cook Islands (n.b. previous sentence may contain inaccuracies). The single blog entry I’d chanced across noted that ‘this is one of the few places in the world you’ll be glad to find a Heineken’. I was filled with a sense of foreboding, although I knew that one of the things I may experience if was lucky was the holiday beer effect, one of my favourites.

Slight digression (stop sighing, it’s unbecoming). The seasoned beer enthusiast will possibly be familiar with the sensation of holiday beer. This is where normally dreadful, piss-weak lager takes on an almost legendary air of deliciousness when served a) in tiny glasses (thank you, Amsterdam), or b) in extraordinary settings (double thank you, Salzburg). A cold lager when the sun is shining on one of either nature or mankind’s greatest achievements can take on the air of a transformative and fundamental experience; doubly so when experienced with a group of loved ones or friends, and quadruply so when a swift half turns into an afternoon-long session (I have fond memories of a speedy second-act spew exit from Janacek’s Cunning Little Vixen following just such a session in the Punch and Judy on Covent Garden, an eventful afternoon which will doubtless constitute an entire chapter of my memoires). The dramatic and beautiful exception to this is, of course, the Grand Plasse in Brussels, where one will not only be treated to a ringside view of a UNESCO world heritage site, but also waiters that believe serving you anything short of an 8% golden ale is a waste of time and effort for everybody. Magical.

Back to the holiday. The Trouble and I experimented with the holiday zeitgeist in the transit lounge at Auckland airport, but it’s more than possible we went off half-cocked. The glasses of Steinlager and Wifebeater tasted pretty much as one would expect (disgusting). A slight further sub-digression – a good friend of mine from New Zealand was tickled pink by my description of Stella Artois as Wifebeater (named after the favourite post-imbibing activity of its most avid consumers in the UK). Apparently it’s considered ‘classy’ in NZ. Stella, that is, not domestic violence.

No matter. The exploratory half-dozen Heineken I picked up to christen our delightful chalet (get in touch with Gwen to rent one of her Muri Beach Cottages, they’re utterly fantastic, with views actually directly transposed from heaven) slipped down with only a slight grimace, so presumably years of brewing discernment hadn’t dulled my ability to become overwhelmed by the environs and get into the general spirit of the thing.

From there, I felt suitably fortified to begin an exploration of the local brews. There are two local breweries in the Cook Islands; Cook’s and Matutu. We powered swiftly through Cook’s ‘Blonde’ (tastes of literally nothing) and Cook’s (I hope deeply ironically named) ‘Darkie’, actually the colour of a pale ale and tasting of one of my more misbegotten forays into homebrew, replete with slight overtones of vinegar and chemical. This is much as we were expecting. Onwards to Matutu’s Kiva pale ale, which was typically… no, hang on a sec… this one isn’t horrible… it’s actually not bad… no… this is actually a decent beer! Huzzah!

My shock, awe, and delight at this achievement deserve further exploration.  Kiva has little on the nose (as one might anticipate from a brewery located several billion miles from the nearest hop field), but a marvellous and not overwhelming malt flavour, with little bits of chocolate, caramel and hazelnut enlivening the experience. But nothing overdone; this is definitely, defiantly, a sessionable English ale, with an obvious comparison to something along the lines of London Pride.

Trouble and I were in a position to sample Matutu’s other output, the Mai lager, a few days later. This probably tastes like a fairly serviceable lager, but the three bottles we worked through all unfortunately had a strong nose and flavour of industrial cleaner, which I pin down to a mishap at the bottle rinsing stage of things. I’m prepared to forgive this; it can’t be anything other than an unfortunate technical hitch, as I can’t think of a single way to generate a flavour like that from malt and hops.

The Matutu brewery was located a happy few metres from our fantastic accommodation (did I tell you to get in touch with Gwen at Muri Beach Cottages?), so I paid a visit.

I spent about half an hour talking to the friendly but serious James, one of the owners of Matutu. Whilst trying to ignore the fact that I was being consumed whole from the feet up by mosquitos as big as my head (n.b. previous clause may contain inaccuracies), I listened attentively to a few fascinating tidbits. The plant had actually been purchased from NZ brewer extraordinaire Tuatara, presumably following one of their expansion efforts, and James and his partner had spent a couple of weeks learning to brew with the Tuatara chappie (name, again, forgotten). The idea behind Kiva was indeed an English-style pale ale, and they’d spent a little while experimenting with London Pride yeast before settling on a powdered version that provided quicker brew times better suited to the balmy Cook Isles climate. I was particularly excited that my London Pride pick had ben correct. (Well, ok, I noticed after he told me, but it’s still there, alright?).

Either a large amount of ginger ale or a very small tree.

Most interestingly, he emphasised the preferred business model of providing fresh beer rather than a sterilised bottled variety, and had enquired whether I’d been drinking the newer stuff. True to form, the very best version of Kiva was the one he poured me straight out of the brewery tap (which he then helpfully decanted into two Schweppes Ginger Ale bottles). This isn’t really surprising; a style like this should really be cask conditioned, and it lifted my spirits to see it presented as such (even if it is in bottles). Many of the naysayers out there will question my technical nous as describing this thing as a cask process in a bottle, but I’m sticking with it so yah boo sucks to the lot of you.

This is a frighteningly brave decision from somebody brewing on an island where the average temperature is 25 degrees plus; it explains the numerous Ratebeer.com reviews of Kiva complaining of yeast infections and the like. These people should a) demonstrate a little charity, and b) haul ass to the Cook Islands and try the real thing, because it’s worth it. I am developing a theory that the notable decline in the once-mighty Emerson’s Bookbinder has been due to efforts to generate a bottlable version of the brew. Matutu has gone the opposite way, and produced something courageous, incredibly worthwhile, very close to the English sessioning model (which beers, of course, only last about a week when conditioned in a cask) and, I’ll push the boat out and say, even better than its reliable if slightly pedestrian ancestor, Tuatara IPA.

A final point from James, and a challenge to the rest of us. He noted that, despite doing pretty well as a business, Matutu only accounted for about 2% of Rarotonga’s beer consumption; the majority, presumably, coming from horrible imported Heineken and the like. I too noticed Matutu’s lack of availability in one or two of the main resorts and bars (although you can get hold of it in quite a few places), and I would guess it’s conceptually a little bit of a challenge to get a foothold in a market dominated by international water-beers and bland holiday mocktails. So, if you happen to be on holiday here, demand it as of right in every place you enter. My dream would be to normalise enough of a turnover that Kiva could be shipped out in a cask, as this beer really should be. Encourage this worthwhile enterprise, and do your bit for local business, brave brewing, and the general good of humanity.

And as a final kicker to New Zealand brewers; some dude on the Cook Islands is making a living brewing an excellent beer that goes off after a week. If he can do it…

Post-Barbecue Fridge Crimes Pt 2 - Speight's

Well, you’ll all be pleased to hear that my abject failure to keep this blog even slightly current hasn’t dampened my enthusiasm for writing stuff. Despite the six month gap, I plan to press ahead undeterred. I’m hoping that if I just pick up where I left off, nobody will notice too much. Well, obviously you’re going to notice now because I’ve drawn attention to it. Maybe skip this paragraph. Anyway, onwards. This is part 2 of 2 of the entirely unanticipated ‘post-barbecue fridge crimes’ series. Unbelievably, I still have crap in my fridge from six months ago waiting for exactly this moment.

For those reading internationally, some background. As with I suspect many corners of the world, the South Island of New Zealand carries a special sort of national stereotype, sort of a bit like a colder equivalent of Crocodile Dundee; the Southern Man. So how does one spot a Southern Man? There is a handy identification chart next to the toilets in the Bristol Arms with about fifteen points to notice, none of which I can actually remember. But I think the key ones are something like

-       Owns a truck that has done at least 500,000 miles

-       Rides a horse

-       Owns wire

-       Wears a cowboy hat

-       Hangs around in the cold

-       Has skin like Clint Eastwood

And so on. This is a rugged character; taciturn, inventive, immune to weather, happiest when cooking sausages on an open fire and punching cattle. One might ask why my local pub carries a big chart to help you identify such a character (surely he should stick out like a sore thumb in most company). The reason is that this is what you turn into if you drink Speights.

Max jumped fearlessly from the train, hot bullets whizzing past his head

Speights is one of those New Zealand drinks that you can only buy in New Zealand. It’s probably something you might accurately refer to as a ‘New Zealand draft’, a sort of weird lager-ale hybrid thing that’s brown but made with a lager, or possibly suspended, yeast. The bottle claims that this stuff is a ‘Gold Medal Ale’, which appellation Wikipedia immediately reveals as bullshit of the highest order (there’s nothing like an ale yeast involved in its production). This doesn’t surprise me, as New Zealand brewers seem to have a cheerfully liberal approach to labelling beers with whatever random collection of words leaves the best impression in the mind of the drinker. I’m not sure which gold medal this stuff won, but I would like to have a quiet word with the judges at some point.

In fact, I have been led to understand that the good people of Speight’s used to produce a ‘craft’ range, subsequently discontinued and much missed. I have the vaguest of race memories of consuming something called a Distinction Porter around five years ago, which I don’t think was too bad, but you know what my memory’s like. Either way, you can’t get it any more, so we’re left with the single bottle of ‘ale’ taking up good space in my fridge.

So. Trying to get myself into the spirit of the whole shenanigans, I imagine myself as a fabled Southern Man. (This is quite a leap of the imagination, as I am naturally sedentary, soggy and cack-handed, but bear with me). So I’ve just spent a day wading through 30 miles of a six-foot snow drift to rescue a sheep and do something with wire. I have eaten a light lunch of pebbles and hay, and decided to save on petrol by pulling my truck the ten miles home with a piece of garden twine. Needless to say, my face is so craggy you could grate cheese on it. I walk slowly into my local pub, briefly incline my chin towards the barkeep, and he serves me up a pint of…

Well, what would you want after a day like that? I would say either about four milds back-to-back to rehydrate me, or something like a scotch ale or a decent oily stout to fortify myself against the inclement weather and lack of basic nutrition in my diet. Instead, my taste seems to incline towards something that one could charitably categorise as a middle-order shandy.

For those who aren’t familiar, shandy is a mixture of beer and lemonade. It comes out a bit like a beery soft drink. Schoolchildren drink it. It’s sugary and malty and thoroughly inoffensive. It’s an acceptable alternative for old people at the pub in the UK if they don’t fancy a port and lemon. Your great aunty might drink this stuff.

And this, friends, is exactly what Speights tastes like. There is nothing on the nose (I mean, seriously, nothing), and a vague sugary maltiness in the mouth. It’s sort of like cold watery Horlicks. In fairness, it’s not horrible exactly (although it does have a strange chemical aftertaste). It’s more… well… pointless. Why on earth would anybody drink this? It doesn’t even have the limey bite that Corona has when you put lime in it. Well, I suppose it’s cheap and about as easy to drink as water. In fact, I’d hope it’s cheap, as it’s clearly a combination of malt sugar and a few gravy browning crystals. Do you know, it’s that watery, I don’t even know whether they’ve used corn syrup. Now that’s a bad beer.

And do I feel any more Southern? Not even slightly. I’m starting to think that this whole Southern Man myth is a bit daft. Why I may be in my real life Olympic-grade useless when it comes to wire, at least I’m not the type to quiver ‘…oooh …that’s a bit strong…’ before settling in with a quiet half a shandy  and maybe doing a bit of knitting or something. This beer is extreme, desperate, boredom distilled down into a lifeless simulacrum of something that makes other people run, shout, leap, dance and embrace their lives to the fullest. It’s certainly not the drink of a rugged, seasoned adventurer.

I’ve said it before, but I’ll re-state it here for the record. Life’s too short. Every Speights ‘Gold Medal Ale’ that is drunk is another pointless excursion into slightly flavoured water, and a missed opportunity to experience craft, flavour, diversity and general joy. I mean, crikey, at 4% it won’t even get you pissed. The sooner this scourge evaporates from the planet, the happier we’ll be as a species.

So that’s me. Next time, I might actually review a decent beer. That’d be a turn-up for the books.

Post-barbecue Fridge Crimes Part 1 – Corona

There is little the average beer aficionado enjoys more than a barbecue. My mouth is watering just typing about it. The light, intoxicating weissbeers as a warm-up, the cool, clean pilsners whiling away the summer afternoon, the fruity, hoppy IPAs cutting through whatever caramelised stodge comes off the flames, the luscious imperial stout complementing the delicate carbon flavours of burnt anything… Truly the peak of civilisation.

But there is a special kind of hangover that comes with a barbecue. The kind where one opens the fridge the next morning to be confronted with what can only be described as a visit from the Shit Beer Fairy. What had been, the previous lunchtime, a glistening, cooled temple to the art of brewing, has become overnight a pungent chilly-bin of corner-shop detritus.

Such a thing happened to me a couple of weeks back. (Well, I lie, it happened about two months ago and I’ve been meaning to write this blog ever since but haven’t got round to it. But if I admit that, the piece somewhat loses its immediacy). Admittedly it was actually me that drank the 8 litres of Brewer’s Reserve, four Twisted Hop IPAs, two Nokabolokov Stouts and the Duvel that were laid down for the event, but all the same, I do feel a little used and dirty. How has this happened? My house is a temple to the goddess Hoppus, and then this. Who replaced my fine cellar with this rubbish? (Ok, I know, it was me that drank all the good stuff and my guests kindly left me their spares. Stop puncturing the bubble). 

Anyway, I may have mentioned that I was interested in reviewing… um… interesting beers, so this is all grist to the mill, really. I can make a start with Corona. Apparently this is the most popular beer in the world or something equally daft, so one could be forgiven for assuming that it can’t possibly be that bad. Allegedly it's the top-selling export beer in the US, although my perfunctory internet research has found it described by some honest soul as a ‘light, flavourless American Lager’. The Corona website itself played some horrible music over my brand new Electric Wire Hustle CD, so that got turned off pretty quickly. So much for research.

Actually, do you mind if I digress to an anecdote? Ha. Too bad. You’re getting one.

A couple of years ago at BrewNZ, the one on Chaffer’s Dock, the Trouble and I were attending a beer and food matching thing with Martin Bosley and Neil Miller. Apparently Martin Bosley’s famous or something, so we were pretty interested (overseas readers – he’s a chef. And BrewNZ is a beer festival). La Boz was telling us all about how he’d thought beer was pretty much beer until the affable, cheerful, all-round good egg Neil had introduced him to something drinkable. Scales fell from eyes, Road to Damascus travelled, he’d started stocking Tuatara in his restaurant, &c &c. But then he said something despicable. Unforgivable, one might say. ‘But of course, we still have to stock Corona for the punters…’

WHAT? WHY? Yes, mate, like you keep a couple of bottles of Blue Nun on the wine list and some Mad Dog 20:20 on the spirits list for all the winos that drop in. What are you running, one of Wellington’s best restaurants or a polytechnic Friday night bar? I am pleased, nay proud, to say that the Trouble let out a highly audible gasp of horror. ‘I’ve trained you well, my young padawan’, I thought, my breast swelling with the honour of the moment. Let’s hope it stuck in his mind. I should go back to Bosley’s to check at some point. Actually, if anyone wants to offer me a discount, the odds will increase considerably.

Right, so back to the business in hand. The bottle makes no particular claims other than ‘la Cerveza Mas Fina’, whatever that is, so let’s dive in.

This is apparently some sort of lager, and is a very bright yellow. The colour of yellow apple juice, maybe? Sorta funny-looking. Maybe it’s my imagination. Anyway, time for the pour, and we’re off. On the nose. Well, one could charitably refer to it as ‘hay’ or ‘straw’ or something, but I’m getting a very faint whiff of swimming pools. Not chlorine, exactly, but the whole deal – chemicals, damp towels, industrial shower gel, that kind of thing. Maybe a bit of horse. But a really faint smell. Far fainter than one hopes for from a beer. Almost not there. If I was a dog, I’d bark at this beer due to its lack of smell.

And now the taste. I have to say, having seen this referred to in several places as one of the world’s worst beers, I was pretty nervous. The shaking glass approached my lips… I stared down at the deep yellow abyss… wondered vaguely if the wind was blowing in my direction from a swimming pool several miles away… and…

Nothing. Not a sausage. Actual total absence of flavour. Water. I took another swig. And another. And then it started to creep up on me. It started as a sensation sort of like ‘hang on, did I just eat a dry taco in between those sips… no… don’t think the memory’s that bad yet…’. Eventually I realised it’s all in the aftertaste. Something dusty… dry… stale-bread-like… Icky. Not repugnant (unlike that glass of Speight’s Old Dark I was forced into the other night), but just… icky. Like drinking brackish water. Not pleasant.

And so to the inevitable question. Why on earth do people drink this stuff? It’s just not very nice. But not horrible enough to warrant a challenge. It’s just not nice. Sort of like the tea your spinster aunt brews. Why would you choose to drink it? Then it hit me like a lightening bolt. Of course! What a fule I have been! They put lime in it!

One quick sprint to the shops, bottle two uncorked, and away we go. Right! Now we’re talking! On the nose – mmm. Plenty of lime. Quite a limey smell. Lime-like. Very definite lime notes. Taste-wise – citrus. Lime, with some hints of lime, and a bit of water. Weak lime cordial, with some tones of lime. Brackish aftertaste replaced with a fruity, limey kind of flavour.

So there’s an answer. It’s not beer at all. It’s alcoholic lime juice. A stealth alco-pop, if you will. Still didn’t like it, but at least it’s less of a mystery. For the less discerning drinking man, who has ongoing issues with things like flavour, it’s a godsend. ‘Don’t call me a weirdo, I’m drinking beer’. But within this mystery lies another, deeper mystery. Why the hell would you brew it in the first place? What on earth inspired anyone to make a beer that is only even on the same planet as drinkable with the addition of pungent, flavour-replacing fruit?

I have a theory. I think it’s the result of a brilliant marketing save to cover up a vast industrial accident of unimaginable proportions. Thusly –

Pedro (Corona Marketing Manager) – Hey, Jesus, you know that new beer you’ve

brewed?

Jesus (Corona Brewer) – Si, compadre.

Pedro – Well, we’ve come up with a marketing tactic.

Jesus – Ole! What’s that?

Pedro – We’re going to advise everybody to stuff a slice of lime in the bottle when

they drink it.

Jesus – Ok… Um… Well… I think it sort of tastes ok as it is, to be honest.

Pedro – Yeeeeeaaaaaaaah… about that…

Jesus – Huh?

Pedro – Well, I hate to be the one to break it to you, but it kinda doesn’t.

Jesus – What do you mean? It’s a fantastic lager, hombre. I brewed it from my

family’s own ancient recipe, handed down from father to son for generations.

Pedro – Uh-huh. What was it a recipe for?

Jesus – Tacos.

Pedro – Right. That explains a lot. Look, you see, the thing is, we did some taste tests,

and not that many people actually liked the taste.

Jesus – It’s a wonderful taste.

Pedro – Amigo, 45% of the people who did the test likened the flavour to ‘wringing

out my grandma’s enormous sweaty underpants’.

Jesus – You offered that as an option?

Pedro – No, they wrote it down independently. Over 5,000 of them. The remainder

simply said ‘piss’.

Jesus – Well, I could alter the recipe slightly… maybe less swimming pool water…

Pedro – Problem, cabron. We’ve brewed over 17 billion gallons in the first batch.

Even if this becomes the best selling beer in the world, we’ll be shipping this batch

until the 25th century. We can’t make it taste better. It’s lime or bust.

Jesus – I knew this would happen (begins to sob). I only ever wanted to be a… a…

lumberjack…!

&c ad nauseam.

So there. A pretty horrible beer reviewed. I hope you never have to drink it. Next instalment, which may (you never know your luck) turn up a little quicker, I’ll be onto Post-barbecue Fridge Crimes Part 2. I can see you’re all moist with anticipation. 

Tuatara Porter – Cherry Hopinator Version

I’d planned to review some fairly commonplace beers first to get my sea legs. I actually thought it’d be pretty interesting to start with something ubiquitous and unpleasant – ooh, Mac’s Gold, say – to vent some of the spleen that’s been building up for a few years.

But nothing ever goes according to plan. During that bit of odd downtime between Christmas and New Year – the annual cycle equivalent of Sunday tea time - the Trouble and I went on a special expedition to the Malthouse to try the Cherry Hopinator version of the Tuatara Porter. Whilst sitting and sipping, the Trouble asked what I was going to write about this one, and I thought ‘well, I have some momentum, why not?’. So there.

In fact, we’re dealing with three distinct variables here. First up, the Malthouse. This used to be a fantastic pub-type thing on Willis St, and has now become an interesting sort of bar-type thing on Courtney Place. I have an ambiguous relationship with the Malthouse. For years, it was the saviour of decent beer in Wellington and the sole reason that I didn’t run screaming back to the UK within a week of arriving in NZ. But the Courtney Place makeover is, well, odd. I could devote several hundred words to ruminating on the nature of this venue, and probably will, but not now. In short – do I like it? Don’t know. But they serve darn good beer. 

So, whither this hopinator thing? Well, it’s a sort of column type affair bolted to the bar, and unique to the Malthouse. You put stuff in it, pass beer through it, and the beer comes out tasting or smelling of the stuff. I think the device itself used to be something to do with coffee or some such like, but frankly I’ve been very mistaken on all sorts of things in the past (‘smoking – that looks like a fun habit’) so I won’t pin my colours on this one. Sometimes the hopinator has hops in it, sometimes it has fruit. This time round, it was the turn of cherries. They sort of lingered in the chilled column thing in a fashion vaguely reminiscent of the pickled animals in jars in science classes. I swear one of them looked mournful.

And the final factor – Tuatara Porter. I should really review this beer on its tod without on-the-spot addition of dispirited looking cherries, but my extensive background in its consumption enabled an easy comparison. Much like the Malthouse, I have an ambivalent relationship with porter as a style. What exactly does one do with it? Neck it for refreshment like a mild? Sup it like a stout? It’s sort of a bit too strong, but a bit too thin, but a bit too dark… Some might call it an enigma wrapped in a riddle wrapped in a particularly poor beer writer too lazy to even look at wikipedia. Personally I just buy it when I want a sessionable stout. The other handy thing is that nobody ever steals it at parties because New Zealanders appear to lack the gene necessary for metabolising dark beer.

That aside, the fact of the matter is that nobody really knows what the hell to do with porter as it more or less died out in the 19^th century, and was sort of reinvented in the late 20^th. But the Malthouse have come up with at least one solution – pump it past some fruit that looks a little like it thought its life would turn out differently.

And I have to say, this is one of the reasons I love beer. Thank you, Lord, for your great gift of Belgians. A little history here. There are three great brewing nations on earth – England, Belgium and Germany. And, ok, America currently making everybody look a bit boring and old-fashioned, but I’m not giving them any more airtime at the moment. So, Germany has a Reinheitsgebot tradition – a purity law (is that phrase making anybody else’s eyebrow arch everso slightly?) disallowing the use of anything other than hops, grain, yeast and water in brewing. England, rather characteristically, ploughed a similar furrow, but without application of Teutonic-style legal frameworks. I put it down to the meat-and-two-veg approach to life. Nothing too fancy. But the Belgians… oh my. For the last 100 years or so, they’ve put pretty much anything in beer. Seriously. Fruit, sugar, insects, dead rats, spices, creosote, pieces of the true cross, microphones, microphone stands, moustache clippings…

This devil-may-care attitude to the art of brewing, gifted to us by the Belgians, is one of the things that makes drinking beer such an exciting experience. Can you imagine a wine-lover doing this? ‘Rupert, this Pinot Gris is particularly subtle and gentle on the palate, with some nice citrus notes, but what say you we see what happens if we sluice it through a chilled coffee percolator filled with distended fruit?’.

Anyway, I’ve digressed far too much in this piece. I was at a party the other night where I got complained at because my first post was too long. Sorry, people, but you’re getting this stuff for free, and it’s solid gold, every word. Patience. Here comes the money shot – what did it actually taste like?

Well, like porter with cherries in it. And very good. Nice, but not overwhelming, smell of cherries on the first lift, and a solid malty taste without being overwhelmed by the fruit. The cherries added some astringency (look it up) and a pleasant counterbalance to the darkish semi-chocolate hints that come from the base beer. The Trouble thought she couldn’t taste the cherries until halfway through her glass, but seriously, what does she know about it? I thought it was great. It was a lot like, ooh, complex alcoholic cherry cola? A dark Kriek? Thoroughly pleasant and grown-up drink. I thought at the time it may have been served a little too cold, but with the cherry cola slant on it, it makes a lot more sense.

In summary, an experience definitely recommended, with a slight reservation. I’m still not entirely sure what one would do with a beer like this. I’m stumped for food matches at the moment apart from the obvious black forest gateau. I don’t think it’s strong enough to balance out a ripe cheese, plus I’m not sure the Malthouse will let you bring your own cheese (but there’s an idea – ‘bring your own cheese night’). You could always just tour the pub saying ‘hey, try this, it’s really interesting’, and actually, hell, I think that’s enough fun to keep you going, particularly if you use it as a pickup line. Never worked for me, but I’m interested in field reports. There you go. Homework. 

On Not Being a Beer Snob

Well, maybe a few words of introduction. This blog will be about beer. My intention is to review a single beer per period (week? month?  who knows), occasionally interspersed with thinkpieces, or op eds, or whatever you want to call them, such as the one below. Writing this has been a long-held ambition of mine. So now I’ve started – the challenge will be to keep going and not use too many dashes or semi-colons. And about me. Well, I love beer, and I have a day job as a civil servant of some description. 

I have often been accused of being a beer snob. This is usually in response to disgusted exclamations, such as ‘I’m not drinking that’. Or occasionally far more reasonable requests, such as ‘can’t we go to X, they serve decent beer there’. In fact, the latter approach is often received fairly well. I think my friends are now in the habit of filing me alongside vegans, gluten-free types, and others with special dietary requirements. So be it. At least I get a decent drink.

I looked up ‘snob’ on the interweb just now. The definition is –

a person who imitates, cultivates, or slavishly admires social superiors and is condescending or overbearing to others.

Interesting. There is also a secondary definition –

a person who believes himself or herself an expert or connoisseur in a given field and is condescending toward or disdainful of those who hold other opinions or have different tastes regarding this field: a musical snob.

That sounds much more like me, but it screws with my hypothesis, so I’m going to gloss lightly over it and return to my main point.

I think the ‘slavishly admires’ bit is important. For me, snobbery is a reliance on extrinsic, rather than intrinsic, factors to make value judgements. I don’t like X’s album because I don’t like his trousers, or because somebody I admire doesn’t like him, or whatever. Nothing to do with music.

People who accuse me of being a beer snob seem to think this is the case. That I refuse to drink… oooh… Tui, because I don’t like the label, or it doesn’t fit my image or something. Wrong! I don’t drink it because it tastes of sewage.

Nonetheless, the social pressure to drink the stuff is extraordinary. I think people are genuinely resentful. ‘What, you think you’re better than us? Normal people drink it. Are you better than normal people?’. It’s actual, genuine, according-to-Hoyle resentment dressed up as friendly joshing. For the record, no, I’m actually much worse than normal people in a wide variety of ways. I have nasty habits.

Habits aside, how’s about this for an alternative way of looking at it. I am accused of thinking I’m better than most people because I want to drink something a bit nicer. This implies that most people like, or enjoy, or have to, drink something genuinely revolting. And it’s the ‘most people’ that I find interesting. I should lay out several thousand words of complex sociological norms here, but I’m going to cut straight to the chase in the interests of brevity. I think that this ‘most people’, or ‘normal people’, in the context of New Zealand, is probably poor people. Or maybe poor people in combination with the sorry but persistent notion of a ‘kiwi’ who can do things with some kind of wire and demonstrates his masculinity by herding sheep in subzero temperatures in his underpants. When it comes to beer, unlike, say, wine, or food, it seems that we feel the need to protest our connection to some shared concept of the ‘common man’ through the medium of gallons of dreadful booze.

Eh? What kind of argument is that? That good, cheery, honest, working folk are only allowed to drink crap? That the smiling peasants only really enjoy corn-syrup-infused shit and anybody who aspires to anything better is a braying toff? That the plebs only deserve the swabbings from the rectum of a dysenteric warthog?

There is something odd going on here. That we should display aspirational solidarity with the ‘common man’, or prove our resistance to the worst discomforts nature can throw at us, by drinking rubbish in large quantities. And anybody who says no is second only in the ranks of despised humanity to someone who steals dogs for a living.

Well, personally, I think that’s snobbery. I think good beer is a far too exciting and wonderful drink to be restricted to anybody of any social status. And I despise the norms and the economy that makes people think it’s not only OK, but actually desirable, to spew out sugary swill and force people to drink it for pleasure. And do you know what’s most frustrating? Good beer can actually be made cheaply. Price doesn’t have to be an object. Ask any decent German or English brewer.

So, a cri de coeur that I will probably return to again and again, if I ever write a second instalment. Everybody should drink good beer. And I’m not a snob. Well, I am, but so are you.