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Life, Libations & The Pursuit Of Hoppiness – Michael Donaldson
331 Plays1 day ago
“What excites me is all the small players who are setting up in a brewpub and running their own race.”
Just like the industry it covers, the beer media world has taken a fair few hits in recent years. Publications – online and in print – have folded across the planet, yet there remains a core of true believers keeping the flame, and the stories, alive.
In New Zealand, nobody’s flame burns brighter than that of Michael Donaldson. These days, he’s the owner and publisher of The Pursuit Of Hoppiness, the country’s leading publication on all things beer, while also one half of The Third Pint Theory podcast with Martin Bridges.
We sat down with Michael at Mac Hops during NZ Hops’ recent Harfest to trace a life in journalism as well as beer. We learn that it was while in Australia – covering sport for New Zealand’s press in what was something of a golden age for print media – that he experienced his beer epiphany, one that led to him pitching a beer column to his editor once back on the other side of the Tasman.
The award-winning beer writer and fine conversationalist, is as well-placed as any to cast an eye over the craft beer era in NZ, and shares his take on its evolution, its key styles, its contribution to the wider beer world, and where the industry sits today.
The Easter long weekend means less new stories to discuss in the intro, with Will and James returning to Dollar Bill’s decision to sell up after getting hold of the Nolles earlier in the week, and also discussing the inspiring tale of Jacob Viel, the founder of Blind Boy Brewing. We also look ahead to the almost sold-out Pint of Origin Launch Party and a couple of events we’re co-hosting with Benchwarmer and Whisky & Alement in Melbourne and Flavour Logic in Perth.
Start of segments:- 0:00 – The Week On Crafty
- 12:15 – Michael Donaldson Part 1
- 41:36 – GoTab
- 47:37 – Michael Donaldson Part 2
To find out more about featuring on The Crafty Pint Podcast or otherwise partnering with The Crafty Pint, contact craig@craftypint.com.
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Transcript
Will's Easter Weekend and Unique Brewing in Australia
00:00:05
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the Crafty Pint Podcast. I'm Will. I'm James. did you have a good Easter weekend there, Will? I had a wonderful Easter weekend. I spent a lot of time working on my mum's garden. Excellent. Any more of those? was What was the fruit? you Is it green gauges you used to like hunting down in the back of your parents' property?
00:00:22
Speaker
Yes, and to date, the only person, to but maybe the only person in Australia to make a beer with them, but definitely the person to make the best beer with green gauges has been ah Will at Van Demons.
00:00:33
Speaker
Yes, yeah I'm sure you're still waiting waiting for a fresh batch of that, which may which may never come, um which in its own way is probably a quite an interesting segue into one of the stories that we we've touched upon last week ah that we thought we'd have on the website by the time last week's podcast went out, but um didn't manage to get hold of Fiona and Ed at Dollar Bill in time.
Financial Struggles of Dollar Bill and Future Plans
00:00:54
Speaker
um a lot of people will have been aware of their social posts, which was probably about almost two weeks ago now that they've decided to put the the business, the brand and their property on the market. um should be i think the the sale details go live at some point in this week later this week, um but it took a while to actually get get them on the blower um just to both add a bit bit of stuff on. But I spoke to them earlier in the week to find out a bit more. um I think when we when we chatted about the intro last week, it we were thinking know it could be to do with the challenge they faced over the years with going to VCAT many times with the council, but from from what they were saying, all those sort of issues have been put to bed. They've got car park places, you know, in in car parking spots in place. They've got all the services up and running, et cetera, et cetera. But essentially, um they've got sort of no money to actually
00:01:43
Speaker
open the cellar door and sort of continue with the business. and they'd They'd like to see it continue. they'd like They'd love someone to come in and buy the business and they potentially would come and stick around stick around and ah run it for a while. But I think it's been a sort of a finances and family situation decision. i think Fiona said to me at one stage, I just want to live again.
00:02:02
Speaker
and which I think sort of summarizes how all consuming these small businesses can be, especially, you know, when when you're making the beers like they do. And Ed's e's back working full time in his other job, often working night shifts. And he's like, it's just not really feasible to be putting 50 to 100 hours into a single batch of, you know, barrel aged and blended beer around working full time and then not be able to sell it to a bottle shop because, you know, they're just not moving as quickly. So um be it's just good sort of understand, you know, but you know how they've got to this point. um talking about maybe opening a small bar somewhere near near Brisbane down the line. And if they've got some barrels of beer left, potentially sort of putting them on tap. So um yeah, we'll see what happens.
00:02:41
Speaker
Yeah, and they also go into the the challenges of this beer style as well, which we've we've definitely seen and we talk about a lot that these kind of mixed culture beers, there they're just not as popular as they have been at the in the past and the price point and the large bottle format and all those things really work against them, particularly I'm not sure the economy is about to look any better or anything like that. So it's it's a really tough time yeah for selling those kind of beers.
00:03:06
Speaker
Oh yeah, well, Bryony Levick from Flavologic, does a bit of writing for us, when she said sent over her and notes or take her write-up on a few little bang beers, earlier in the week mentioned that, you know, even at the Wheaty, you know, I guess the home of, for such a long time, of, you know, more experimental, innovative beers said that you know, their large format bottles are selling slower at the minute. So, um yeah, just just the way of things. Hopefully they do come back again. um i did, you know, on that topic, i did we did an event with um Three Ravens last week, um a Crafty Cabal event, which was, it was fantastic. um It's interesting, you know, putting these events on around these sort of beers like we did with Wildflower. We had, think, maybe 30 people in the side rooms at three Ravens brewery, Murray, dug their head brewer dug into their cellar, pulled out all manner of, um, rarities and mixed ferment stuff. There was, you know one that only been 60 bottles made. There was one left after the event. Well, there's one left.
00:03:59
Speaker
for about five seconds after after he finished his sentence talking about it. And it was just so great to taste all these beers and and people were really engaged and Murray's a great host, et cetera, et cetera. But when they sold their the warehouse where they had the Ravens yard for a while, they sold all the barrels as well. So they've only got you know four or five barrels sat around three Ravens now and it it takes takes a while to get these things back up and running again. So yeah, not too sure how many more of these sort of events we'll be able to do of those sort of styles beer for the time being.
00:04:27
Speaker
and No, I guess ah maybe we're the last bastion of trying to push them on people as well. we we We're the Australian journalist Cantillon in Belgium. when you know They fought to keep keep Lambic and Gers alive all those all those years ago.
00:04:44
Speaker
we just want people to drink them though. We don't know how to make them. No, not at all. um Anyway, on to a story that you've put together for the site this week. Another um great little story from the beer industry.
Jacob Veal's Achievements and Documentary
00:04:55
Speaker
Yes, I spoke to Jacob Veal from Blind Boy Brewing. He brews in Queensland, Salisbury in the northern suburbs of Brisbane. As the name suggests, he's he's actually, he's legally blind. So he's been brewing in the space he's in for about a year. Taproom's been open since September. So I imagine there's a few listeners who may have already called in and spoken to him. He won the Emerging Brewer Award at the recent Queensland Beer Awards. And they've put together a documentary as well, which airs this Saturday at their taproom. So we have the details of that on the site and um we'll urge everyone to go. It's airing on April 11th and the 18th and the 25th. So three Saturdays in a row. And normally the taproom is only open on a Friday. But look, I i love talking to Jacob. it's It's a really beautiful story. The documentary is is amazing, amazingly well put together. He promised me it will be on YouTube at some point, and obviously after the screening. So I would urge anyone wherever they are in the country to watch it. He he has a really interesting backstory to...
00:05:57
Speaker
became legally blind, developed um through macular degeneration as a child. He's struggled to find work as ah unfortunately a lot of people with disabilities do, but he's always been passionate about home brewing. He's always loved home brewing and made beer for other people and decided to instead start his own business because he couldn't find work elsewhere. He goes into you know, how his brewery set up as well that allows him to brew on it and and all these really interesting things. I just think it's ah yeah I found learning about him fascinating and also he's, yeah, he's just a, has a very great way of looking at the world. You know, his Braille is on his cans, the font he uses, ah dyslixic dyslexic people can read, the colour, all the colours on the cans and all those kind of things are thought through to be more accessible, which I think is something that a lot of breweries could learn from and kind of implement into their own thinking as well.
00:06:52
Speaker
Yeah, great stuff. Excellent. Well, it's been a bit of a shortened week in terms of working days what with the long weekend. So not too many news stories on the on the site since we last spoke. But we do have some more events coming up. but We put tickets on sale for the Pint of Origin launch party only a week or so ago. I've had had to release a few more. So that's been going well. So we'll include a the link for that in the show notes as well. And we've also got a couple more Cabal events well. There's sort of wider events with a Cabal discount coming up. One on April 23rd, Benchwarmers in West Melbourne. So I'll be co-hosting there with Jules from Whiskey and Ailment. It's a bit of a, i guess, a Pint of Origin teaser in a way. Benchwarmers will be hosting Japanese craft brewers again for Pint of Origin in May. and Whiskey and a Ailment will be celebrating Japanese beer and whiskey with their Boilermakers this year. So it's a Japanese Boilermaker night, um so the discount for Crafty Bar members will include a link to that event in the show notes. And then um I think two days before that, April 21st, Bryony, who we mentioned before, Her and Jono Outrader does a bit of writing for us in WA and works for the Independent Brewers Association. They're co-hosting a sort of, she doesn't like to use the word sensory, but basically it so essentially a blind tasting, a taste test, um I guess, polish your senses, tune your palate kind of event at Rocky Ridge Burrswoods. There's a discount for Crafty Cabal members there. Anyone anyone else can attend as well, so we'll include that in the show notes. That's an absolute super group in WA.
00:08:21
Speaker
I know, yeah, Rocky Ridge, Briony and Jono all together sharing a range of delicious hoppy beers and talking about how you can understand them better and identify flavours and talk about beer better. better So you sort of, um yeah, you...
00:08:37
Speaker
your Your enjoyment of beer can can grow. um Talking of growing, we obviously were in the in New Zealand for Hop Harvest not too long ago. And we've already shared one of the podcasts we recorded over there with three people from three different hop growing companies. We also took the opportunity to sit down with Michael Donaldson, who um I guess he's...
00:08:58
Speaker
He's part of our sort of rare breed of journalists still fighting the good fight and writing and publishing about beer. um Yeah, just he's up got the pursuit of Hoppidness, a magazine that's been around for a longer than he's been editing it. Lovely little a booklet that he sells, think it's four times a year um around New Zealand. um And yeah, we had to catch up with him.
Michael Donaldson's Career in Beer Journalism
00:09:19
Speaker
He's sort of had a fascinating career in journalism going back to what i think you referred to as sort the glory days of journalism, Will.
00:09:26
Speaker
Yeah, basically all the time before I started writing professionally, but the 20th century was a wonderful time for journalists because they there was a lot more money out there. The rivers of gold from classifieds really hadn't dried up yet, but I think it's a really interesting chat. Hopefully, it people get from it you know he does dive into what's going on in the industry over there he's still very passionate about and optimistic but about where craft brewing stands even though like in Australia New Zealand has had some some pretty high profile closures and um sort of feeling the effects of that so yeah it sort of covers both his his professional background but also what's going on uh what's exciting him what's interesting him and uh yeah so enjoy it
00:10:09
Speaker
Nice. Yeah. I like love the fact that he sort of, but but part of his career, he was sort of foreign correspondent effectively for New Zealand newspapers, being flown around Australia just to write about sports. Just seems like quite ah quite a delightful thing to do. And then in his sort of semi-retirement now writing about beer. So, you know. He writes about golf too. So he's managed to have a pretty worked out for himself.
00:10:33
Speaker
Indeed. Nice. Well, that's coming up after a short break. Before then? Well, if you enjoy the chat, you can always reach us at podcast at craftypint.com. Our wonderful producer and editor, Matt, is now, we've put him in charge of that email as well. So you'll you'll always be able to reach Matt and he's always metres away from us, ready to sort of tell us what we're doing wrong. All right.
00:10:57
Speaker
Yeah, often. Occasionally we do things right. Yeah. So you can reach him there or however you listen to your podcast, you can comment, leave a review, leave a star rating, something like that. So to help other people find us. Enjoy the conversation with Michael Donaldson and we'll be right back after this message. Cheers.
00:11:19
Speaker
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00:12:16
Speaker
Michael, welcome to the podcast. Oh, thanks for having me. In this beautiful ah shed. Yeah. A hop farm. So it's almost a hut. Yeah. It's very old school, isn't it? was for So for listeners, we're in a the office at Mack Hops during the in the middle of the NZ Hop Harvest. Yes. And yeah, ah this is a very very interesting little room. It's a good studio. Yeah. So for those listeners of ours in Australia, you don't know, you do want to give us a little bit about who Michael Donaldson is. ah Okay. um So I guess my main claim to fame here in New Zealand is I own, publish, edit a magazine called Pursuit of Hoppiness.
00:13:00
Speaker
Which is a great name. Yes. Yeah. and It's a great name. um I didn't come up with it. Yeah. It's a magazine that's been going, it's now 18 years old. um I have been the editor of it for the past 10 or 11 years.
00:13:16
Speaker
And from that, there are some offshoot beer media things that I do. i have a Friday night newsletter that goes out called Friday Night Beers, which is...
00:13:29
Speaker
seems to be growing in popularity. It just started as something fun. Now it's ah it's my almost my main outlet for news. I always try to see if we can beat you. So the main crafty email goes out on a Friday. and Sometimes we're a little bit earlier. because You'd be sending it sort of 5pm. I queue it up for 5pm. Often we're 2, 2.30, but then if we hit 3, I sort of see both of the emails. oh We need to segue them so people get their content. directly When have we been 2.30? It's always been 3 o'clock. we' Pay attention. um But ah I've recently started a podcast with a colleague called Martin Bridges, which is called The Third Pint Theory, um which is that conversations flow a little bit better after you've had your third pint. um
00:14:12
Speaker
And I have some other columns that I still do in sort of mainstream media, if you like. um If you fly in New Zealand, you have Kiora magazine, I read about gluten-free beers. Gluten-free beers in the most recent one. Yeah, yeah. um But my background is all in mainstream media. I was a sports journalist for for many years. And yeah, we can come back in more detail, but I drifted into beer around 2010, just got fascinated by it. And surely you just saw the crafty pint and went, you know, there's this fantastic outlet there. Well, just started I started drinking this stuff. Yeah. look Well, what happened was, in actual fact, my my way into beer writing, I was a sports journalist on a Sunday newspaper.
00:15:02
Speaker
and we got a new editor and he was this is in 2010 and he was a bit kind of not gung-ho's not the right word but he was he was a bit more down to earth than the the previous establishment blue collar-ish um and i just got this vibe off him that i could pitch a beer column and I had no idea why I wanted to write a beer column. I just knew that I was interested in beer. I thought there was an outlet that could work. And I just said to him, look, why don't you get rid of our wine columnist and start a beer column? That's quite an aggressive pitch. Quite an aggressive pitch. And he said, good idea. And and so a column called a pint of view um was born in the Sunday paper. And that just led to a whole bunch of other things. So, I mean... pretty beer for one, I'd imagine. Yeah. I'm i'm always giving away beer. It's shocking I can't drink at all. um
00:15:59
Speaker
But that led to an offer to do a book. um Penguin Random House approached me, and this is I learned subsequently this is how they do things in publishing. they We need a book on craft beer. Craft beer is kind of on the up. Yeah. um who could write it oh there's a guy who does a column in the sunday paper maybe get him and that was called beer nation the art and heart of kiwi beer didn't you win a brewer's guild uh i did writer of the year for the on the back of that i felt like the first of first of more than one isn't it oh there's there's been a few um a few trophies you know over the years as well yeah yeah um some of that's just force of hanging around Wait, wait, wait, wait,
00:16:49
Speaker
kind of a guide to home brewing which i was sort of into um i did the biography of richard emerson from emerson's brewing that was called the hoar how many chapters were on train spotting yeah there was a fair bit of train stuff there um yeah including a really cool story about how he was photographing trains at the moment his father passed away and his father was a mad train spotter and photographer as well. um So yeah, and then like the now it's sort of all whittled down a little bit my to the pursuit of hoppiness is really the kind of the key vehicle that is my
00:17:29
Speaker
bread and butter in semi-retirement. And yeah you said that you didn't start it, so that was the, was it the Brewers Guilds magazine originally? No, So we had in New Zealand an organisation called SOBA. That's SOBA. Spelled S-O-B-A, which was the Society of Beer Advocates. And it was a group, started mainly in Wellington, which Wellington was sort of ground zero for craft beer in New Zealand in many ways. Although for a while, Nelson tried to fight them for that title. um
00:18:00
Speaker
So in Wellington, it was it started as a newsletter for craft beer fans in Wellington,
Craft Beer Advocacy and Media Changes in New Zealand
00:18:06
Speaker
and it was more like where had to find good beer and...
00:18:11
Speaker
a few things about styles, like trying to educate people. It's got a good mace Masonic sort of name as well, I think, to the society. Yes, the Society of Beer Advocates. It was a great name. And there were some real legends of New Zealand brewing scene that helped set that up um and were involved in the early days, like Greg McGill, who has a brewery in Hamilton called Brewocracy. Kieran Haslip Moore, who who still writes for the magazine now, um he was involved. um and and a few others, and it's had some, ah you know, a number of editors over the years. And i was approached to edit it around 2014 or sober as an organization.
00:18:52
Speaker
and sober as an organization um It was quite a big organisation at its peak and it had offices, if you like, all around the country. There was regional setups and it was all about um going to local bars and getting discounts. but If we bring our members here, you know, if our members come to your bar and drink. um festivals, home brew competitions, but mainly really strong focus on education and growing awareness of good beer.
00:19:26
Speaker
And ah think once craft beer went past, I'm not going to say past its peak, well, was at its peak. Yeah. You know, and I'm thinking here, we're talking 2018, 2019. There was, they started to realise, well, maybe our job here is done. We've, we've,
00:19:42
Speaker
done really good service. We've won. Yeah, we have won. And um maybe the membership was flagging a little bit because people were coming in into craft beer from different angles, you know, and not through these more established channels.
00:19:58
Speaker
But they wanted the magazine to survive, the Pursuit of Hoppiness magazine. They saw the value in it and... So they sold it to me for the price of a pint, which was purchased at Galbraith's in Auckland. And the treasurer of Soba took the pint and drank it and we signed the paperwork. So I i took over the...
00:20:22
Speaker
the responsibility, I guess. um And it is a responsibility, but also I had to transform a magazine at that point that was purely break-even proposition into something, since I was going to be putting my time into into something that was profitable. In terms of, I just say it as a joke, but if I actually calculated it, I think it would be true that it pays me a minimum wage. Yeah. Okay. I think you might say a dollar an hour or something. Yeah. yeah um
00:20:54
Speaker
and But I love it. It's it's ah it's a great little magazine. um you know i love the people who write for it. It's a little A5. So it just sits on bars and supermarkets, bottle stores. It goes out in subscription boxes from some of the people that send out beers. um i There's some subscribers that get it home delivered. you know So it's ah you know it seems to work. We do 15,000 copies four times a year. So it's a good little magazine. And breweries love it, right? like I've got friends who work breweries here and and people sort of come in and like, oh, the new pursuit of hoppiness is out. Like it's a really – people's calendars are kind of set by – Yes, sometimes if it's, you know, being late, it's like where is it, you know? And what's your sort of a cohort of writers then? Is it is it people working in the industry or is it people who might have had a beer blog for a while and maybe didn't don't don't do that anymore or what's the mix? Yeah, look. um
00:21:59
Speaker
but It's an interesting mix of... I always take... if someone wants to offer content, I'm open to it. And, you know, um there are people in the brewing industry who can write um and they offer up stuff. But I've got a sort of a...
00:22:19
Speaker
there's a handful of people based around the country. So ah Martin Bridges, who's my co-host on the podcast, um he contributes to it. um There's a woman down in Queenstown called Jessica Allen. um She's a sort of a freelance journalist who's in the beer scene. She's a regular contributor. um My main guy in Christchurch is a total beer geek called Tim Newman. um and He's a great reviewer and very good palette. And he sort of looks after Christchurch for me and sort of a wider area. um Yeah, so there's...
00:22:57
Speaker
There's not really any, I would say there's only one or two trained journalists. um The rest of it's just passionate people who can write like um and, you know, often there will be people that, you know, um i don't know i've just been in beer for a long time and they have a viewpoint on something and they'll offer something up um but karen haslet more one that you know he's now a sort of full-time he he was the brewer at north end yeah and they he was the founder of that and a shareholder and they restructured him out of the business and i just said to him look
00:23:39
Speaker
you want to come back and write beer and stuff for me you know while you're on gardening leave and um and he's just been a godsend he's great he's just a i love different voices like the magazine the magazines where it's too much of my own content i hate you know like i i want different people in writing well before we withdrew from uh twitter i did a I guess all the people out there, we would follow his Crafty Pint. Kieran's probably the the posts that were the most eclectic. Yes. and I enjoy them. It might might be a series of photos of some dish he was he was you know trying for the first time, whatever, or something about the beers he was brewing. So, you know, even on that platform, ah he he was always entertaining. Yeah, yeah, i um he he will laugh if he's listening but because I did pitch it to him as um I want to reanimate Grumpy Brewer, Grumpy Old Brewer potentially, you know, and I think that was maybe ah a hashtag or something that got used at one point because he did he does do the very sort of Grumpy Old Brewer quite well. um but he said oh no i've moved past that and it's um they're very considered pieces yeah reflective um you know uh knows a lot about beer and there's a lot of soul in it as well which is great yeah and you mentioned before that your i guess your epiphany with
00:25:01
Speaker
I guess beer other than just drinking non thinking beer, it wasn't in New Zealand, it was actually in Australia. No, that's right. um i ah grew up in New Zealand on our generic New Zealand draft. um You know, I went to university in Dunedin, that was all spates, spates, spates. And um i got a job in journalism and I worked in New Zealand for a handful of years and I was with an organization called the New Zealand Press Association its counterpart in Australia still exists which is AAP Australian Associated Press it's a newswire service so yeah other publications sort of buy the syndicated yeah content basically put it out in their newspapers yeah and so it's defunct now it's gone but back in the early 90s when I was there and I was doing sport
00:25:53
Speaker
And the opportunity came up to go to Australia. um It was 1996-ish. Surely you weren't old enough to be drinking. Yeah.
00:26:05
Speaker
ah I won't tell you how old I Actually, even I was old enough to be drinking. That's what I'm talking No, 21st was in 1984. So, um yeah, you can do the maths. Yeah, yeah. yeah um But, ah you know, NRL, the Warriors had just come into the NRL. Super rugby had just started. um You know, back then, New Zealand was still going to Australia to play cricket, like, on a regular basis. There was heaps of sport going on. And... um And so that was my gig for three years was reporting on New Zealand sports teams basically in Australia. And the first place that I moved into, um New Zealand press association Press Association had a house in near Manly in a suburb called Balgala.
00:26:54
Speaker
And um they owned property all around the world for their correspondents back in the day. um And they gradually You know, something like that. Another era. The 20th century in journalism is just amazing. I read somewhere that Time Magazine used to have an American journalist living in Paris that they'd write like one article a month or something. Imagine living in that world. ah Yeah. I mean, I can say I have been a foreign correspondent even though I only went as far as Australia. but so that there was a house there and so the incumbent was in the house and um there was a handover period and um her husband who was in the new south wales police um he drank cooper's sparkly name so i arrived and it's like we're having a beer on the first friday night and it's cooper's sparkly name and So there was like an epiphany straight away. Like I had never tasted anything like that. um You know, New Zealand draft style beers in comparison, like very, probably quite heavy, quite caramelly, quite...
00:28:00
Speaker
just yeah pretty one-dimensional compared to the sparkling yeah yeah which is just such a quintessential Australian style yeah like it's so cool and you know so I I loved Cooper's and um you know i I met my wife in a bar in Sydney over a pint of Cascade and Pale Ale um I was in Perth on a cricket tour um I think junket's the word. No, no, no, no, no. It was hard It was hard. Man, there was my first year in Australia. I was away from home 180 days of the year. Wow. Covering sport. and Sounds amazing. It was. It was true.
00:28:42
Speaker
I'll tell you, we're off the subject, but ah a typical weekend might be um Friday night in Canberra for a rugby game, um up to Brisbane on Saturday for another super rugby game and back to Sydney on Sunday for an NRL, you know, and that would be, you'd be doing that. And they had Adelaide in the... um Super League era as well was playing so you do a trips there and yeah Perth was for cricket um but that was where I met a Kiwi friend we went out for dinner and he said if you had this local brew you know we're in a Thai restaurant and he said got to have it little creatures pale ale and so we're talking again like late 90s maybe early two thousand s at the best And um it was like, that was mind blowing moment. And I can still remember coming back to New Zealand and getting into a discussion about beer as you do at work and people saying what the best beer is and all this. And I got no, the best beer in the world is Little Creatures Pale Ale. And, you know, I was adamant about that at the time. So that was sort of seeded more than 10 years before you pitched the beer column then. Yeah, yeah. So you when you were back, did you start becoming aware that there was some something mean changing in New Zealand or hunting down the early new beers over here?
New Zealand Craft Beer Scene and Global Impact
00:30:07
Speaker
Because I guess there was, think, a bit more sort greater depth in the early days of the New Zealand craft beer scene, and certainly better quality at the top end than there was in Australia at the time. So were you sort of exploring those sort of waters pretty early on? Yeah, absolutely. um
00:30:23
Speaker
You know, admittedly, when I came back to New Zealand, so i around 2005,
00:30:29
Speaker
It was all like Monteith's here is a, ah so it's owned by DB, which is owned by Heineken, but it was the the crafty arm of the- moold Would have been like a James Squire yeah kind of thing in Australia, yeah. But they were doing really interesting beers back then. There was a Doppelbock that they did in winter called a Winter Warmer. They had ah um like a ginger and coriander spiced sort of summer ale. There were some quite adventurous beers that they were doing. And for initially, yes, I found my feet. You know, that was the kind of thing. There was Max, which is Lyons equivalent of Monteith's. um
00:31:07
Speaker
But, yeah, my I guess my... transformational moment. The one that started with Coopers, went through Little Creatures and the moment that everything changed was Emerson's Pilsner. um And we were in a i i've in a few conversations about Classic Beer.
00:31:24
Speaker
You know, you have to be able to transform or take yourself back. yeah And for me, it was 2007, 2008. where you know there were some other interesting beers coming along but this was next level different um with just that really potent rewaka hop um flavor which back then they really intense passion fruit and that kind of diesel-y character um just so different it's it's been toned down and um i don't know made more normal in terms of a pilsner but ah you know it it created a style in its own right the New Zealand Pilsner style is is based on what Emerson's did with that Pilsner um all organic at the time you know single hop with Riewaka um yeah and that was one of those moments where sitting in a bar and having this beer and you know
00:32:24
Speaker
you can't go back like you just know that there's nothing else the brain has been permanently altered yeah and and so that was probably a year or two before i pitched the beer column because then there was epic pale ale epic armageddon you know and just getting was just such a when that first came to australia that you know i would have tried emerson's pills and some of other emerson's beers that were coming over but that armageddon was just like I guess we're getting some American IPAs coming over, but generally not coming as fresh.
00:32:56
Speaker
And then when my mate Johnny started bringing over the the Epic beers, that Armageddon was just like... That was one that got everybody talking in the early days of this... book Early days of the explosion of craft beer in Australia, it was like, you've got to get your hands on this thing. And obviously, you know, and then Hop Zombie would have come after that. But Armageddon, i loved it because it had that...
00:33:13
Speaker
bigger speaks of malt character as well was stripped out for Hobzomi it beer. It was so well rounded you know and it's I think it stands the test of time I think it's still a really good beer now even as the style has evolved and moved you know I don't know if in Australia um it's gone the same way i haven't tried enough of the beers but you know that that whole lightening up of the IPA style 100% gone now. Lightening and more fruity as well. just yeah drier lighter fruitier um And in response to that, there's been the old school retro yeah kind of beers have come back and a bit more maltier and, um you know, less of that dark and medium crystal malt going into them, but still that caramel nutty kind of flavor is starting to creep back.
00:33:58
Speaker
and it's almost like Armageddon's just stood still and seen it all this come and go yeah yeah sort wave it around it but no this is yeah this is where come back to still really works really well yeah yeah yeah so ahs okay to that I guess looking forward to now obviously you're still in pursuit of happiness you've got the yeah podcast going you know we're we're so still standing know In Australia, a bit of a smaller smaller pool. What's your take on sort of you know the world of beer media? because there would have been i was lucky enough to present the first ever... um
00:34:29
Speaker
Brewers Guild Media Award to Phil Cook many years ago. think he won it the following year. And there was, you know, in terms of bloggers whatever, there was quite a group, a broad mix to choose from Australia. There was a lot of people blogging back then. You know, there's probably a few less now. There's people maybe doing some sort of YouTube-y stuff, whatever. But what's the situation like here? And do you think it is something that will, you know, come back again to a greater extent? Yeah, look, it is really interesting. And we have lost a lot of people in that space. I'm not dead, obviously. We're talking just moving away. No, no, no. They have disappeared from the blogosphere, for want of a better word. So, yeah, Phil Cook, he's still, you know, lately of one of your parishes. He was in Melbourne for a while briefly. Now he's in Washington, D.C.
00:35:21
Speaker
he's been a bit more active recently every now and then every now and then something catches it yeah so the beer is always good yeah the beer diary is amazing like it's just ability to drill down into something at such a granular level like with such humor and and and you know sharpness and yeah life humor and cynicism yeah just in the right measure yeah and um so yeah i advocate for people to find phil cook's beer diary and um and read it um he did some He does really good stuff around awards, like kind of picking awards to pieces. and um
00:35:55
Speaker
The thing is with Philly, sort of he's not loyal to any, and and I'm trying to think what the right term is, you might have to edit this, but... I want to say there's no holy cows for Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's right. And um so he still keeps, he's still going, which is great. But for a while it it faded away. um You know, Denise Garland, who's still part of the magazine, um she's a journalist by trade. She worked for Radio New Zealand, has now moved on sort of outside journalism. She had a blog for a while there, um which I think it was called a girl in a pint or something like that. um There was Alice Galetly who had. ah She was a brilliant writer. I e f i remember her stuff already stood out when I was judging that year. Yeah. Alice, just great sense. She is the funniest writer and her beer for a year blog, if you can still find it, where she had a beer every day for 365 days and um is it still exists and it's worth finding because there's just really humorous takes on all sorts of things. um
00:37:04
Speaker
And there was Martin Craig who was who preceded me as the editor of Pursuit of Hoppiness. He had Beertown, which was a website blog, probably A little bit similar to Crafty Pint, I'm thinking. We never had a Brew News equivalent as such here, and like really newsy driven. Because, ah you know, like you guys, I think I come from it.
00:37:29
Speaker
It's more talking to consumers rather than the industry. So we don't really have an industry facing kind of media. Probably not big enough to sustain that. But anyway, yeah, there were lots of people in in the beer writing space, and I've probably forgotten a couple. Oh, John Ogiluska was another guy, um journalist interested in beer. um Who was, ah you know, really, he he's done a lot of work for you guys. He was your kind of Kiwi correspondent. Yeah, while, yeah. Yeah. And so it has gradually all been whittled away. But where I think...
00:38:04
Speaker
the not those people but people in general have gone is to that whole Instagram yeah uh possibly TikTok I don't know I don't go anywhere anywhere near TikTok but Instagram where it's a different commentary on beer but there's still commentary if you like it tends to be reviews and pretty pictures of beer but I think that's where all the content gets created now. That where they might it might have had a blog or some other outlet in the past, it's in that social media space to an extent. Yeah. yeah It's a shame because it is a shorter form of content. Like there's only so long you're ever going to make it. So you do lose a lot from that, think. I mean, I don't know how you guys feel, um you know, with Brew News having gone and been sort of,
00:38:57
Speaker
You know, you're not the last man standing, so to speak. But you know what I mean? Like, you I feel like there is some responsibility. yeah um You know, i I'm going to retire at some point. I say I'm going to retire, um whether I will or not. don't know. Like I said, I have to think, what's the legacy of the Pursuit of Hoppiness magazine? like What happens to it when I don't do it?
00:39:23
Speaker
And so I've actually just this year started to put a plan in place for a kind of ah a handover of it, um maybe next year, um because I want it to keep going. But a lot of these things can fall back onto just one person and their either their determination or stubbornness or...
00:39:44
Speaker
whatever um and i yeah i do feel a responsibility to kind of keep beer media alive in new zealand yeah yeah well hopefully you'll come back you know in some form everywhere because know so so many significant publications that folded elsewhere even in the states would be a hunting yeah yeah yeah and that was the top little class really yeah in terms of the stories except for the people in the room yeah yeah look we outlived them but you know like so i like you guys so envious of the quality of the content and its presentation that that they would do and i can't believe that they don't exist anymore and pellicle in the uk are still going but they're always like come on we need more supporters And so it's finding a model that works.
Sustaining Beer Media and Industry Challenges
00:40:35
Speaker
And mean, feel really lucky that Pursuit of Hoppiness has such support from the industry that because it's totally advertiser supported. Yeah.
00:40:47
Speaker
you need the readers to justify the advertising and, um you know, it's, it is reliant on the breweries coming in and behind it. And, you know, I'm grateful, forever grateful that they, they see the value in it. And um yeah, and it's, um,
00:41:07
Speaker
But it's it's a stressful situation every year, I reckon. Every year I think, is this going to be the year where maybe I don't quite get enough money um or or I lose the drive or the passion? And then what happens to it? you know So if you're listening, and advertisers keep stumping up. no Well, let's take a quick break. Okay. Cheers. All right.
00:41:36
Speaker
If you're running a brewery bar or taproom, chances are you're always looking for ways to drive that hospitality revenue line further. Today, we're here to help with a new segment chatting to the team at GoTab, one of the world's leading point of sale partners, particularly for brewery venues.
00:41:51
Speaker
I'm delighted to introduce Tim McLaughlin, CEO of GoTab. Tim, thank you for joining me. Absolutely. Thanks for having me on, Craig. Mate, you're coming to us all the way from the States. And i understand, you know, GoTab is your baby, but I think you came from a brewing background. you You run a brewery yourself. What's the story there?
00:42:09
Speaker
Yeah, ah well, that is accurate. I not only ran a brewery, my wife still runs both breweries. We actually own two of them. And so I come home and learn what works and what doesn't work every single day from my client number one.
00:42:24
Speaker
ah So yeah, we we own two breweries. Both my kids work there. It's very much part of our life, but I live in in the technology world. um And I ended up back in this because I was in tech before I opened the brewery. So was tech, went to hospitality and brewing, and then back to tech. And really what happened is I was frustrated with our inability to service our guests as quickly or easily as we could, because we opened breweries Caboose in 2015 when craft brewing was just, you know, going gangbusters, right? And we had lines out the door.
00:42:56
Speaker
And it would drive me crazy when guests would stand in lines and couldn't have a beer in their hand and couldn't be chatting with their mates. 100%. So I guess GoTab was your journey back into technology, but also with that brewery experience in mind? Very much. I was candidly frustrated
Enhancing Brewery Experiences with GoTab Technology
00:43:14
Speaker
with sort of the standard point of sale world um because everything was always sort of predicated on having a server, at least in the US. I realize in Australia, it's generally counter service in breweries. But what couldn't happen and what's very common in the US is you go with ah with a group ah to a brewery, you want to open a tab, you maybe want to share some drinks with maybe your company, your co-workers or whatever.
00:43:38
Speaker
that's very not fun because if you're sitting on the patio on a picnic table and you have to go inside and leave all your friends, uh, that's, that's not the fun part of the process.
00:43:49
Speaker
The fun part of the process is sitting outside drinking beers on a sunny day with your friends. And so, essentially GoTab was designed to solve that problem initially in breweries. We now do a whole bunch of stuff. We work in everything from entertainment, fine dining and food halls and all kinds, but that is actually the original problem GoTab was designed for. Fantastic. um I guess since launching over in the US, you you're now working with brewery venues all over the world. Tell tell me about, you started with that basic problem, but what are some of the the common problems you've been able to solve since that time? Like what what else has come into the into play So one thing that's very unique about our product, we're we're actually having a food hall conference here in the US in ah in a month.
00:44:29
Speaker
And we ended up going in food halls and everybody thinks, well, I'm not a food hall. But breweries, actually, the idea started out of observing a lot of breweries in the US would have a food truck.
00:44:40
Speaker
And it turns out, not only do you get to stand in one line in that scenario, you get to stand in two lines. You get to stand in line to get a beer and then you get to stand in line to get a taco. which again, it's double the pain in my view, because at at the end of the day, I wanna sit with my friends or my family on the picnic table or or play bocce ball or or whatever, right? It doesn't matter. But the point is I didn't come there to stand in a line. And certainly not two. So one of the things we do very uniquely, and it does apply to some breweries, is we allow them to order from both, either on both TOSs, even if they're separate businesses, or from one QR.
00:45:15
Speaker
So even if the food truck is you know a hired in vendor, um we can still take that order, split it across the two places, tell text you to pick it up, or... bring it to you. So that that's kind of we try to create an experience that's really wrapped around the guest.
00:45:30
Speaker
And then one of the big things we do is we also do a lot of entertainment venues where people are moving around, which has also started out breweries, because in a brewery, you don't have an assigned table. You may sit at one table and then wander over to your friends and wander over to another table. And so a lot of those problems come into like, well, how do we make sure your beer gets to you? Or how do we know that you you picked up your taco?
00:45:50
Speaker
We handle all those sort of problems in logistics with technology, not with people having to run around and yell to each other. not Not that we have a problem with running around and yelling. It's just expensive as an operator. Do you have any specific examples of breweries who are ah doing it right? Like what's the feedback been from your customers? It's been fantastic. We have some very longstanding, some my favorite early breweries earliest customers are Stone Brewing in California. So they were signing up because labor costs in California are some of the highest in the U.S. And so it's very challenging to find labor. One other interesting market in the U.S., again, similar to Australia, Minnesota has very expensive labor costs and hard labor laws. So there's a really great operator up there called Prize Brewing. They do a really cool combination of counter service plus QR.
00:46:34
Speaker
They use a feature we have called EasyTab. which is really slick. You basically can order, you everybody wants to come to the bar the first time. Nobody wants to come back to the bar the second time. And so EasyTab is really designed around that. And it's like the first time you go to the bar, you get to taste beers and whatnot.
00:46:50
Speaker
Then you go sit with your friends. But if you want a second beer, that's not the fun part. The fun part is like, oh i I'll get this. And you can just tap that on your phone and you don't have to put it in your card or anything because we use the one that was at the counter. So that's that's the EasyTab feature. Yeah, nice. mate Thank you so much, Tim. It was a great sort of introduction to GoTab. We're going to be back with a few more segments in future episodes talking about more specific ways that we can maximize brewery revenue. If you'd like to get in touch with GoTab and arrange a demo with their Australian team, email Nathan Merriman, nathan.merriman at gotab.io. We'll put the ah the email in the show notes and on the screen.
00:47:28
Speaker
And yeah, get in touch and we'll go from there. Cheers so much. Thanks, Tim. Thanks, Greg.
00:47:38
Speaker
Welcome back. And Michael, ah you know, from the outside, we often see New Zealand breweries sort of closing at the moment or kind of challenges in the industry that feel like, you know, Australia's going through the same exact same problem. Like how do you sort of see the health of NZ?
Brewery Closures and Resilience in New Zealand
00:47:55
Speaker
Yeah, look, there's no getting away from the fact that it's tough.
00:48:00
Speaker
um And so we have seen a series of closures here. And the you guys are probably be better able to explain this. And you've done it really well um about what's happened in Australia. And there are different drivers for the the closures and the liquidations. Here, it's very much just, I think, driven by a cash flow thing, whereas I think in Australia, there's a whole lot of tax issues that come into play.
00:48:27
Speaker
um But yeah, we went through a period where we had any number, um and I'm thinking off the top of my head, maybe there's four, five or six that you know liquidated in a two or three year period. And on top of that, there's heaps more that have just closed. that they you know They're pretty small. they popped up, they existed and now they're gone. um They didn't really have any assets to liquidate um as such. So on the same, at the same time, there's all these breweries opened.
00:48:58
Speaker
So, you know, you look at it and you think if you just focus on the ones that have closed or liquidated, it looks horrendous. If you just look on the ones that opened, you think, you know, boom time it's boom time. And um so I think what's happened in our market is like a lot of places, um America especially, and I guess the same in Australia where there was this explosion of openings and it was in a period where you know we had low interest rates banks were happy to loan to start up businesses the price the entry price wasn't that high to to kind of start a brewery you could start a contract brand um with minimal capital outlay so it was quite easy to see a whole lot of things pop up um and then things tighten and you know
00:49:50
Speaker
And I think it's all about a maturing market. It's just that, I guess, this boom and bust cycle that people talk about, you see it in many other industries, and this has happened in... But I think brewing, it gets a lot of attention because it's kind of sexy and glamorous. Yes, fine, it's colourful. Yeah, it's vibrant. It's driven by really interesting personalities. And so I think it gets an overly...
00:50:16
Speaker
ah the wrong amount of the disproportionate amount of media coverage and mainstream media. um When you if you I always say if you looked at other industries with the same kind of as many or more closures potentially, but it's just not as. Yeah, yes actually it's a challenge for us because we always like, well, do how how many closures do you cover as yeah well at certain times? and There's plenty. We wouldn't be able to, for one, yeah in terms of resources, but you kind of step back and go like, well, well this is a business just shutting, like businesses shut every day. And yeah yeah, the cafe next to me shut the other day as well. Like it doesn't necessarily mean too much. It it doesn't point to like a dysfunctional industry as such. um So I just think that underlying industry in New Zealand is still really strong. Do you wonder whether sometimes
00:51:04
Speaker
the people that got in that real boom heyday just maybe didn't know how to run a run a business. And as things got tougher, it sort of it was like, oh I don't really know what I'm doing. I'm getting myself into too much trouble. And at the same time, maybe later in the boom, a lot of people came in who didn't actually really care about beer, but thought it was going to be easy money because they hadn't run the numbers or whatever. yeah And so maybe yeah the great sort analysis actually, and sort of see how many of the businesses that have closed or been through, you know, BA or sold,
00:51:34
Speaker
would fit into those sort of two character categories of people who love beer, be able to run a business and who didn't care about beer, but they thought it was easy, easy money kind of thing. you know Yeah, I think.
00:51:45
Speaker
There's more of the former potentially in New Zealand with um people thinking, oh, yeah, I'll give this a go. and my mate's like a homebrew. That's right. and um And there is an element of that where people have done that and have become really good because they were really good homebrewers. They got really good kit and they just got better and better at it. And then there are others that, i you know,
00:52:11
Speaker
I'm going to try my hand at this, we'll see how it works. And it might not be necessarily that they didn't have the business sense, but it's like, I don't know, just having a week go, having a play and um not taking it, not like over-investing in it. um Because I think the other thing that you know people joke about, um you know that you have to sell your house to set up your brewery or whatever. And I did talk to Paul Finney, who owns an ah emporium in Kaikoura, and um you know he's selling that brewery because he just feels it's time to move on. And he said, you know everyone else talks about you know selling your house to buy your brewery. Well, our brewery was so successful, we were able to buy our house as a result.
00:53:01
Speaker
And so there is a good news story about, you know, it's only, crikey, not even 10 years old, I think, 2017. So he probably came in at the boom time. He had a really good model that worked really well.
00:53:15
Speaker
But for him, it's time to move on. And if I don't know what happens if he doesn't find a buyer. Maybe he just he keeps slaving away at it. But, you know, it's and there's all sorts of people like that. And it's one-man operations, husband and wife operations, and there's only so long maybe you can keep pouring all your resources into it and um trying to keep a small business going. you know it's The underlying nature of the industry here is that it can sustain business
00:53:48
Speaker
lots of little players and I'm sure Australia is the same. It's certainly becoming more that way. yeah I think there's there's an opportunity in every small town to have a brewery and what we're losing is the middle tier. The ones who were successful enough to grow bigger. Yeah, big enough. to try and expand, to try and get into supermarket shelves, because again, it's a slightly different model here to Australia in terms of the retail side of things. um
00:54:21
Speaker
That fight for retail space, only so many can survive there. And so you end up with your top, I don't know, 12, 15, 20 breweries who live in that space in the in the supermarkets and bottle stores. But there's still 150 other little ones with their brew pubs and um servicing their you know their little area. um We went had one opened up in the far north called Heavens Brewery. and um He's just, you know, one man operation, does everything himself, bottles everything, labels everything, and walks around the local area saying, do you want my beer? You know, but he's making a living doing it and the beer is amazing. And he's not Parrot Dog or Garage Project or Behemoth or anything like that. um And he has no desire to be.
00:55:11
Speaker
And what I was saying about Emporium and paul Paul's model Again, on he was just saying, I'm doing a brew pub. I'm not really going to compete and in that supermarket space. I'm focusing on this. I've got a mini putt golf course and escape rooms as other revenue generators. you know I've got a nice little business model here that works really well. So if he had maybe tried to overextend at any point, you know, thought, oh I've got capacity to make more here. I buy some more stainless steel. I borrow, you know, I get another mortgage on my house. And for whatever reason, he finds himself in a pickle. Well, that's when a brewery like that falls over, you know, from... over capitalizing, over borrowing and people are smarter now and they're not doing that. um
00:56:04
Speaker
I think that's one of the key things. yeah And post COVID, I think people have realized that. and There's been enough bad lessons or lessons to learn from. Yes. And and look, there's another guy um who started, Tony Blackett, who started a brewery called Coromandel Town Supply. And Coromandel in New Zealand it's,
00:56:25
Speaker
it's All the Aucklanders go there for their holidays. they they tend to It's a little sort of peninsula on the east coast of the North Island. um He's in a small town and in that area.
00:56:40
Speaker
And he said to me when I was asking him about starting up, he said, oh, look, one of the key things for me when I was setting up this business was reading the Pursuit of Hoppiness magazine and seeing where other people had gone wrong. You know, yeah so there is someone who just went, I'm not going to do it the way I think it needs to be done. I'm going to look at what other people have learned. And so...
00:57:04
Speaker
That's earlier I was saying the industry's matured. So I think there is that sense of people understanding a bit more what the beer industry entails. And it's no longer just brew it and someone will buy it. you know There's all the other facets to it that you need, like a point of difference in your tap room, um maybe a little point of difference in your beer, certainly your marketing. um But just more than anything, I think being local and being part of a community has a really big part to play in it, I think. And who's exciting you?
00:57:41
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. and Like which breweries are... Oh, who is exciting? Oh, you personally. um I know that's an unfair question. The number one question I get asked in my life is ah what your favourite beer is. die yeah, yeah. hate that. I need an answer for that just so yeah I can tell it to my partner's uncles whenever I see Just say Ronenbach, Carathe Rouge. It's fine.
00:58:04
Speaker
What excites me, honestly, is um all the small players who are sitting up in a brew pub kind of model and just, I don't know, running their own race. Like um I hosted a series of chats at the Great Kiwi Beer Fest in Christchurch in January. And one of the guys I had on is called Thomas Deverson and he's got a brewery in Christchurch called Renegade. And he's just like, all I'm doing is a brew pub.
00:58:38
Speaker
I'm just selling my beer over the bar. I'm selling it relatively cheaply because I'd rather he came in and bought two rather than one and left because the price was too high.
00:58:48
Speaker
um Nothing packaged, i not selling kegs to anyone else, food truck outside and getting he is getting that direct feedback from his customers as to what's working.
00:59:02
Speaker
And one of the interesting things he said to me was, I never thought I'd make a milkshake IPA, but I thought I'd try one and everyone loves them. So now I have all these milkshake ah IPAs. People told me that black IPA doesn't work anymore, but I wanted to make one. I sold it and I have all these people telling me, that's an amazing beer. I want more of that. um you know So that's, to me, exciting. like People actually...
00:59:27
Speaker
having a relationship with their customer. He's living his dream. He's created his dream brew pub, but he's interacting with the people who are coming in there who are telling them what they want. And I think previously used to be, ah I really like making big, bitter West Coast IPAs and that's all I'm going to make. And people are going to love them and they're going to drink them and drink. You know, and that was fine in 2010, you know, when it was all new and novel, but that doesn't work anymore. It doesn't cut it. um So, yeah, it is a service industry the kind of thing. In the end, you you've got customers and customers always write. Yeah, now and i don't want to keep you so too much longer no no from the event that's going and taking place outside. However, we are sat in the middle of the hop region. yeah We've flown in for hop harvest, you've flown down for ho for hop harvest as well. um There's been a heaps of excitement around NZ hops in Australia in the last few years, and I think globally as well. What's your take?
New Zealand's Hop Breeding and Global Popularity
01:00:27
Speaker
And we've spoken to few people who are growers and farmers here, but what's your take as a sort of outsider and observer on the industry, why that's happened in the last you know five, 10 years?
01:00:36
Speaker
nz hops as a co-op or the industry as a whole you know the the new varieties you know yeah the seemingly the you know increase in consistency and quality and just the greater reach and the hype around the world yeah the fact people want to brew you know nz ipas in america and that kind of thing yeah um i think one of the interesting things about new zealand hops and we we had this without getting into the science of it um you had ron beatson talking out there earlier about this really we grow these what they call triploid seedless hops and not many, I don't know anyone else has the same kind of hop breeding program. There are hop breeding programs but none of them ended up in the same place as the New Zealand one did. So we have these unique hops. On top of that you have this pest free, we don't have the same problems that other countries have. um in terms of having no mites no there's no might oh there's might or maybe there's no no no powdery yeah um yeah they have little mites and they have they actually get um uh spiders and come and eat them um anyway so uh
01:01:53
Speaker
We have a unique proposition on that level. Second, on top of that, the breeding program not only has made a unique type of hop, but they were very early in going after different hops, like not going for the commodity hops. And and um it was actually you know Doug Donnellan, who was the former chief executive, one of your exports. Yeah, yeah. He was Squire and then yeah James Squire that over to here had NZ hops, yeah. Yeah, and um he had quite big visions for New Zealand hops, you know, and he he wanted, and Ron always talks about it, that one of Doug's, um you know, he had a little...
01:02:39
Speaker
vision boards, I suppose you'd call it, you know, and he wanted the big banger, which was ah a high alpha acid hop that they, so they developed high alpha acid hops and he wanted something else. i can't remember what it was called, but then he said, I want a golden fleece. I want something that no one else has got. And ron always says that he believes that they created that with nectar on. That was the golden fleece, the the hop that everyone wanted, the massively all-round juicy flavours that you haven't experienced before. And so I think the breeding programme through what used to be called Plant and Food Research in partnership with New Zealand Hops, um it's now called Bio-Economy Science Institute or something, um that's a very recent change.
01:03:25
Speaker
They set out to create something different. And I think once you go down that path of trying to be different, then you're just going to keep coming up with different things. And so Nelson Sovin would be the first of those that was really different. um And then there was a big gap, really, until Nectarong and then Superdelic. But there are others along the way that um fall into that area. category of and a lot of them are low acid hops like low alpha acid and described as high aroma um and so you've got a you know first of all a different direction for the whole breeding industry and And then, i don't know, you can't separate out the the land and the climate and what that produces um in terms of the flavour profiles, you know, because it's a temperate climate.
01:04:17
Speaker
um Nelson is really interesting in terms of the um high UV that they get. It's it's really one of the biggest learnings for me being here is seeing like all the different fruit vegetable being grown just around here because yeah yeah I associate it as a hop region i just yeah and I knew that it had a wine industry obviously but just seeing a yeah everything growing here like it's fascinating. Yeah it's a you know there are certain areas in New Zealand that are just really good for growing all sorts of things but Nelson in particular And we know hops now grow elsewhere and um you know when you compare Southland hops, for instance, growing at Garston with the Nelson varieties, there is a distinct difference.
01:04:59
Speaker
but I think think New Zealand was just ahead of the game in that aroma field and then once that became important they were able to accelerate it more quickly. um And you just have really um in Nelson really diverse growing regions as well so I don't know you just you get a whole lot of different flavor profiles popping up and We only make up something like 2% of the total hot growing volume. And so therefore there is, as soon as someone goes, oh yeah, you've got to try rewaka from New Zealand and people want it. And because it's such a small amount, you can't get it. The scarcity increases demand. Yeah, that's right. and And then I think obviously once you do get it, you're determined it's going to be amazing. Yeah, yeah. um
01:05:52
Speaker
yeah you Yeah, they made a great beer with it. We've got to make sure our beer is just as great. Yeah, it's not messed up. Yeah. But I think and I do think there's a really good knowledge here and in this Nelson region as well because of the relationship with what used to be plant and food and Ron Beetz and you can't ignore his contribution and his relationship with the growers. And it's, you know, it's a smallish area, you know, on a global scale. although These are all really small farms. And there are kind of intimate relationships, for want of a better word, between the science side of it and the growing side of it. So no one's working in isolation, which I think is really cool. um
01:06:35
Speaker
But yeah, I can't, you know, there's a lot of other people out there who try to put their finger on what it is about New Zealand hops. Either way, it's working. Yeah, yeah. But I think it's like it's everything. it's the It's the science, it's the conditions, it's the growers' knowledge. um Yeah. And the beer styles as well that people want at the moment. Yeah, well, I think New Zealand hops are really good for hazy. Oh, yeah, it's really seems to be, yeah. Yeah, they, you know, where you want low IBUs, but plenty of aroma and flavour. And, yeah, there's some really good hops that come out of here that work in that regard. You know, we've got, can't remember which one it is, maybe it's Waiite, which is like 2% to 3% alpha acid hop, like really low, but great flavour, you know.
01:07:24
Speaker
yeah I don't know if I can add too much more than that oh that was fantastic yeah yeah it's um I just love fresh hop season like New Zealand um that's one thing that has changed dramatically in my time covering beer that we didn't used to get fresh hop beers when I first started doing this they were non-existent there were Max I think were doing some but you know Now, you you can't keep up with the huge volume of them that come out. um Beer Hug, which is a yeah the and yeah sort of mixed pack subscription service. So, I mean, you can go in there and you can pre-order a dozen clear ah fresh hot beers, a dozen hazy fresh hot beers, or a mixed pack of some clear and some hazy. You know, this is this is how far it's come. Yeah.
01:08:19
Speaker
it's ah it's just crazy yeah and then you're not even scratching the surface of all the releases so amazing yeah well wonderful thank you so much for joining us michael oh well hopefully that was useful i say with the smile face the whole way through so i hope that's a good sign all right all right hey thank you guys cheers all right
01:08:44
Speaker
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Speaker
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Speaker
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Speaker
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Speaker
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Speaker
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