To say that Germans “quite enjoy” their beer is roughly equivalent to arguing Gangnam Style garnered “moderate global publicity.” 

By most estimates, Germans are the third largest consumers of beer per capita, behind only the Czechs and the Irish. [1] Experts on the internet have estimated that if Bavaria was an independent nation, it would be top of the list.  A sure sign that Bavarians drink a lot of beer is that the rest of Germany is, apparently, holding them back.

Bavaria, according to the Oxford Companion to Beer, is “the undisputed cradle of the world’s lager beer culture.”  However, many major beer styles have emerged there including helles, dunkel, marzen, Oktoberfest, kellerbier, rauchbier, schwarzbier, bockbier, Hefeweizen and dunkelweizen. [2] Hefeweizen, cloudy German wheat beer, went on to become the world’s most popular wheat beer style.

However, the style also came close to extinction in the 1850s but was saved largely the actions of one man determined to keep hefeweizen alive.  The Oxford Companion tells the story:

“By the middle of the 19th Century, however, top fermented Weissbier had fallen out of favour with Bavarians who preferred the modern, somewhat cleaner tasting bottom fermenting lagers.  But Georg Schneider I, a brewmaster, continued to believe in Weissbier.  So he leased the once-profitable Weisses Brauhaus from the Wittelbach family in 1855.  At that time, Weissbier might have completely disappeared from the Bavarian beer map had it not been for Georg Schneider’s decision to keep the tradition alive in downtown Munich.” 

His brewery, G Schneider and Sohn, is still running and family operated with the seventh Schneider – Georg Schneider VI - currently in control. [3] Their most famous beers are Schneider Weiss (also known as Tap 7) and Schneider Aventinus (also known as Tap 6).  Both made Michael Jackson’s influential “Great Beer Guide: 500 Classic brews”, Schneider Weisse is the seventh most popular German wheat beer globally and Aventinus scores a rare 100 mark at RateBeer. 

In recent years, Schneider has broadened their range and Malthouse now has four of their Tap range, somewhat ironically, available only in bottles. [4]

Schneider Tap 7 Unser Original (5.4%) is made to the original 1855 recipe.  Slightly darker than most modern wheat beers, this full bodied drop has hints of ripe bananas, clove and nutmeg.  It was known as Schneider Weisse until recently. Schneider Tap 6 Unser Aventinus (8.2%) was named after Bavarian author and philosopher Johann Georg Turmair who called himself Aventinus.  Even Bavarians acknowledge he was “obscure”.  First brewed in 1907, this dark red wheat doppelbock is a flavour invasion – bananas, port, raisin, liquorice, pepper, plums and oak.  It is no secret I don’t drink a lot of wheat beer but this particular brew should be on every beer drinkers bucket list.  It used to be called Schneider Aventinus.  

Schneider Tap 5 Meine Hopfenweisse (8.2%) is a modern wheat beer style.  Like Aventinus, it is a reddish strong wheat doppelbock but the flavour profile then heads more into fruit (tropical fruit, orange and pineapple) and sweet.  A side by side tasting (probably with a friend in order to be responsible) is enlightening. Schneider Tap X Mein Nelson Sauvin (7.3%) is a beer I bought the second I saw it on the shelf.  I was intrigued as to why one of the world’s foremost wheat beer brewers would be using our Nelson Sauvin hops in a wheat beer, a style not normally noted for much hop character. 

It was first brewed in 2011 to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the ABT Cafes in Holland and the second batch was released in September last year.  The brewery notes the “beer's name goes back to the variety of hops used for the brew.  So far this hop variety only grows in New Zealand and gives the beer its fruity wine-like aroma.”  The wine theme continues when they also say “it combines the distinctive full body of a typical Bavarian wheat beer with the elegance and internationality of a wine.”  It is an interesting drop – almost a take on fusion. 

Live music Sundays continue.  This weekend’s star is musician, beer lover, composer, raconteur and the man who helped bring back the beard, Mr Adam Page.  He will be performing with a couple of friends and Colin the Handsome yet Softly Spoken Scottish Malthouse Proprietor and Gig Booker says there is “sure to be plenty of Surf Rock and audience participation.” 

Adam is an outstanding musician – usually on the saxophone but he can play household furniture – and entertainer.  At a previous Malthouse Sunday afternoon show he memorably led a conga chain of customers across the road and back, playing all the way as if he was the Pied Piper of Hamlin with a Kick Ass Beard.

Finally, it is time to announce one of the beers which will be available for the Darkest Day Dark Beer Celebration on 21 June 2013 at Malthouse.  8Wired Rastafari Stout (6%) is a Foreign/Export Stout which brewer Soren Eriksen created initially for MarchFest in April. In addition to being a quality hoppy stout, it has allowed bars, customers and stockists to break out all manner of Rastafarian references and lyrics.  The best example is when Eric Angus asked Soren on Twitter if the beer would contain “the hops cousin for I and I?”  Soren replied “Nah, just normal hops. But hops are just another herb, mon!”

Next time, we buy a drink for my computer’s spell checker which has understandably struggled today with words like Aventinus, zoigelbier and kiss ass beard.

[1] Some stereotypes may reflect elements of reality…

[2] If that list looks difficult, the Companion also notes that Bavaria is the homeland of “less common styles” such as zoigelbier, zwickelbier, landbier, dampfbier, erntebier, drinkelbier and roggenbier.”

[3] His son – Georg Schneider VII – is nicknamed “The Little Wheat Prince.”  His first words were allegedly “Schneider Weiss.” 

[4] It is like having DB Draught in a can only much, much, much classier. 

[5] Yes, these are all drug references.  Consult virtually any Bob Marley song ever for details.

Cheers

Beer Writer
Beer and Brewer Magazine

Links

G Schneider and Sohn Brewery - http://www.schneider-weisse.de/
Adam Page: The Official Website - http://adampage.prosite.com/4900/home
8Wired Brewing - http://8wired.co.nz/
Malthouse Facebook - www.facebook.com/pages/Malthouse/7084276173
Malthouse Twitter – www.twitter.com/#!/malthouse
Malthouse Taps on Twitter – www.twitter.com/#!/MalthouseTaps
Neil Miller on Twitter – http://www.twitter.com/#!/beerlytweeting
Beer and Brewer Magazine - www.beerandbrewer.com/ 

The first beer book I ever owned was the Great Beer Guide: 500 Classic Brews by legendary British drinks scribe Michael Jackson, known to many as the “Beer Hunter”. Published in 2000, Jackson listed alphabetically the 500 best beers he had tried from around the world. 

A well worn copy of this tome sits permanently on my office desk and I see from the scribbled annotations inside the back cover that in December 2003 I had tried 91 of the 500 beers and today that figure has risen to 174. 

That number may seem low but many of the beers in the book are limited editions, incredibly obscure [1] and/or long out of production. Four New Zealand breweries are included: White Cliff’s (now mike’s Organic Brewery), Australis (which ended somewhat acrimoniously in 2000), Emerson’s (now owned by Lion but still operating) and Pink Elephant (which has reinvented itself as a contract/hermit brewery). 

The only Kiwi brewery to have three beers listed was Australis - a joint venture between Keith Galbraith and Ben Middlemiss at the iconic Galbraith’s brewpub in Auckland. To put that achievement in context, only two beers from Chimay are included in Jackson’s top 500. 

Beer writer and author of Beer Nation: The Art and Heart of New Zealand Beer, Michael Donaldson, describes Richard Emerson, Roger Pink and Ben Middlemiss as the “Holy Trinity” of New Zealand craft brewers.

All three men richly deserve that designation and their beers were amongst the first to pull me into the boutique market. A pint of Pink Elephant Mammoth on the balcony of the old Malthouse was literally my breakthrough beer. While Richard and Roger have stuck with their own breweries, Ben has worked at a number of places on both sides of the Tasman including (but not limited to) Marlborough Brewing Company, Cock and Bull/Steam Brewing, Australis, Martinborough Brewery and the Shakespeare Tavern. Today, he runs Ben Middlemiss Brewing Company. [2]

Did I mention Ben’s name is actually Stephen John Francis Middlemiss? Born Stephen, he says he “became widely known as Ben at high school when I started making a beer called Ben’s Best Bitter which was modelled on a recipe by Ben Turner, an English beer writer. In the beer world I’ve been known as Ben ever since.  I happily answer to both Steve and Ben.” 

He was brewing beer at age 14 because – and these are his words, I’m not making this up – “the wines that I was producing at home were getting consumed too quickly by my mates and the waiting time between vintages was too great so I decided I needed to make something that could be turned around a bit faster. It also seemed like no one was able to make good homebrew at the time so it became an enjoyable challenge trying to discover the secrets of making good beer.” [3] This involved hitch-hiking to Christchurch to buy quality ingredients not found on the unrefrigerated shelves of supermarkets in Blenheim.  

The three Australis beers in Jackson’s book were Benediction - an 8.7% Abbey-style ale, Hodgson – a full-bodied 6.3% India Pale Ale, and Romanov – a 7.8% complex Russian imperial stout. Middlemiss says those beer styles “were all individual and assertive in their own way yet had been dropped from the portfolios of the major breweries a long time ago. I wanted to resurrect them!”

None of the Australis beers are available these days for a range of exciting legal reasons [4], but Malthouse is currently serving two of Ben’s new beers. Middlemiss Lunatic Soup (6.5%) is surprisingly still on tap. I say “surprisingly” because I tried to drink it all over the weekend. It’s a powerful, punchy New Zealand pale ale with strong citrus notes, assertive bitterness and a delightful cloudy – almost soupy – appearance. [5]

There are also bottles of Middlemiss Hodgson IIPA (8.8%) in the fridges. This Imperial India Pale Ale is named after George Hodgson, a brewer instrumental in the brewing and export of IPA to the troops in India during the days of the Raj. It will apparently cellar for up to five years but I can’t see it lasting more than a week at my house. It has been described as fruity, earthy, floral, heavy and hot, with notes of grapefruit, pine and caramel. User DylansDad on RateBeer correctly observed that this ale is “not for beginners.” Note the alcohol percentage well before consuming. [6]

During his time at the Cock and Bull, Middlemiss mentored a young “and very eager initiate” called Luke Nicholas. Luke went onto to achieve fame as the Impish Brewer and as a trail blazer for heavily hopped beers in New Zealand through his Epic range. It is therefore fitting that Thursday 9 May will see the tapping of the last (known) keg of Epic Hop Zombie (8.5%) at around 7pm. There will also be a similarly rare appearance of Deep Fried Haggis on a Stick which, in culinary terms, is exactly as described. It’s delicious. [7]

Live music Sundays are proving popular and this week Amiria Grenell will be playing from around 3pm (doors open at midday). Grenell is a singer-songwriter and recording artist who has been playing professionally since the age of 14 – the same age as Ben started brewing. 

She has toured with Fly My Pretties and played a number of gigs as the much missed Dux de Lux in Christchurch. It was a great live music venue as well as a fabulous brewery and it breaks my heart to see it broken and locked behind a security fence. 

Next time, we drink with Aaron Gilmore because it is a great way to get national media attention.

[1] Even by beer geek standards which is saying something.

[2] His Facebook page suggests he his current interests include science, World War Two fighter planes and beer.

[3] Middlemiss started making wine after his hobby of making fireworks resulted in the lawn catching fire. It is fair to say he had a far more adventurous childhood than most.

[4] Exciting mainly to lawyers.

[5] The normally reliable Urban Dictionary defines Lunatic Soup as “any type of cider” which doesn’t seem accurate in this instance. Either a rare miss for the Urban Dictionary or Ben just liked the name.

[6] This is a wholly out of character subtle play on words.

[7] The event is contingent on me failing to successfully barricade myself alone in the pub with the Zombie and the Haggis.  Given this plan has appeared in consecutive blogs, I may have lost the element of surprise.

Cheers

Beer Writer
Beer and Brewer Magazine

Links

Ben Middlemiss Brewing - http://www.benmiddlemissbrewing.co.nz
Ben Middlemiss on Twitter - https://twitter.com/BenMiddlemiss
Beer and Brewer interview with Ben Middlemiss - http://tinyurl.com/d84l2c3
Epic Brewing Company – www.epicbeer.com
Amiria Grenell - http://www.amiriagrenell.co.nz/_/home
Malthouse Facebook - www.facebook.com/pages/Malthouse/7084276173
Malthouse Twitter – www.twitter.com/#!/malthouse
Malthouse Taps on Twitter – www.twitter.com/#!/MalthouseTaps
Neil Miller on Twitter – http://www.twitter.com/#!/beerlytweeting
Beer and Brewer Magazine - www.beerandbrewer.com/

Croucher Brewing Company was allegedly formed when Paul Croucher and Nigel Gregory had simultaneous mid-life crises and decided to make beer for a living. I find that rather hard to believe, party because they are both very together guys and partly because I’m still not convinced that Paul is a day over 25… He looked about 18 when the Croucher Brewing started.

When Coasters propose that their beloved province secede from New Zealand, they are usually only half joking.

The rather unusual nature of my job as a beer writer means I get a very imprecise and not entirely representative view of a city I’m visiting for work purposes.

Way back in April last year I made an application to take Monday 8 April 2013 off work. Despite my undoubted value to the company, the request was promptly approved by the human resources department and the senior management team.