Funding The Beer Hunter
We've been following progress of the film The Beer Hunter for a while now. When it's finished the documentary will be a record of a period in the life of the late, great Michael Jackson. For those who haven't heard of him, Jackson was the world's foremost beer and whisky writer and probably did more to inspire the current boom in craft brewing than anyone else. The film will also raise funds for research into Parkinson's, the disease that killed Jackson in 2007.
A few days ago the producers announced a campaign to stitch together funding to help get the project finished using the Kickstarter website. Basically they're asking for donations but there are perks for those who donate enough, including copies of the finished product in DVD form and even the right to host a premiere. So we think if we pool our resources with enough of our customers' we can make a significant contribution and get to host some kind of screening here in our lounge to boot.
So we'll take donations here at the bar and for every dollar collected Hashigo Zake will donate another dollar. We'll take contributions until January 25. If all goes well we'll get to show the resulting film in some form later in the year.
New Release Tuesday Double Header
First of all we must apologise to anyone who expected Mikkeller 1000IBU to be this week's new release. The reasons we deferred this beer and put Ballast Point Dorado IIPA on instead are a little convoluted and we promise that 1000IBU will be on tap at a future date. We're confident that Dorado was an adequate substitute - it could certainly compete with 1000IBU for general hoppiness. And any self-respecting hop head should be excited to hear that there is some left at the time of writing.
Next Tuesday we're releasing not one but two new beers. And for a little while it might just feel like late 2011 because one of them will be from Garage Project.
That Garage Project beer will be L'il Red Rye. It's described as "a nice little red ale, made with Chinook and Summit hops, caramel, Munich and melanoidin malts and a good dose of rye."
The other beer will be another seasonal from Ballast Point - Even Keel Session Beer. No-one here has tried it before but we know that it's a rare thing for an American craft brewery - a session beer with less than 4% alcohol by volume.
Both beers will come on at 5pm on Tuesday.
Our Best of 2011 Survey
Since well before the end of last year critics have been piling in with their lists of best this and best that. With new beers going on tap here right up until the end of the year we chose to wait until 2012 to start speculating on what was best about 2011. And as tempting as it for Hashigo Zake management to overrule the opinions of those critics by publishing our own answers, we're content to collect and aggregate the answers of our customers.
Which is all a roundabout way of saying our annual survey is open and taking answers. Have your say here.
We like to think that the continual, collective sampling performed by our customers constitutes the most considered and thorough beer judging performed in New Zealand. So when we collate the survey results we'll have what we think are the truest indicators of what was good in New Zealand in 2011.
Having said that, please understand that the questions are built around the range of products that we've served here in 2011, and tap beer products in particular. There are occasional chances to offer answers outside of our suggestions, but if your drinking experiences in 2011 were too different from ours then you might just find it frustrating.
Another Intersection Of Beer and Rock 'n Roll
A few months ago Stephen Plowman at Hallertau in West Auckland launched a beer to coincide with a tour by Wellington metal band Beastwars. Bottles of that beer - Beastwars IPA - sold out everywhere in absurdly quick fashion. (We never saw any.) But it has been re-brewed and any day we will join Auckland outlets like Hallertau and Golden Dawn in having this Auckland homage to Wellington music on tap.
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