A Max Flavoured Soapbox

Hop Farm NZ logo.  So the process has begun on probably the most significant side-project I’ve ever taken part in - Hop Farm.  

Short history is that me and two of my best friends have been brewing for about a year and we’ve decided we want to take a crack at the larger craft brew industry in NZ in the next couple of years.  Since we’re all fairly young with very little capital, I’ve made a plan of us building our social media profile well before we actually ‘release’ anything properly.  Our old high school friend, Choi, has designed us the image you see here, which is more or less acting as the working logo while we try figure out our image.  

Seeing as Pat and Dave work as a Physio and Accountant respectively, I’ve taken the lead on the marketing and copywriting side of things while they work on the brewing back home.  The only instruction I’ve really been given by the boys is to keep all posts as light-hearted as possible.  This is something I 100% agree with, without us actually releasing anything (and seeing as we’re comparatively so young) we cannot go about challenging bigger craft breweries and hop producers.

I’m currently looking to the websites of other Kiwi craft breweries for inspiration for copy style, and Moa is definitely leading the charge. I especially love their description of the Breakfast Beer.  On the surface, it appears to be your average tasting notes etc with a twist until you look at the last award saying “Breathtakingly Bold” from the National Addiction Centre director.  This perfectly cuts the seriousness of beer connoisseurness that risks falling into our loveable little industry.  

At the moment, I’m putting together some rough copy about each of our brews.  It’s also just occurred to me we haven’t actually officially named any of our beers. So I’m giving each of our four brews a working title then giving them some copy and then some fictional awards to make us look momentarily legit.

See below for what I’ve come up with so far for our first two brews (out of four):

The Laddy Lager

Our first brew, made from the default ingredients in a $100 brew kit.  We aren’t gonna lie, this wasn’t amazing.  In fact, we named it the Laddy Lager, because only drunk as lads would be keen to huff this bastard.  Not a hell of a lot to say about it aside from that we’ve learnt from this weak-watered, meh-malted, hardly-hoppy trial’n’error brew.

Awards:
Silver Medal ‘Wait, How Am I Still Alive?’ Awards 2011
Gold Medal ‘Almost Ready in Time for New Years’ 2011
Gold Medal ‘Oh Man, This Still Isn’t Any Good’ Awards 2012 

We Can Do Better (than the Aussies) Ale

It is what it sounds.  We based the recipe off Coopers Ale, but replaced the hops with a stronger variety* to see what would happen.  The bloke at the brew store advised us against this, recommending we stick to the recipe to see how well we could duplicate it, but we decided “bugger that”.  The result is the We Can Do Better Ale.  The body has the same general strength as the original but with the addition of Kiwi Sauvin hops, we’ve proven that we know better than our trans-Tasman cuzzies.

Gold Medal ‘Hey! This Tastes WAY Better than the Original’ 2012 
Silver Medal ‘Better Hops Improve Everything’ 2012 
Platinum Medal ‘Mean As’ Awards 2012

This is what pops into my head whenever I think about American politics.

Or any politics for that matter.

Makes me glad I’m in the industry I am :)

It’s just a matter of faith I guess

Look at that car there.  It’s one of those vehicles that when you see it you actually wonder how all four wheels are actually still attached to the car.  What crazy mutation of physics has occurred that allows those wheels to turn?  What mysterious technology is keeping the engine turning and not spontaneously going up in a nuclear sized explosion?  Is that what they did with the Roswell UFO technology?  Give it to this car? 

And that paint job.  This is one of those cars that convinces you that synthetic beings are capable of feeling emotion.  It’s a good thing it needs a keyed-up driver to run the thing because if it had its own will and shifted itself into Drive it would promptly park itself on the next level crossing.

But you know what?  This monstrosity, this banger, it’s someone’s pride and joy.  It has somehow kept on trucking (or is that car-ing?) on countless road trips, on so many stupid pranks, tried its best to out-run that cocky Legacy at the lights that time, and provided the best back seat to sleep in after six too many luke-warm beers. 

Don’t look so shocked, you had one too.  Everyone had one.  It’s the car that you nick-named.  The car that you’ll proudly tell your son about when he begins to get all misty-eyed with anticipation of his learners.  It’s that car that you spent more money keeping it road-worthy than you did buying the damn thing. 

And it was the finances that brought about the reluctant decision to break up the relationship.  To grow as a person you need to go out and experience new things – new cars specifically.  Sure, years later you’ll convince yourself that it was the right thing to do.  You’re happy now.  Your current car is great: it doesn’t break down every couple of blocks, it doesn’t smell of wet socks and parents no longer usher their children away when you park outside schools.

But admit it, your current car is just that: a car.  It’s got no soul.  Sometimes at night you wish that you could have one last blast in the old thing.  To hear it choke to life.

Unfortunately we can’t do that, well, not until we perfect a flux capacitor.  But what we can do is provide a glimpse of the old beater.  With a Personalised Plate on your current soulless car you can declare to the world “I remember the good old days when I had all my hair and my life revolved around my car”.  With a Personalised Plate you can remember.

Well the election season has started in earnest, and it looks like this year’s Bill and Ben Party is officially Batman.

I wonder if there’s going to be an election drinking game again?