Recovery Mode
Thank you to everyone who came along last night and turned July the 4th into our busiest Wednesday ever. And we're especially grateful to our own Sam Whitney who donned his old chef-hat and flag-cape for just long enough to create some splendidly fitting 4th of July food.
Dry July
Dry July is a campaign that raises funds to help cancer patients by wilfully setting out to penalise any and all businesses involved in the supply of liquor. Apparently this is a good thing. But for a business such as ours lifting a finger to help such a misguided cause would be an act of the "turkey voting for Christmas" category.
Nevertheless it has come to our attention that a number of friends of Hashigo Zake have talked each other into participating in Dry July under the "Team SOBA" moniker. They've made it hard for us to help them but there may be a couple of ways. Firstly anyone who comes to Hashigo Zake and can demonstrate that they're participating in Dry July can have their non-alcoholic beverages on us. And if anyone finds themselves on our premises and in a social situation that makes it just ridiculous to try and abstain, talk to us about a Golden Ticket. We'll consider sponsoring golden tickets for deserving cases.
Lemur Attack Force
Speaking of worthy causes, we've got far fewer reservations about Lemur Attack Force, who are regular customers and display no fear of alcohol. As hinted last week we've been looking for a way to help them and so will (silently) auction a mixed case of exquisite bottled beer on Saturday evening, with proceeds going to them.
Dale's Brewing New Release
Dale Holland's brewing company is going from strength to strength and next Tuesday, in our weekly New Release slot, we're helping launch their third variety. Now Dale is keeping the style of his new beer a secret until 5pm on Tuesday, so there's nothing else we can say about the beer itself.
But we can add that Dale will be bringing New Zealand's best known beer writer Geoff Griggs with him on Tuesday to help us all comprehend what we're drinking. We're also going to put the first two beers in Dale's range - the Belgian Pale and American Amber - on tap at the same time and Dale's plan is to be extremely generous with samples of all them.
Saturday Music
We're now fully committed to our regular Saturday music slot and are looking forward to each and every gig that our booker has lined up in the coming weeks. This Saturday it's Latin jazz in the form of the Carlos Navae Band. Kick off time is, once again, 10pm.
On Tap Now or Soon
If you wanted to come down last night and gorge yourself on amazing American beer, but balloons and streamers aren't your thing then there's good news. The remains of most of yesterday's beer are still on tap. Ballast Point Sculpin IPA, Green Flash Double Stout, Green Flash Le Freak and several other gems are still pouring.
Hamilton's Brewaucracy have been brewing, even if Dry July means one of their brewers will have to stand aside and let the rest of us drink his beer. The result is Clockwatcher and it will be on tap soon.
Renaissance recently released their Black Rye IPA or Black the RIPA. We'll have that and several other Renaissance beers so big that they broke the pallet they were trucked here on.
It's been far too long since we had Nøgne Ø's Imperial IPA known simply as #500 on tap. When our American hop-bombs are drained we'll find room for a keg of this.
Departures
Hashigo Zake will be a slightly different place next week, following not one but two departures.
Josh Fensterbush has finished his time in New Zealand as a student and part time bar-person and returns to the US. He will be missed, although we've done quite well to find someone with similar facial hair to sort-of replace him.
And the only person to spend more time here than the staff, the celebrated Nick, is making a gutsy career change that involves leaving Wellington. We look forward to seeing a succession of pretenders attempt to emulate Nick's exploits.
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