By the book

MICHAEL DONALDSON

I GET asked a lot if I have a favourite beer. It’s such a hard question to answer because it depends on what I feel like drinking.
There are days I want a huge guava and passionfruit smash that comes from a New Zealand pale ale – if I had a last request for a beer, it would be for an Aotearoa Pale Ale from Tuatara or an Armageddon from Epic. But I am not sure they would count as my favourite beers on a day-in, dayout basis, because I don’t want them all the time.
Other days I want something smoky, and then there are days when a coffee-infused stout is the only thing I can think about.
So I flip around the first question. What if I could drink only one beer ever again?
I am thinking here of the beer equivalent of your favourite armchair, which you would keep at the expense of other furniture, or the food you most like to cook in winter. A beer you can depend on, that will never let you down. A beer that is your friend.
I cast my mind back to what I’ve been drinking in the past year and
I soon realised there was a go-to beer I favoured over all others: Emerson’s Bookbinder.
In the past year I’ve had a Bookbinder:
with the famous shellfish hotpot at Fleur’s Place in Oamaru.
with a steak and chips in Dunedin.
with a quick-fire Chinese takeout.
at the Refreshment Room in Titirangi with a ravioli dish.
with nachos.
just on its own after a round of golf.
as a pre-dinner drink.
And on each occasion it has never been a wrong choice.
Bookbinder is a classic English ale, powered by malt but fine-tuned with just the right hop additions as to leave your mouth dry enough to want more.
It never overpowers nor is it lost in the background. It’s rich and flavoursome but totally balanced.
A friend once described it as charmingly inoffensive – you could take that as insult if you were brewer Richard Emerson, but it’s not derogatory because it captures the essence of this beer. It will never offend, it
will always charm – it’s what it does. And at just 3.7 per cent alcohol, it’s very drinkable.
For some reason, Bookie conjures up images of a loyal, friendly dog. And I love the name, which Emerson came up with when he created Bookbinder as a one-off brew for the 1996 Victorian Fete in Oamaru. It was named for a couple of bookbinders he knew – Michael O’Brien and David Stedman.
In this digital age, where I imagine the craft of bookbinding is going the way of coopers and blacksmiths, a little element of romance doesn’t hurt.
But there’s one time of the year when Bookbinder has to take a back seat to another Emerson’s beer, and that’s right now, when the limited release Taieri George comes out.

Like Bookbinder, there’s romance in the name. It stems from a mistake made on the certificate the Dunedin City Council made out to Richard Emerson’s father George for his work on the Taieri Gorge railway.
The certificate thanks Emerson senior for his work on the ‘‘Taieri
George’’ railway. The mistake was noted only after George Emerson
passed away and the beer is a perfect tribute from son to father.
This spiced ale is released every autumn and is marketed as a hot
cross bun in a bottle. To be honest, that’s about the
best description you can get. With hints of cinnamon, nutmeg and
allspice, there’s a dash of raisiny fruit on a warm and soft malt
cushion.
Last year, Taieri George sold out pretty quickly so if you see it on
the shelf over Easter, grab one. And because it’s a living beer, or
bottle-conditioned, it will change in time, so it’s worth buying four
or five and trying one a month during the winter to see how it
evolves.
Having got to this point, I realise that the true answer to the
question I get asked so often is anything made by Emerson.