It has been a tremendous couple of months for New Zealand beer with the success of Beervana and the 2010 BrewNZ Beer Awards, then official confirmation from the Brewer’s Guild that sales of craft beer are continuing to grow, even while the economy remains troubled and beer sales overall continue to slide.

Something is different at the Malthouse. This is probably because of Colin, or, more accurately, the lack of Colin. The Handsome yet Softly Spoken Proprietor is currently travelling around the ancestral homelands with his family. As a result, paisley shirt wearing at Malthouse is down 95%, though the preponderance of plaid and/or check shirts * remain tragically consistent.

This is the fourth instalment of the widely popular People’s Blog segment on this site.  It allows two Malthouse customers to share their thoughts about favourite beers and beer drinking philosophies.  Some share a little, some share a lot.  It’s always interesting.

I thought I had been to some big wedding parties but they all pale into comparison with the bash thrown by Crown Prince Ludwig of Bavaria and Princess Therese of Saxe-Hildburghausen in October 1810. * 

It has to be pretty much the worst way to wake up.  At precisely 4:35am on Saturday 4 September 2010, Canterbury was hit by a massive earthquake measuring 7.1 on the Richter Scale.