A Crafty XV

I would have loved to call this team the Thirst XV but the clever Kelly Ryan at Epic Brewery has already claimed that name for his fantasy team of Kiwi brewers, so I'm going with Crafty Buggers, a team of taste and style.

Tighthead prop: Substance is the key. Three Boys Oyster Stout, brewed with real bluff oysters, is smooth and silky with a hint of brine and a touch of smoke.

Hooker:In the Sean Fitzpatrick mode, rugged, uncompromising, with a never-say-die attitude is Twisted Hop's Red Zone Enigma. This barley wine, with its overtures of cherry and vanilla, has survived the Canterbury earthquake which destroyed Martin Bennett's brewery.

Loosehead prop: Emerson's Bookbinder  solid, dependable, no-fuss English bitter, beautifully balanced, well capable of holding its own in any clash.

Locks: Harrington's Big John Special Reserve is the Brad Thorn of New Zealand craft brews. Conditioned in bourbon-laced oak barrels it has the oomph you want. His partner is 8-wired's Tally Poppy, a crazy alignment of an Irish Red Ale and a hop-driven American IPA.

Blindside flanker: Jerome Kaino is the model here; a great defender, but with go-forward on attack and a range of skills including the responsibility for taking kick-offs. So joining his 8-wired clubmate in the pack is iStout and its robust, complex dance of flavours.

Openside flanker: Is there a Richie  McCaw of beers? An everyman with the requisite humility, rugged charm and daring talent? It has to be Mash Up, the collaborative effort of nearly all our craft brewers   a hoppy New Zealand-style Pale Ale that represents the best parts of our craft industry.

No 8: You can't beat size and experience in the back row, so it was a no-brainer to include Pink Elephant Brewery's cult beer Mammoth, an English brown ale with layers of coffee, chocolate and licorice.

Halfback: Aussie battler George Gregan is the epitome of what you want in a halfback  clever, cheeky, daring, skilful with a polarising personality. Step up, please, the beer that thinks it's a whisky  Rex Attitude, Yeastie Boys' creation made from 100% peated malt.

First five:A confident, smart performer with vision, experience and an ability to lead others. Dependability and class are the keys  Emeron's Pilsner.

Second five: The crash-bang-wallop style of Ma'a Nonu means there's only one brewery in contention for producing the line-breaker we need in the midfield  Epic. Hop Zombie implies staggering in a straight line, but the taste is all about footwork, distribution and creativity, with 8.5% alcohol for punch.

Centre: Elegance and balance in the form of Tuatara APA  whether it be the American Pale Ale, or its upcoming replacement Aotearoa Pale Ale, which uses New Zealand hops instead of the hard-to-get American hops.

Wings: Using Sonny Bill Williams as a model, there's only one newcomer with the requisite hype to call itself the SBW of brewing, Moa. With a tonne of marketing and fanfare but with substance to match, The Blenheim brewery has to be represented by their Olympic-sponsoring St Joseph Tripel. On the other side of the field we want a Cory Jane-style figure  lippy, super agile, refreshingly daring; so I'm opting for one of my personal favourites, Hallertau Luxe (No 1).

Fullback:Israel Dagg, as the more footloose version of John Gallagher, is beer-ified by Invercargill Brewery's light-on-its-feet B-Man. Snappy bright and modern and because it's designed to hold its own with a curry, it can do the same on the field.

Note: Just like the All Blacks, there were a couple of notable contenders unavailable for selection: We couldn't go into a world cup with a goalkicker called Harrington's Wobbly Boot. Also out injured are Twisted Hop's Twisted Ankle and Liberty Brewing's Debilitated Defender!

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Hop on the bandwagon

I love chilli. The more heat the better but sometimes it gets away on me when I'm cooking and my wife gives me the evil eye over my too-spicy curry. To stop me over-heating things she made labels for the jars containing chilli: ``Use with caution dickhead.'' (She loves me, honest.)

There are a few brewers out there whose partners could be forgiven for putting similar labels on their hop supplies.

Right now there's a beer-nerd debate bubbling along about hops. Or, how much is too much.

Not everyone loves hops in beer. Too much hop-bitterness makes it  feel like your tongue has been taken out of your mouth and wrung out to dry. Too little and you may as well drink Horlicks.

The backlash against hoppiness is nothing new and has been happening in the United States for a few years as contrarians rail against a craft industry obsessed with hops. But it reached mainstream media here when beer writer Don Kavanagh  said too many brewers were guilty of amplifying hop levels so that beer becomes undrinkable. ``Attention-grabbing nonsense'' he called it. To me, complaining that over-hoppiness is attention-grabbing  nonsense  is attention-grabbing nonsense in its own right. It's pretty hard to take the moral high ground about what tastes nice.

If a brewer wants to pack in hops like a shopaholic in Milan, then so be it. It's their money they're investing and I don't think many brewers are prepared to flush away their hard-earned cash just to make an attention-grabbing statement. Generally they make these beers because people want to drink them. If no one wanted them, they'd go out of business pretty fast.

The other thing is, you have a choice. You don't have to drink an Epic Hop Zombie if you don't want to. Consumers can think for themselves. If you want a bland international lager, then you should go to as many Rugby World Cup games as you want.

It's like reality TV. You might hate My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding but  plenty of people watch it, so what can you do?

For the record, I love hops. They're up there with chilli. And the aforementioned Hop Zombie is an amazing example of how you can use them to make something remarkable.

The aroma of Luke Nicholas's creation is like being in an elevator full of women wearing different perfumes, yet the overall effect is something coherent. There's cut grass, lime, passionfruit, guava  …  like  eating fruit salad on a  lawn  in summer.

And behind the aroma comes a hard-kicking 8.5% of alcohol to give a sweetness which balances out the oily hop bitterness. It's balanced: like two fat men on a see-saw. And yet it's light, crisp and highly drinkable.

But sadly, there's not much of it around. As Epic tweeted this month:  ``If you see a @Hop_Zombie grab it! (due to another US hop shortage we can't get the hops we need, next invasion not likely till Jan 2013).''

I got my last batch at Glenngarry in Dominion Rd, Auckland. Some New World supermarkets and Liquorland outlets might have some but be quick.

It's the attitude that counts

Wellington's annual Beervana event this month emphasised what a creative bunch of brewers we have in New Zealand.

Just as a controversial artwork can attract and repel in equal doses, so it is in the beer world. What one person quaffs down, another spits out. This is the brilliance of the craft brew scene - there's something for everyone and much of it is so far from the mainstream as to be called radical.

Take Yeastie Boys. The Wellington- based brewery gets its stuff made under contract by the Invercargill Brewery. Effectively they are experimental home brewers who find a recipe they think will work and get it made in bulk.

Or sometimes they get an idea they know might not work but will get people talking. And so we have Rex Attitude: not so much a beer as an experience.

Their spiel is that the beer is made with 100% peat-smoked malt when no one is prepared to add more than 5% smoked malt. As a result, Rex Attitude bears more resemblance to a Laphroaig whisky than Lion Red.

The first whiff is campfire meets medicinal and the first taste sends confusing messages to your tastebuds. Could it actually be whisky diluted with beer?

For many people, that's where the Rex Attitude experience ends . . . with a scrunched-up face and a wrinkled nose. For others, it's a revelation and they can't get enough. By their own admission, Yeastie Boys say nine out of 10 Kiwis don't like it. For once in my life I'm swimming with the mainstream . . . I don't like it. But I can see why you would and I appreciate the out- there-ness of it.

The other highlight of Beervana was being part of the media competition where various journalists were paired with top brewers to come up with a collaborative brew.

My effort with Richard Emerson in Dunedin scored 30 out of 45 points which left us midfield with a number of other beers.

Our brew was too bitter, mainly because Richard kindly agreed to make a recipe I'd conjured up myself. Turns out all the errors I made at home probably disguised an underlying fault which was glaringly exposed when Richard applied his highly efficient processes. It was a great lesson in the art and science of brewing and I'm grateful to have worked with a genius like Richard.

There were two stand-out beers in the media competition. Luke Nicholas of Epic and Victoria Wells of Dish magazine created a coffee-fig stout which easily won over the judges with 41 points, while Yeastie Boys (yes, them again) teamed up with Simon Morton from Radio New Zealand to create a beer and a political statement with Riddler, an Anti-Shandy.

Their entry took the mickey out of the decision by the intellectual property office (IPONZ) to allow Dominion Breweries to trademark the term Radler (as in Monteith's Radler Bier). Radler is a beer style that has been around for decades and comes from a Flemish word for cyclist. It's all to do with a long story about bike racing and a hot summer's day and beer being watered down with lemonade.

Radler is widely accepted as a beer style, but because it's little used in New Zealand, IPONZ granted the trademark.

So Morton and those radical Wellington brewers came up with their version of a shandy: stout laced with Moet. It's creative and smart - just like our craft brewing industry (and journalists!).

Why Steve Williams is a dick

I promised a couple of people on Twitter that I'd one-day deliver my long-winded account of why Steve Williams is a dick. And it's all to do with Phil Mickelson being a ``prick''.
If you recall, in December 2008, Williams was home in New Zealand and at a speaking engagement in Taranaki made the comment: ``I wouldn't call Mickelson a great player 'cause I hate the prick.''
The story went up on the website on the Taranaki Daily News on Friday night where it was spotted by Laurence Donegan at The Guardian, who gave the story a global spin.
Back then I was sports editor at the Sunday Star-Times and we decided to follow the story on the Saturday morning.
Our reporter rang Williams and asked straight up whether he'd been reported accurately and had he used the word ``prick'',  William said yes and then embellished the answer.
``I visit a lot of golf clubs and do a lot of speaking for charity and that is one of the questions I get asked the most: what is Tiger's relationship like with Phil Mickleson?
``I was simply honest and said they don't get a long. You know what it's like. You're at a charity event and you have a bit of fun.
``I don't particularly like the guy (Mickelson) myself. He pays me no respect at all and hence I don't pay him any respect. It's no secret we don't get along either.''
All well and good. Great splash for us and the story goes global.
It lands Williams in a massive pot of boiling water with his then boss Tiger Woods, who had a lot of bridge-building to do with Mickelson.
There was lots of humble-pie eating on the part of the bag-carrier and Williams was pilloried across the world.
Fast forward to the end of 2009 and it's another Saturday morning drama as Woods is reported to have been badly injured in a car accident outside his Florida mansion.
We're scrambling for details so I ring Williams to find out what he knows.
``I'm not talking to the Sunday Star-Times and you know why,'' he says.
Williams then tears strips off me, saying as sports editor I should never have allowed the ``prick'' story to run, that I was irresponsible and should have been mindful of protecting his reputation by censoring the whole thing.
Well, last time I looked I wasn't Steve Williams' minder.
And we gave him every chance to talk down the story. He could have chosen a number of reactions. He could lashed out at the Daily News for running with his initial comment, saying it was made at a private function. He could have acknowledged he said it but then apologised to Mickelson.
But instead he chose to repeat the whole thing to a national newspaper and then further inflame the episode by dropping Tiger into the poop with him.
To have a crack at me 12 months later for failing to get him out of stink of his own creation is just ludicrous.
And that's why I think he's dick.

Wired on 8-Wired's iStout

At my age (and in this occupation) it's not often I'm surprised by things.
After a while, all the weird and wonderful creatures who make up the daily news can become commonplace, and sport often edges towards predictability (until the Black Caps shock everyone by winning a cricket match that matters).
And beer ... well, thanks to a week in Belgium a few years ago I thought I'd tried the most interesting styles.
Somehow Imperial Stout had slipped under the tasting radar. Imperial Stouts are often referred to as Russian Imperial Stouts and I'll confess that my one-time limited beer mind believed these were made in Russia. Part of me thought ``What do Russians know about beer?''
I don't mind admitting I was wrong. Completely. Imperial Stouts were born of an 18th century trade deal between Britain and Russia. English breweries made stouts for consumption in Russia and, because the journey was so long, they had to tinker with the style to make sure it reached  its destination in the best condition.
So an ordinary stout was supercharged.  It had a higher level of fermentable sugars which meant the beer would keep fermenting as it travelled. And it was also highly hopped. Ordinarily, stouts are not big on hops but hops have preservative qualities, so adding them made it more likely the stout would survive the long journey without going off.
The result was a pretty extreme brew  full-bodied, highly alcoholic, as black as coal but with a fruity, hoppy flavour.
My road to Damascus moment with Imperial Stout came from a bottle of 8-Wired Brewing's iStout.
At the first sip I was so astonished by the complex dance of flavours that I put down the glass and said aloud, to no one: ``That is the most amazing and surprising thing I've drunk.''
I simply wasn't prepared for the sweet chocolate and coffee flavours overlaid with an almost summery freshness of hops and an underlying 10% alcohol. This beer is like alcohol-soaked grapefruit coated in chocolate and infused with coffee before being bathed in stickly sweet malt.
Marlborough-based 8-Wired is one of the many newcomers to craft brewing who do not own their equipment. Instead they are contract brewers, renting equipment off Renaissance Brewing in Blenheim to produce their  brews, which are crafted by Soren Eriksen, a Dane who is a brewer at Renaissance.
The only minor quibble I have about iStout is the exhortation on the label to put a scoop of vanilla icecream into a  glass of iStout.
I tried it. It wasn't bad. A kind of alcoholic version of the old spider drinks we used to have as kids when you mix icecream and Coke.
You could try it for a laugh but it's not the best possible use of this wonderful drop.
For more info go to 8-wired.co.nz

I feel Tiger's pain!

I have a lot of empathy with Tiger Woods as his ongoing injuries continue to delay his return to golf.

This is because I’ve had a knee injury exactly like the one Woods suffered in 2008 and I know how hard the recovery can be and how easily things can go wrong and the way other injuries can crop up as a result of the surgery and recovery phase.

Unlike Woods I didn’t rip apart my knee playing golf. Mine came from cricket. But it was the sample twisting action at the heart of the injury which for both of us resulted in a ruptured anterior cruciate ligament, a fracture the head of the tibia, torn meniscus and partially torn medial ligaments.Mine wasn't caused by massive forces unless you count lack of fitness and being overweight as forces.

I can understand how Woods did his left knee – all that force of the femur (thigh) twisting over the tibia (shin) which was pretty much locked into position by an anchored left foot.

I did my right knee bowling a cricket ball (trying to bowl too fast!). I planted my right foot at angle of about 45deg and then pivoted my body over the anchored foot. The sound was awful. Like a series of little twigs breaking.

I liken the injury to what happens when you twist a top off a beer bottle. It doesn’t take much effort to turn the cap but once you go far enough it just pops off – just as the femur pops off the tibia.

The hardest thing about this injury is the rehab. After surgery to graft a new ligament so spend a lot of time sitting and recuperating and walking is with the aid of crutches and then a leg brace. The net outcome is the muscles in the effected leg waste away. Even now a year after surgery, I’m struggling to get my right quadriceps to the same size as the left. Ditto the gluteals.

As I recovered and started lifting weights and walking on the treadmill two things happened. First I got extreme knee pain – it turned out that in rehab, the stress on the knee caused the patella tendon to tear, so I had ease back on some training while that repaired. The orthopaedic surgeon couldn’t work out why it ruptured – it just did.

Then I got severe lower back and shoulder pain. My physiotherapist explained that this was because I was compensating for my weaker right side and was loading up too much on the left.

And even now, a year on, I still haven’t regained full flexibility in the right leg. I can’t fully extend it nor do something like a full squat (which makes it hard to line up putts).

I was thinking of Woods again this morning after the news he was pulling out of the Open because of ongoing injury concerns and then I went to gym to do my rehab exercises, trying to push a bit further than usual because I felt good. Before I know it, I’ve rolled my left ankle because my right knee has given out and the left side has taken the force …

I can just imagine Woods, with all his free time, working really hard in the gym to make his comeback in 2009 (which was pretty spectacular, though without a major). I imagine now that he wasn’t quite right – that he was still playing through pain and pushing it hard in rehab which was causing added pressures on his body.

Then he goes into exile because of the whole sex addiction thing (or whatever you want to call it) and makes a second comeback … and tries to change his swing, but is still not quite right physically, hence more problems kick in.

It’s a tough situation and, based on my experience, I feel for the guy. I certainly want to see him back fully fit and going head to head with Rory McIlroy and Jason Day … but being realistic that might have to wait until next year.

Organic Beer

NELSON CAFE owners can be forgiven for wincing every time John Duncan walks through the door.

The owner of Founders Brewery decided to call his first brew Long Black and he's been laughing ever since.

``Long Black was first name I came up with. I thought it would be fun to go into a cafe and ask for a long black. I go into cafes in Nelson that supply the beer, hoping for coffee, and they give me a beer. But they know me  … and the Long Black does have that coffee flavour.''

It does. Deliciously so. I'm a big fan of dark lagers such as Speight's Old Dark and Black Mac but Founders' Long Black probably surpasses both in that it's fuller bodied and has a more pronounced coffee bitterness. The viscosity and carbonation are spot-on. On the longest night of the year it was perfect drinking. And, at about $6 for a 500ml bottle (if you buy it by the dozen), it's pretty good value too.

While the Long Black name perfectly reflects the contents, I'm not so sure about the latest addition to the Founders range, the Fair Maiden Ale.

Don't get me wrong, what's in the bottle is excellent, it's just that the robust beer doesn't seem to marry up with the Fair Maiden moniker. I was expecting something light and sweet and instead got a strong orange-citrus push of New Zealand Cascade hops on top of a well-balanced maltiness and 5.4% alcohol content. Nothing fair about this.  

Duncan calls the Fair Maiden an APA  Aotearoa Pale Ale  a style riffing off the popular American Pale Ale and growing in popularity. 

But the name, John?

He explains that after the Long Black, came a Tall Blonde lager, then a Red Head amber ale.

So it made sense to continue the feminine naming. ``Also it was my son's first solo brew, so it was his `maiden' brew and it tied in with the other names.''

Founders stands apart from nearly all New Zealand breweries because it is certified organic.

That, Duncan says, ``has been challenging because we've only got four or five hop varieties to choose from and three or four malt varieties, so to do a range of  styles you have to be a bit more creative, but we've come to know our ingredients pretty well''.

Duncan has also been using the same yeast strain for eight years, which is different to the practice in many breweries which, he said, ``would go to a new culture every six brews  but we keep using it batch after batch''.

After 12  years in  e brewing and cafes (Founders has a cafe on-site), Duncan and wife Carol have decided to sell, and this week the brewery  goes on the market.

``Carol and myself run the cafe as well as the brewery and it's been a seven-day operation and it's time to try some other things   maybe retire and write the family history.''

That family history would be pretty much about brewing, as Duncan is a fifth-generation brewer, with sons Matt and Callum making it six generations. He hopes the boys will be able to keep working in the brewery for the new owners.
* This post first appeared in the Sunday Star-Times, on June 26.

Processional at Congressional

Is Rory McIlroy capable of winning the next two majors to end the year with three? Why not.
McIlroy's US Open record-setting score of 268 strokes (mostly incredibly accurate strokes) has only been surpassed twice in a major when Greg Norman posted 267 at Royal St George's in 1993 British Open and when David Toms shot 265 at Atlanta in the 2001 PGA. 
Guess what? Those are next two major venues.  Sure conditions need to be right but in both cases  if the courses are there to be taken, McIlroy is the best-placed player in the world to take them.
His attacking mindset, his distance off the tee, his laser-like irons and newly discovered mint putting touch mean that if it comes down to a low-scoring shoot-out, McIlroy is almost unstoppable.
The processional at Congressional was a case in point. Never has a US Open seen such low scoring  it was the easiest US Open in half a century, maybe ever. And McIlroy, in those conditions, lapped the field.
Nick Faldo, who tweets under TheSirNickFaldo said this: ``Hogan's accuracy for most just legendary stories. 500 million worldwide all witnessed something legendary from Rory!'' 
Wow. A comparison with Hogan doesn't come lightly. Tiger Woods was never compared with Hogan, mainly because Tiger's strength was (is) his mental discipline, his focus, his creativity around the greens, his clutch putting.  Woods was never super-accurate but he could grind out a score with his discipline, creativity and putting.  McIlroy's accuracy and length means he gets plenty of looks at birdie every time he plays.
He has the all the weapons  especially now (thanks to puttign guru Dave Stockton) he seems to have sorted out the putting blemishes that used to mar his play.
Of course, this one victory doesn't mean McIlroy will win every time he steps up, but with his new-found confidence, and with majors known for whittling away many pretenders, he should always be in the mix from now on in  just as Tiger used to be. 
He might be biased, but McIlroy's Northern Ireland countryman Graeme McDowell spoke to the shifting mantle from Woods to McIlroy as the player to beat when he said of McIlroy: ``He is the best player I have ever seen.'' 
What do you think? Is he the best? Can he be the man who beats Jack Nicklaus' record of 18 majors? One down, 17 to go.
Finally, I have to share my own little McIlroy story. Back in 2006 I was lucky enough to play Portrush in Northern Ireland, where McIlroy was a frequent visitor in his teens. It's a damn tough course, not made any easier by the wind that constantly scurries across the fairways.
After the round and following a drink in the clubhouse, the member who had accompanied us on our round stopped at the message board and pointed out the card pinned to the wall, showing the recently achieved club record of 62 (29-33 from memory).
It was signed by Rory McIlroy. ``Remember that name,'' said the member, ``he's going to be something special.''
I've been telling that story and waiting five years for those words to ring true. Now they do.

Boom or bust at US Open

The US Open golf tournament at Congressional is promising this year to be more thrilling.
Maybe they got sick of guys like Retief Goosen, Michael Campbell, Angel Cabrera, Geoff Ogilvy and Graeme McDowell winning their signature event. You know, all those foreigners with their grafting games honed on difficult courses. Guys who can play an array of shots and in all conditions in order to make a par. Did the USGA like that. Not really.
You get the feeling they'd rather see someone like Phil Mickelson, Bubba Watson, Rickie Fowler or Dustin Johnson grab the trophy. You know, big-driving, high-hitting excitement machines who live to make birdie.  
The USGA has spent years making the US Open tougher and tougher, only to find, that Tiger Woods (the ultimate grinder) and the dour Lucas Glover aside, those sorts of courses didn't really suit Americans weaned on a diet of target golf. 
So this year a change. The set-up has been tweaked. Par has been increased from 70 to 71. There's less rough, more risk-reward holes and less par-grinding grimness.
The USGA's Mike Davis says there will be more birdies, and a few eagles, but also some big ugly numbers, too. They want it to be like the back nine at Augusta during the Masters where this year Rory McIlroy was self-destructing with sixes and sevens while eventual Charl Schwartzel was skipping along with twos and threes.
There is potential for a glorious win or a gruesome demise. Unlike, say Winged Foot, where Geoff Ogilvy won after everyone else imploded. Ogilvy didn't dash to victory ... he simply arrived there.
So there will be room for the boom-bust merchants to crank out a low score, as long as they avoid big trouble. That said, the greens at Congressional are reported to be getting pretty fast already, so so Stewart Cink reported on Twitter.
So making those slippery six to 10 foot putts for par will still be crucial, as will lag putting. Predicting who will get hot with their putter is a tough one, especially when the heat increases during the final round.
I think it will come down to putting and with no crystal ball at hand I can only go on history and particularly the PGA Tour's extensive stats on putting. There a handful names keep popping up: Steve Stricker, Luke Donald, Zach Johnson, Brandt Snedeker and Ryan Moore.
I'm sticking with my original pick for this: Snedeker. he's in-form and when he's hot with the putter he's pretty impressive. For one at odds to continue the Open trend of throwing up an unlikely winner, how about Jason Dufner - with three top 10s in his past four starts, all at hard courses, he's playing as well as anyone right now.

Winter Ale

 
I'VE BEEN asked more than once: "That beer you reviewed, where can I buy it?" The implication is that some of the craft beers mentioned in this column are not as widely available as the mainstream brands.

I steer away from the mainstream beers because I figure most of you know what they taste like, so I've tended towards reviewing those quality beers which make up the niche craft beer market. The problem is that many of these brewers struggle to get their products into bars and pubs as they feel the squeeze applied by the moguls of DB and Lion.

This list is by no means complete but if you want to taste a different kind of beer try: Eureka in Albany St, Dunedin; Pomeroy's in Kilmore St, Christchurch; Hashigo Zake in Taranaki St, Wellington; and Brew On Quay, in Quay St, Auckland.

That's only a small sample of places with top-notch beer on tap and you can find more at realbeer.co.nz or soba.org.nz. Also New World supermarkets have a range of craft brews. Finally, there's the beerstore.co.nz, which has a great online stock of New Zealand and overseas brews.

Having got that particular house in order, I'm now going to bow to the power of the big breweries by talking about Monteith's Winter Ale, a six- pack of which arrived on my desk last week. (Note to brewers: this is an extremely good idea!)

Winter Ale is done in the German Doppelbock style which usually means something strong, dark and malty with very little bitterness.

However, it is a slightly watered-down version of the a German Doppelbock - at 6% it's not as strong as it could be and the body is quite light. It's probably designed to suit a New Zealand palate so if you're after something a bit more European, it's not for you.

What Winter Ale does deliver is the perfect fireside drink after you've been out in the cold. Its toasty, chocolate malts offer up hints of cocoa, coffee and an acidic fruitiness reminiscent of cherries or plums.

It's very lightly hopped, allowing the maltiness to shine through, although that means the deep richness you get on the front and middle of the palate isn't backed up by a strong finish, leaving you with the feeling there could have been more to savour.

That's a minor quibble though, because this is a great winter bevvy and can easily be enjoyed with rich, gamey meats like venison or duck. The Monteith's people suggest it goes well with blue cheese, and it's hard to argue with their assessment after a relaxing Sunday evening with this combination.

If you're not sure whether darker ales are for you, this limited edition ale is a great place to start.

Subsequent to the publication of this column in the Sunday Star-Times, I've had some good feedback on the Winter Ale, with the general vibe being it's served too cold in New Zealand bars! it is designed to be drunk at a slightly warmer temperature than the kiwi preferencwe for 0-4deg. Try it at about 8degC and you'll get more flavour from it.

(This column was first published in the Sunday Star-Times on June 12)

Tiger Woods stuck on 14?

Fifteen or so years ago, the late Earl Woods predicted lots of things for his uber-talented son Eldrick, just coming up short of describing his life as the second coming of  JC himself.
One thing that's always struck me is that while Earl was so over the top about Tiger he predicted his son would one day win 14 golf majors.
This is weird because Earl would have known Tiger's obsession with Jack Nicklaus' 18 majors and his son's determination to beat that mark.
Golf World writer John Strege, who began covering Tiger at age 14 said this about Earl when he died in 2006: ``If he was guilty of anything it was overspeaking at times. After Tiger won his second US Amateur, Earl started celebrating early and predicted Tiger would win 14 major championships. He got criticised for that because you can't put that on a 19-year-old kid. In hindsight, Earl probably underestimated it.”''
In hindsight, maybe Earl knew his son better than anyone.
Woods is stuck on 14 majors, with none to his name in three years since his limp-to-victory over Rocco Mediate at the 2008 US Open at Torrey Pines.
He hasn't won the Masters in six years, it's been five years since his last British Open triumph, the emotional one which came shortly after Earl died, and four years since his last PGA Championship.
A lot has happened to Woods in the last three years: severe injuries, being exposed as an adulterer, coming out as a sex addict, losing his mana, losing his swing, changing his coach, getting divorced and now, injured again. The latest injury news means he will miss next week's US Open. 
It's time to ask whether Woods, at the age of 35, is done. Will Earl's prediction end up being spot on, that Woods will be forever stuck on 14 majors, falling short of Jack's mark due to a combination of his own weaknesses, both in body and mind.
I have serious worries that Woods can make it back to the force he once was but that doesn't mean his pursuit of Jack's mark of 18 is done and dusted. If Woods learns to swing within himself and get by on his once magical putting, he can win plenty more tournaments.
And don't forget Nicklaus won four of his majors after the age of 38, including three in 40s. And golf is full of players who get a second life in their late 30s and 40s and go on to become major contenders.

Courtesy of paul.edrosky.com

To illustrate the two golfers' careers I found this great graph on http://paul.kedrosky.com/
which he did back in 2009. The only thing that changes is that the flat-line for Woods at 14 continues for two more years!
But what Woods will have to face that Nicklaus never did, is a generation of young powerhouse swingers inspired by Woods and chasing the riches only made possible by Woods.
While Nicklaus was the star of his class he's had nowhere near the same effect on golf as Woods.
To win more than 14 majors Woods will first have to make a full physical recovery, then he has to get his game in order (maybe restricted his distance and going for a Luke Donald- or Jim Furyk-style of golf) and then he will have to overcome a much deeper list of contenders than Jack ever had to face.

home brewery

Last week I tried out the new WilliamsWarn home brew system http://www.williamswarn.com/ which is a brilliant piece of Kiwi ingenuity.
Ian Williams, the designer, let me "borrow" it for a week to put down a brew. I didn't physically borrow it as the brew was prepared and fermented on his premises on Great South Road - after all he wouldn't want an amateur like me lugging his $6000 baby all over Auckland.
But Ian then delivered the 20L batch to our workplace on Friday evening where the cask was drunk dry in short time. Here's a pic courtesy of @richardboock http://yfrog.com/hsbaqtuj
The brilliance of the WilliamsWarn is that you can ferment and cask the beer in the same vessel, as Ian has developed some amazing gadgets which a) clear the yeast sediment b) clarify the wort without opening the lid c) keep the wort under constant pressure and temperature (to best suit the yeast) and d) take the fresh beer from the fermenter/barrel via and ingenious pump system so you can drink the equivalent of tap beer straight from the fermenter as it were. You can also carbonate to your desired level.
It's a pretty little appliance actually (though many people were surprised by how big it was!).
It's also expensive but Ian hopes that he if can sell a few in North America and Europe, the price will come down, particularly for Kiwi brewers.
At the current price it's not necessarily an ideal home brew system for a bloke on his own. Also, the idea is that the beer is supposed to be drunk fresh, although it will keep for a number of days, and the temptation of having 20L of beer chilled and on tap in your own home could be a disaster.
But you can bottle from it if you want (without the worry of calculating priming sugar/yeast or sedimentation).
It would be an ideal machine for a sports club or a big flat, or university dorm - where you can lay down a brew on Sunday and drink it the following Saturday night! It's a quick clean and repeat.
Twenty litres does disappear pretty fast with a few people around. At our workplace, it was quaffed  quickly (media people are a sucker for a free drink). Ian and I went for a blond ale with a late infusion of Riwaka hops and it was an easy drinking brew - just perfect for the large number of women in our building because it wasn't too hoppy and not too carbonated. It had hints of passionfruit and citrus and I got a light bubblegum whiff which I quite liked.
The real advantage of this machine (if you can afford it) is the commercial quality of the brew. It's super clear, with no off flavours that you often get from home brew. Because the entire machine is pasteurised before you start, there's no risk of infection and the temperature/carbonation control means everything that can usually go wrong doesn't.
Ian has some kits for making an array of brews but if you wanted to, you could do your own all-grain mash and then transfer the cooled wort to the WilliamsWarn.
In my dreams I'd have a microbrewery (more a nanobrewery) with half a dozen of these things lining the back wall with an array of brews on tap and another half dozen out the back brewing next week's batches.
   

US Open winner?

I've had a brief discussion with @mrbojumbles about the US Open golf tournament next weekend and thought I'd throw the whole thing open to debate.
I'm looking at four elements:
1) driving accuracy, because the US Open always puts a premium on hitting fairways
2) three-putt avoidance, because US Open greens are often treacherous
3) Previous form at Congressional where the AT&T National was played 2007-2009
4) Current form.
I'd love to have a super computer that could overlay all these factors and pump out a winner, but I don't so I resorted to old fashioned paper and pencil.
In driving accuracy I pencilled in the following in-form suspects; Luke Donald, David Toms, Matt Kuchar, Graeme McDowell, Brandt Snedeker and for value added the 50th most accurate driver on the PGA Tour; Bill Haas.
In three-putt avoidance, the tour website gave me the names: Donald, Toms, Kuchar and Snedeker and for value the 54th person on three-putt avoidance, Bill Haas.
Then to another website golfobserver.com, where I looked at top-20 results at Congressional from 2007-2009. Here the following were recurring names: Furyk, Hunter Mahan, Steve Stricker, Tiger Woods, Anthony Kim, Brandt Snedeker, Lucas Glover, Vijay Singh, KJ Choi.
It seems Donald, Furyk, Mahan, Stricker, Kuchar and Toms should all be in the mix and I went into this exercise thinking KJ Choi was the man for the title ... but I've come away from this shake-down with one name resounding in my head: Brandt Snedeker.
He's got form at Congressional, he's super accurate off the tee and a great putter.
And for a long-shot I like Bill Haas, simply because he's got a US Open style game.

Snedeker's at $80 on the NZ TAB and Haas is at $60.

New Zealand Beer of the Year

What's the best kiwi beer you've drunk this year? I'm compiling a list here of my favourites and to coincide with Beervana in August will come up with my definitive top-10 brews.

Sadly there's not enough a time to sample every single brew produced by our amazing craft brewers (nor enough time to go to the gym to burn off the calories).

Any suggestions on beers I should wrap my lips around will be well received but so far my top five Kiwi brews for 2011 are:
1) Emerson's Pilsner
2) Invercargill Brewery's B-Man
3) Hallertau Luxe
4) Mash Up
5) Epic Pale Ale

On my list for taste-testing are Epic's Hop Zombie,  8-wired's Stout and Yeastie Boys Rex Attitude. Any other beers you love?

real rules of golf

Golf needs an overhaul of the rules - a set of instructions that will work for once a week hackers as opposed to pros or someone playing in their club championship.

I'd be interested on views on these following alterations

1) Lost or out of bounds balls. Many amateurs struggle to see exactly where a ball lands. Unlike the pros we have no marshalls or a gallery to keep on eye on our wayward drives, and sometimes we're unsure if the ball has landed in or out of bounds. Rather than go back to the tee to play a third for a lost or OB ball the player should just be able to drop in the vicinity for a penalty of one. It'll speed up play and generally make life easier for guys who are going to shoot 80, 90 or 100 anyway.

2) Because no-one rakes bunkers any more if your ball lands in a footprint in a bunker, or in a depression made by a dog or rabbit, you can move it without penalty. Bunkers are hard enough to escape without some selfish clown making it worse by refusing to rake after himself.

3) A ball in a divot in the fairway can be replaced without penalty. No brainer - high handicappers get too easily intimidated by these shots and it's not fair to have to play our of the inch-deep divots other hackers leave behind.

4) An unplayable ball can be moved more than two clublengths with a one-stroke penalty. If you're in really deep rough/trees just get the problem solved as quickly as possible to save wasting everyone's time.

5) Play out of turn. There's always someone bound to be pfaffing around - looking for a tee, pacing out a yardage - if you're ready just hit and etiquette be damned.

6) A limit of two practice swings!

That'll speed up play and make life on the links slightly more bearable for those us driven crazy by our game.

Mash Up review

 IS THERE a definitive New Zealand beer? Something we could put up in a world cup of beers and say `` This is us, it represents what we make in New Zealand''?
Until a few years ago, the answer (by weight of export volume and exposure) might have been Steinlager. To me, however, Steinlager is just a New Zealand version of generic lagers that have dominated the midfield of the beer paddock.
If we want a distinctly New Zealand beer it needs to showcase what is unique to this country, something that will stand out like Jonah Lomu.
One thing we have that is uniquely ours is New Zealand hops. We've got hops that started out as British, American or European transplants but have taken on the characteristics of where they're grown, such as Cascade. And we've developed our own varieties like Riwaka, Motueka and Sauvin.
So when Luke Nicholas of Epic Brewery and his collaborative partner Kelly Ryan decided to create a beer representative of New Zealand, it was the hops that became the star.
Nicholas, who kindly supplied the images for this post, and Ryan toured the country, dropping in at 44 craft breweries, getting ideas from other brewers on what they thought was the essence of a Kiwi beer. They pulled it all together in Mash Up, a New Zealand pale ale.
The cleverly named beer references the mashing stage of the brewing cycle where grains are steeped in hot water, as well as the digital definition of mixing and matching different types of data.   Although critics have argued about whether a pale ale is truly representative of New Zealand, Nicholas and Ryan say it is the best vehicle for carrying the indigenous hop bitterness and aroma to your tongue.
And, as is Nicholas's want, Mash Up is bitter. But with Southern Cross hops as the main bittering agent, it's not a harsh bitterness  more an oily coating that stays on your tongue and allows subsequent sips to lay other flavours across the top. Eventually, as the glass empties, the bitterness recedes like a tide, revealing other characteristics.
There you'll find the heavenly, golden summer scents of Riwaka, with its orange and lemon zest perfume, New Zealand Cascade and its cut-grass, flowery aroma and Nelson Sauvin, which adds a fruitiness veering away from the more astringent notes of Riwaka and Cascade.
Given its backbone of New Zealand and English malts (to reflect the large number of brewers here with English heritage), American yeast and its retro tea-towel label, it's fair to say Nicholas and Ryan have created something that is intrinsically Kiwi, and a modern Kiwi at that.
Whether this over-hoppy style will continue to define the essence of New Zealand beer is debatable, as tastes and styles are bound to change. But right now you could line up this beauty against the best on offer in any other country and be satisfied that it will carry as much punch as an All Blacks pack.