The Beer Diary Podcast Unknown

On the 14th anniversary of the first entry in the original Beer Diary, George and I present a "holiday special" of sorts — a look back on what's changed, and what hasn't, since we last talked and since we first talked. We cover a little of the long arc of news, entry and exit from the subculture of beer (or anything else), the ageing of beer and of ourselves, and keeping things in balance in a peculiar world.

This conversation was recorded on 17 September 2015 and is one
of those 'lost episodes' we mentioned in s05e05. Two more to come
shortly.

We sat down for a few beers 'on the record' with our friends
Dave Wood and Denise Garland.
Dave is the general manager of Wellington beer bar Hashigo
Zake as well as the current President of SOBA (the
Society of Beer
Advocates) and Denise is a journalist — and both have long been
key members of the beer community. They talk about the
rapid evolution of the local scene, their introductions to it and
their 'epiphany' beers, the simple pleasures of everday beers in
their right place, and the joys of making your own homebrew. We
also discuss the bar business, SOBA festivals, women-in-beer groups
like Beerded Ladies and Pink Boots, lament the general lack of
brown ales and have a few dated-but-foreboding words to say about
company takeovers — Dave idly ponders a Ballast Point buyout that
was just a few weeks in the future.

Damn these recurrent hiatuses. It happened again, as these things do. But we're back this week — rather fittingly, after the long weekend — with a little look at crowdfunding in the beer business, some reminiscences over my marvellous trip to the Mussel Inn, and looking forward to the Great Kiwi Beer Festival this very weekend, at which I'll be doing one of my little rambles. All that by way of bicycle bells and videogames, and accompanied by two rather strikingly different Beers Of The Week.

There are several sadly-long-neglected episodes in our proverbial back pocket, which I'll upload over the coming weeks. You — our listeners and our excellent guests — have our apologies, and also our welcome back.

Recorded at Beervana 2014 and lost for a year on account of technical difficulties, this was our second "live" session, from the Saturday night. This time, we were joined by blogger and podcaster Luke Robertson (an ex-pat New Zealander living in Melbourne) and Denise Ratfield from the Pink Boots Society and Stone Brewery.

Recorded last year in the seminar room at Beervana 2014, and waylaid since on account of technical difficulties. We were joined by Australian beer writer and founder of BrewsNews.com.au, Matt Kirkegaard, and Sean Burke of the Commons Brewery in Portland.

And so the Beer Diary Podcast is back for a fifth season, and with our traditional delay in hitting 'publish', no less. Episodes should return to their usual non-super-sized format and a sharper turnaround in this back half of the year — but you all know what kind of paving projects are undertaken with good intentions. Here, we accidentally settle on a G-theme: we catch up about the end of my tenure at Garage Project, including some thoughts on how they make their interesting beers; the debut of GABS — Sydney Edition, which also makes us ponder trans-Tasman beer availability; and read a neat little piece in the Guardian on Gastrophysics which sets us wondering about experiments that really should be done at the beer awards.