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.