If I had a pint for every time I’ve seen a brewer come through the career pathway of completing a law degree, being admitted to the bar with my former partner as his moving counsel,

This week, I had a completely legitimate business meeting at Malthouse [1] with Handsome Pete. As well as being a former long-serving bartender, Pete is the “tech monkey” who has been assiduously putting up the Malthouse blogs recently when I finally get round to writing them. He has taken on this demanding role while Colin the Handsome yet Softly Spoken Scottish Proprietor has been sunning himself on the white tarmac beaches of Glasgow. [2]

The 2009 Australian International Beer Awards (AIBA) dinner was considered by virtually all attendees to be one of the poorest events of its type. The food was pedestrian (both in style and the pace of service), quality craft beers were extremely hard to locate, the Master of Ceremonies had the demeanour of a fusty headmaster and thought nothing of “shushing” a room full of adults for minutes at a time, hardly any Australian breweries won trophies and, to top it off, the entire event was really quite expensive. Personally, it is undoubtedly one of the single best evenings I have ever had.

The first beer book I ever owned was the magnificent and much-missed Michael Jackson’s iconic Great Beer Guide (500 Classic Beers). The second was the Ultimate Encyclopaedia of Beer by ebullient English gentlemen Roger Protz. His use of “ultimate” in the title turned out to be perhaps a tad misleading as he went on to write literally thousands of articles and at least 20 more books about beer. His latest literary offering - 300 More Beers to Try Before You Die – arrived recently. I basically tore the courier package open like a six-year-old drinking Red Bull on a hot Christmas morning. It was not my proudest moment.

Last Thursday I visited Malthouse to meet a man with one of the dodgiest moustaches since David Warner in order to drink beer out of a Secret Squirrel cutting edge beer glass. My host was Mr Jules Van Cruysen, a self described “dad, sommelier, beermelier, wine writer, wine pimp, drinker and thinker.” He is also a serious foodie and his day job is regional sales manager for Macvine International, a wine importer who also happens to distribute Spiegelau glassware in New Zealand. I was there to try their much vaunted specialty IPA beer glass.

Wellington is gradually returning to a semblance of normality after the Bacchanalian frenzy of Beervana. One of the many benefits of the festival is that it sees the Craft Beer Capital of New Zealand flooded with new releases, festival beers and rarely seen brews. The tap beer selection around town is rarely better. I popped into Malthouse earlier this week for my first visit since Choice Beer Week to peruse the taps and see what leapt out at me. [1]