Hankook's High-Tech Golf Ball-Inspired Tyre | Stuff.co.nz

Hankook's High-Tech Golf Ball-Inspired Tyre | Stuff.co.nz:

'via Blog this'

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.