Thursday, August 30, 2012

August 30, 2012

Japanese Cuisine and Beer... Craft Beer College - The Miracle of Malt... Announcing.. The 2012 Pacific Beer Expo... Next Tuesday's Release... On Tap Now Or Soon...

Japanese Cuisine and Beer

Our own Shigeo Takagi and Shinobi Sushi's Tatsuhito Sasakura haven't given themselves or us long to promote their collaborative dinner. It's next Monday evening at Shinobi Sushi in Vivian St. We're providing the beer and Shiggy and Shinobi Sushi - finalist in Wellington On A Plate's Burger Wellington competition - are providing the venue and the food.

The food (and beer) unsurprisingly have a strong Japanese streak, but diners can expect plenty of western influences and adventurous combinations.

If this sounds like your kind of evening out, then waste no time coming in to Hashigo Zake or Shinobi Sushi to make a booking, or even use our web store if you'd rather not get up.

Craft Beer College - The Miracle of Malt

Our plans to encourage enrolments in this Saturday's The Miracle of Malt, the latest tasting in Craft Beer College's winter/spring syllabus, are looking a little pointless right now, as rumour has it that the tasting is full. But rumours aren't always 100% accurate and tentative bookings sometimes come to nothing, so if you're interested in the Miracle of Malt then feel free to come up to the bar and check on availability or get in touch with the Craft Beer Wānanga themselves.

The remaining events in the curriculum aren't booked out yet, with The Pathway to Hoppiness, The Beast That Is Yeast and the "Exam", coming up on the first Saturdays of October, November and December respectively. To really tell if the Craft Beer College should be your next school of higher learning, please study their own website.

Announcing... The 2012 Pacific Beer Expo

The posters have been up for a couple of weeks, so this shouldn't be a complete surprise to regular customers, but it's time to tell the world about the 2012 Pacific Beer Expo.

Yes last year's first ever foray into the fraught and risky world of beer festival promotion can't have traumatised us too much because we're bringing the PBE back. And most of the simple facts are much the same :- it will take place over the Saturday and Sunday of Labour Weekend, tickets are $40 and go on sale on September 1, and once again we're going to fill the Boatshed with the finest beers that we can muster from the Pacific Rim.

While we can't imagine running this event without plenty of iconic American IPAs, it looks as though the lineup will be predominantly new and rare beers, featuring one or two breweries completely new to New Zealand and, perhaps, the debut of a new local brewery.

As stated above, tickets go on sale on September 1, which is Saturday. They'll be for sale at Hashigo Zake for $40, or on our web store here for a little more ($41.50). This is because there is a cost associated with everything we sell on our web store and for this event we would prefer not to absorb it ourselves and risk the financial viability of the whole venture.

We also expect a bit of interest in this year's T-shirt. It hasn't been printed yet, but can be pre-ordered at an advantageous price along with festival tickets.

Next Tuesday's Release

We're going back across the Tasman, figuratively, to try the one Lobethal beer that we had spared until now. And rumour has it that we've saved the best until last, although we would say that, wouldn't we? Lobethal's Goodbier, Double Hop IPA and Choc Stout won a lot of friends on the Saturday of Beervana weekend, so we have high expectations of Red Truck Porter.

It goes on tap, as usual, at 5pm on Tuesday.

On Tap Now Or Soon

Never mind next week or tomorrow - there are some pretty special beers on tap right now:

  • Mikkeller Black Hole. A 13% Imperial Stout from the Danish gypsy brewer.
  • Rogue Yellow Snow IPA
  • Liberty Darkest Day Stout

But then again, there are some pretty tantalising prospects coming up:

  • Garage Project Dark Arts - another instalment of their trophy-winning coffee bock.
  • Liberty Yakima Monster - most of the trophy winning batch of this beer was bottled, but we know where one or two kegs live on.
  • Emerson's Dunkelweiss - there's a little left from the order of kegs of this beer that we were lucky enough to have filled.

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