WATCH A VIDEO OF THE ARO STREET INSTALL HERE.

It’s been called Wellington’s worst kept secret. It’s no secret really, but we have been careful not to mouth off too much about what has been going on in the Garage this year. Why? The fact is starting a brewery isn’t easy. Things can go wrong, even when the goal seems so close you can almost taste the first brew. That’s why we’ve been keeping stum.

But to be honest, the other day, surrounded in our garage forecourt by tens of tonnes of shining stainless steel brewing equipment, as people streamed down Aro Street on their way to work, the idea of keeping things under wraps any longer seemed a little pointless.

Over a decade of dreaming, years of preparation and planning, months of gruelling hard work, negotiation and submissions to council, sleepless nights and moments of doubt, twelve hours of intense forklifting and we’re almost there.

And we’re stoked.

The kit’s a 10 US barrel system from American manufacturers Premier Stainless. It’s a brew kit with a story behind it, not originally destined for us, but it fits the Garage like it was made for it. They say pride comes before the fall, so I’m trying hard to restrain myself, but it’s enough to say that there’s been nothing to disappoint so far.

At the moment we’re making the last connections and putting the finishing touches to chilling, plumbing and electrics. It’s pure pleasure after months of preparation, planning and worry. You can almost taste the first brew. Fingers crossed.

Oldham’s Farm 

The Devil will find work for idle hands to do

- The Smiths

It’s been some time since our last pilot plant release. We’ve been tight lipped about the reason for our little kit being idle (apart from a brief sojourn to the hop fields), but the fact is that Wellington is a pretty small place and what we’ve been up to over the last three months is probably no secret to anyone. Anyway, all will soon be revealed.

During our little pilot plant’s period of idleness we have had a keg of something tucked away in a dark corner of the Garage. This Friday, being Friday the 13th and all, seemed like a good time for its release.

There is a tradition of giving strong beers a demonic moniker. The Dark Lord really does have the best nicknames, and if you’re after a good Barleywine or Old Ale name there are rich pickings to be had. Consider Old Ned, Old Nick, Old One, Old Roger, Old Horny (or in the Scottish spelling, Auld Hornie), the old boy, old gentleman, old gentleman in black, old serpent, old smoker, old poker, old dragon, old enemy, old adversary, Old Billy, Auld Clootie and old gooseberry.

So in this tradition we give you (my personal favorite) Old Scratch. A British Barleywine of impeccably dark credentials, Old Scratch was brewed back on Friday the 13th of January, and will be served on Friday the 13th of April, after 13 weeks of conditioning. Brewed with Pale, Amber, Crystal and black malts it weighs in at 8.2% abv, with just enough English Admiral and Challenger hops to balance the hefty grain bill.

Two 19 litre kegs of Old Scratch will be available this Friday the 13th in the bowels of Hashigo Zake. Given the date’s association with ill luck it might be wise to get in early.

There is something central to the human psyche about the idea of pilgrimage, of reaffirming and celebrating your faith by making a journey to some spiritual heartland. For some it might mean a trip to Mecca or to Jerusalem.

For us it was a trip to the hop fields of Nelson.

 

That’s what I wrote last year about our trip to the New Zealand Hop Harvest. So inspired were we by that trip that we immediately began planning our 2012 visit. It would have to be something bigger, more challenging, with higher stakes and possibly even greater rewards.

Garage Project’s unofficial motto could be why do something the easy way when it’s so much more fun making it complicated? Why bring hops to the brewery when you can bring the brewery to the hops? So the idea was hatched, a wet hop brew, in the hop fields, using whole hop cones, fresh from the bines.

When hops are harvested they are immediately dried to preserve them. Without the drying process the hop cones would quickly deteriorate.

But what if you use the hops straight away? What if you can get them into a brew while they are at the peak of their freshness If you’ve ever been in a hop field at harvest time you’ll know what I mean. The clusters of ripe cones on the bines are a vivid green, which is almost hyper real. They are literally bursting with freshness, sticky with resin and so pungent that the still air between the rows of bines is almost dense with their piney, spicy aroma. Last year I wrote that for any true hop enthusiast a trip to the hop fields really is something akin to a spiritual experience. I’m not kidding. If you love hops it’s enough to put you into a state of rapture.

What if you could capture that intensity in a beer?

That’s the aim of a wet hop brew. Exponents of this brewing style liken it to using fresh basil or coriander rather than the dried equivalent. It isn’t a brewing technique that I’d ever had the opportunity to try before, but I’ve wanted to give it a crack from the moment I first heard of it.

What we needed first was to find a hop farmer who was willing to tolerate an over enthusiastic brewer with a scheme to brew in their field during the frantic height of their working year. We got lucky when we were put in touch with Colin Oldham, a third generation hop farmer from New Hoplands, in the Tadmor Valley near Tarawera. Not only was New Hoplands one of the very first farms to grow organic hops, well ahead of their time, but they also grow an amazing variety of different hops, which speaks volumes of the enthusiasm and passion that Colin has for his work.

So with a hop farm sorted I hired a van, loaded up the little pilot brewery that has served us so well over the 24, and Garage Project hit the road.

Getting off the ferry and heading down the Wairau Valley I discovered that the van I’d hired was notable for two things - that the speedo read 15km faster than the van was travelling, giving an impression of speed that the vehicle was totally incapable of giving, and that it took corners like a medium sized yacht.

I finally arrived at Colin’s farm to find it in the full swing of harvest, with the drying floors working round the clock to process the harvest, rooms full of huge sacks of hops waiting to be dried, and literally mountains of dried cones waiting to be baled up and loaded onto trucks.

Part of my pilgrimage was to actually sleep in a hop field. I just thought it would be fun. Colin looked at me a bit funnily when I told him this and offered me a nice warm bed in their guesthouse, but I assured him that I’d be fine. I’d come prepared with a sleeping bag and hammock tent complete with mosquito net. What could go wrong? I slung the hammock between the poles of the hop rows and as I lay looking up into a crystal clear night, full of stars and framed by the hops above me, a shower of shooting stars went over. I’ll tell you, it felt pretty special.

About four hours later I woke up, drenched in dew, feeling colder than I can ever remember being and thinking whose fucking clever idea was this? I’ve no one to blame but myself.

When the sun finally came up, and I’d stopped exhibiting the early symptoms of hypothermia, I unloaded the kit and fired up the brew.

Sometimes the reality of fulfilling something you’ve always wanted to do can fall short of your expectations, but not here. Brewing in a hop field with the harvest in full swing around me exceeded all expectations. Colin and everyone at the farm were as generous with their time as they were with their hops. Walking through a hop field, hand picking hops and throwing them straight into a rolling boil has to be one of the brewing highlights of my life.

The concern I always have when I try a new way of brewing is that the finished product will somehow be unremarkable. What if we went to the effort of brewing a fresh harvest beer, only to produce just another hoppy beer like any other? I can’t say for sure, but based on the intense and unique hop aroma that came off the boil as I threw in mounds of fresh green cones, I’m pretty confident that we’ve got something pretty exciting here.

With the test brew in the fermenter and the van loaded with huge sacks of fresh hops I took off on a mercy dash to Christchurch, to get the hops to Three Boys to brew a large scale version of our harvest beer. It was an uneventful trip other than the discovery, somewhere over the Lewis Pass during a sudden down pour that the van’s windscreen wipers offer what can only be described as an implied wipe.

But what pilgrimage is complete without some moment of existential crisis where all seems lost? At Three Boys, the plan was to boil the wort with the fresh bittering and flavour hops, and then using the mash tun as a huge hopback, to pass the wort through a mountain of whole cones to capture that fresh hop aroma.

This large scale version of our hop field brew went like a charm, without so much as a hitch, that is, right up until the end of the boil when the hot wort, laden with whole cone hops just flatly refused to come out of the kettle into the hopback where the late hops were waiting.

I normally manage to maintain a fairly optimistic approach to brewing. There’s almost always a way of dealing with a crisis, no matter how bad it may seem at the time. However, after exhausting almost all my mental list of possible solutions, I’ll admit I felt the first twitch of icy, sphincter clenching panic at the prospect of having to just open up the bottom of the kettle and dump the brew, chalking it down as a painful learning experience.

Luckily it never came to this and with an improvised hop filter in line and a bit of fiddling the kettle finally gave up the wort to our improvised hopback. I used to use hopbacks in England, and there’s almost nothing better than watching and smelling the steaming hot wort running through a mountain of whole cone hops. It’s simply magic, and all the sweeter having so narrowly averted disaster.

And that’s it. The pilgrimage is complete. The harvest brews are tucked away in their fermenters. Thanks to Tony at Three Boys for his support in our moment of crisis. Huge thanks too to Colin Oldham for letting us brew on his farm, for his generosity and tolerance. It’s always inspiring to meet someone with such a knowledge and passion for their work, so inspiring we’re calling this brew Oldham’s Farm. How often do you get to fulfill a dream and have it live up to all expectations? I can hardly wait till next year.

This week is all about the road trip. I love jumping in the car and hitting the road with a loose plan and a sense of nervous excitement about what the journey might put up along the way. It’s liberating and invigorating. 

This week marks the one year anniversary of the first Garage Project road trip. We went down to Motueka for the Hop Harvest. I know this because the trip coincided with my birthday. Visiting New Zealand Hops and local producers like George’s Farm was a fantastic experience for us, and planted the seed of an idea that later this week, with a little luck from the weather gods will come to fruition. 

So this morning Pete packed up a van with a few supplies that should see him through the next couple days and is sailing South to once again visit Motueka and experience the Hop Harvest first hand, although things will be a little more hands on this time. More about that later.

If you get the sense that I am not coming along for the Motueka ride, then you’d be correct. In true Garage Project style, a single trip within New Zealand wouldn’t cut it, so we’ve split. Divide and conquer. Motueka and Mexico.

While Pete is getting busy in the hop vines of Motueka, I’ll be embarking on a mission to track down some of the finest Tequila Distilleries in Mexico and liberate a used oak barrel or two from them. Tequila Barrel Hunting is a new sport to me, but I am up for the challenge and excited to learn more about the production of a spirit that has caused me great pleasure and pain over the years. 

We will both be doing our best to keep you updated about our duel road trips. As a precursor, I’ve been up in States for the last three weeks visiting some of the finest breweries, brewing equipment manufacturers and craft bars in the world. It’s already been an phenomenal journey and the Tequila Barrel Hunt is a fitting crescendo. 

Things have outwardly been a little quiet from us lately, but as you will see in the coming weeks, it’s not for lack of activity. Hop Harvest Road Trip and Mexico Tequila Barrel Hunting is just the beginning..

Cheers!

Jos

Jos has been busy. Among other things he’s been compiling the coaster feedback from the 24/24. It makes for an interesting read. Jos, in inimitable style, has pulled many of the comments together into word clouds. It’s fascinating to look into the cloud and see people’s responses - to see in some cases how different people’s reactions can be to the same beer.

(Word Cloud of all the 24/24 coaster feedback comments)

And which beer came out on top? The number 1 spot belongs to Day of the Dead, our chilli chocolate black lager, launched on November 1 to coincide with El Día de los Muertos - Mexico’s Day of the Dead. For those who loved Day of the Dead, we’ve just been down to Three Boys to brew a special, high strength Double Day of the Dead. Most of the beer will be going to Australia for the Great Australian Beer Spectapular (not a typo) to be held in Melbourne in May, but a few kegs might find their way to some of Wellington’s better craft beer bars.

(Day of the Dead Feedback comments)

Coming in neck and neck in second place were Pernicious Weed and Trip Hop, two of the most hoppy offerings in the 24. We liked these brews too, and kegs of both Pernicious Weed and Trip Hop, the fruits of last months trip to Three Boys, will be appearing in good Wellington bars over the coming weeks.

Other big favourites from the 24 were the Dr Grordbort’s inspired Venusian Pale Ale (VPA) and Lord Cockswain’s Courage Porter, our hoppy stout Aro Noir (brewed on the dark side of the street), and the first of our coffee collaborations with People’s Coffee, the Peoples Project No. 1 Coffee Bock.

And then, there is the inevitable question, which beer came in last? Perhaps no surprise, it was the beer which polarized drinkers more than any other. It was of course the infamous Green Coffee Saison. Not to everyone’s taste certainly, but still a beer we’re proud to have tried. Experimentation was what Garage Project promised and we think we delivered.

(Peoples Project #2 Feedback Comments)

And you can expect more to come. We’ve already planned over 24 more limited release experimental brews, to be small batch brewed on our pilot plant over the year ahead. We also have plans for more brewing equipment, meaning that we’ll be able to craft bigger batches of the best beers from our experimental runs. This should mean that more of you should be able to try the best of Garage Project.

It should be a fun year ahead.

There was loose talk about this Kölsch back in November of last year. The idea was to design a crisp little Kölsch with Little Beer Quarter in mind, something to sip while sitting in one of Wellington’s more notable laneways.

A flurry of tweets were traded and there was even a ‘think up a Kölsch name’ competition. However, this excitement may have been a little premature given that Kölsch is a beer that needs time. Lots of time.

In fact this beer has been lagering now for over three months. The result is an incredibly pale, straw coloured beer, with a crisp white head, a delicately perfumed aroma from the addition of Motueka and Galaxy hops, a smoothness that comes from sitting around at near freezing point for three months and finished with a hint of tartness from an addition of German acidulated malt. The bad news, there is only one 19ltr keg of our experimental Little Kölsch Project so chances are it will be a fleeting visit to LBQ (I believe Stu from Yeastie Boys put forward the name - cheers!).

The good news, Little Kölsch Project will not be the only Garage Project beer available. There will also be a return visit from two of our 24 series, our ANZAC Amber ale, brewed with toasted oats and golden syrup, and Pernicious Weed, our hop driven IPA, a big favourite in the 24 but definitely not a beer for the faint hearted. So, three Garage Project beers, in one bar, on one night. A first outside the hallowed walls of Hashigo Zake.

More bad news… there’s only one keg of each. Available only at LBQ this Wednesday 15th from 5.30pm till the kegs run dry. Might see you there.

Back in November we brewed our first collaboration brew with Kjetil from the Norwegian brewery Nøgne Ø. Brewed with pale, rye and cararye malts, Pohutakawa honey and finished with Kotahu hops the aim was a strong summer blonde ale. We had a lot of people put forward ideas for the name, but the one we liked in particular was Good as Gold. Kjetil liked it too. Sorted we thought.

But not so.

After mentioning Good as Gold in a recent post, we received a very polite email from the Coromandel Brewing Company pointing out that they already have a yummy Pilsener called Good as Gold.

Yikes. Sorry Coromandel Brewing, our bad. NZ has had more than its fair share of name of beer name dramas of late. No biggy, we’re happy to walk away.

So this Tuesday at Hashigo Zake we will not be launching a beer called Good as Gold, instead we offer you Summer Sommer (it’s Norwegian for Summer) our 7.6% Cøllab double summer ale. The idea is that Kjetil will be rebrewing this at Nøgne Ø for the Norwegian Summer. That’s so cool.

So if you want a pint get yourself over to Norway this summer, or alternatively pop down to Hashigo Zake tomorrow night. The choice is yours… hell why not do both!

Tonight at Hashigo Zake you’ll find a cask of what we’re calling Left Field Bitter - Out of the Ordinary. 

It’s based on the classic English bitter style, but we’ve taken a bit of a different tack. Instead of hopping the beer at various stages during the boil, whole cone hops were mashed in with the malt at the very beginning of the brew.

This process, called mash hopping, is said to give hop complexity and what is described as ‘hop texture’ to the mouth feel of the finished beer. Now, I’ll be honest, I’ve no idea what ‘hop texture in the mouth feel’ is like, but I thought it would be bloody interesting to find out. The resulting wort was then boiled without any hops, before being passed through another dose of whole cones in the hop back and finally dry hopped with whole cones in the cask.

Weighing in at 3% abv, it’s light on alcohol, but hopefully big on flavour. Best enjoyed a little warmer than you would normally drink your beer, just to let the malt character come to the fore and balance the hop bitterness. Cheers.

The Garage might have seemed a bit quiet over the last few weeks since the last of the 24, but inside we’ve been getting on with business.

We did our very first bottling – a super limited run of Coffee Porter for our friends at People’s Coffee to give out as Christmas gifts. If you got to try some, let us know what you thought.

We rebrewed Lord Cockswain’s Courage Porter, to bring the taste of war to the Weta Workshop Christmas party – served in character as the Brewing Corps of course. For bonus points guess which one of the three below is wearing fake facial hair?

We even did a NYE beer - Golden Ship for a great Wellington band in the hope they’d do a Bon Scott, cementing Garage Project’s cult status… but no such luck.

We dropped two casks of summer ale to Hashigo Zake – a suitably English accompaniment to a very wet New Years Eve (and more to come this week!).

We’ve filled 50 bottles of our Nøgne Garage CØLLAB beer, Good as Gold - a 7.6% rye malt golden ale with Pohutakawa honey. All credit for the name goes to Dylan from Hashigo Zake - nice one, we like it and Kjetil does too. These 50 bottles will be our very first commercially available bottled beer. We’ll let you know where they’ll be available if you want to get your hands on one.

And what’s in store for the year ahead? In the next couple of weeks things will be ramping up at the Garage. It’s a big time for the Project. We’ve got some work ahead of us, in fact it’s probably our biggest project yet.

In amongst all this we’ve got some interesting beers we’ve been working on which we’re looking forward to bringing you. We’re also off to Three Boys tomorrow to lay down a couple more brews.

Busy times, and even busier ahead. We look forward to sharing them with you.

It’s the beginning of a new year, time to reflect on the year that was and look to what the future has in store.

2011 was quite a year for the Garage Project. Almost exactly a year ago to the day I arrived in Wellington to set up a brewery. Jos and I sat in Hashigo together over a pint and thought “shit – what do we do now!”

We think we’ve made a good start.

On a 50ltr brew kit we’ve brewed and released over 28 different beers in less than 6 months. Inspired by Hemmingway’s advice to always do sober what you said you’d do drunk - on the grounds that it will teach you to keep your mouth shut - we embarked on brewing 24 beers in 24 weeks. At the start it seemed like a tall order, but here we are in 2012 with the 24 done and dusted. We hope it was as much fun for you as it was for us.

We’ve had a great time and met some awesome people along the way.

Massive thanks to Dom and all the staff at Hashigo Zake for their support, encouragement and honest feedback. Hashigo was the perfect place for the 24 and will always be close to our hearts.

Thanks to Greg Broadmore, the artist and creator of Dr Grordbort’s, who gave us inspiration, encouragement and substantial help in the consumption of Lord Cockswain’s Porter and Venusian Pale Ale. Any beer that offers the opportunity to wear false facial hair, goggles and a beer backpack has got to be good.

There was our very fruitful coffee collaboration with People’s Coffee, which yielded not only one of our most successful 24 brews, our No. 1 Coffee Bock, but also our most contentious, the infamous Green Coffee Saison, loved by some, hated by many. Thank you to Matt, Rene and all the others at People’s Coffee - our caffeinated friends and allies.

We did our first contract brew, brewing more in one day than we had in the previous 4 months on our little kit. Cheers to Ralph and the gang at 3 Boys for making this such a pleasure.

We did a collaboration brew, a first for me and the Garage Project, and what a way to start, brewing a Golden Summer Rye ale with Kjetil from the Norwegian brewery Nogne, both a privilege and a pleasure.  Some of you got a chance to try a sneak preview at our 24/24 finale. If you missed out, fear not, you’ll have another chance in the coming weeks.

Thank you to Midori and Sharon at the Wooden Spoon Freezery for their hand crafted Rum & Raisin ice cream, the perfect accompaniment to the last of the 24.

Thank you too to Anton who has produced some amazing images for us over the last six months like the Day of the Dead skull and the burning hop - crafted more often for love than money.

Last but certainly not least, thanks to all of you who have supported, followed, tweeted and drunk Garage Project. It’s knowing that people are enjoying the beer that makes brewing so much fun. Cheers to you all.

It’s been a pretty exciting time to be a beer enthusiast in Wellington. As well as the Garage Project 2011 has seen the arrival of Parrot Dog, Kereru and the Fork & Brewer on the local scene, Stu at Yeastie Boys has continued to release some of the most genuinely remarkable beers in New Zealand and there’s an impressive new crop of bars like LBQ, Hop Garden, and Monterey. Exciting stuff for anyone who cares about beer.

We’ve a feeling 2012 is going to be even more exciting. Big things are afoot for the Garage Project. We’ll let you know how our plans are progressing over the coming weeks as things unfold.

In the mean time, in case you’re missing your Tuesday night 24 fix, L’il Red Rye - a nice little red ale, made with Chinook and Summit hops, caramel, Munich and melanoidin malts and a good dose of rye.

It’s on tap next Tuesday, January 10, 5pm at Hashigo Zake… you know the drill.

We’ve been quietly working on a top secret project at Garage Project. Craft Ice Cream.

Small quantities of our beer have been diverted to Midori and Sharon at the Wooden Spoon Freezery - Wellington’s newest and quite possibly only Craft Ice Cream company.

We found the results to be delicious and have been plotting to serve Rum and Garage Project Raisin Ice Cream in our last week of 24/24. 

Using precious quantities of the Rum & Raisin beer, a small amount of ice cream has been made today (well, when I say made, it is actually churning as we speak). 

The girls are completely committed to making memorable and unique ice creams, and in the same spirit of Garage Project, a huge amount of effort has gone in today from 7am through an expected 10pm finish time to have just 10 litres available alongside the beer tomorrow at Hashigo Zake. That’s dedication to your craft!

Here are some photos of the ice cream in making. Can’t wait to taste the results tomorrow where it will be offered as a complimentary offering alongside the Rum & Raisin beer.

First in, first served….

Rum & Raisin

Is this really the end? Beer number 24.

This is a beer with a backstory. I’ve been wanting to brew this beer for ages. When I first started at the Malt Shovel Brewery in Sydney we managed to get our hands on some Inner Circle Rum barrels. We chucked a strong version of our James Squire Porter into them and the beer that came out was nothing short of divine.

At the time, tasting this beer, I had one of those epiphanal moments. What if you put raisins in the barrel too? Rum and raisin, hell yeah.

When we started the Garage Project, one of the first things I did was go hunting for a rum barrel. After a lengthy search I tracked one down and it was all set to go, a freshly emptied rum barrel, guaranteed. I made the beer, a Belgian triple, brewed with Special B malt and dark sugars, designed to taste like Rum & Raisin even before it hit the barrel.

Then disaster. The barrel lead went cold, just at the crucial moment when the beer was ready to be moved. So a quick rethink, two kilograms of plump organic raisins were soaked in a bottle of 12 year old Appleton Estate Rum - swiped from Jos’ liquor cabinet – and infused with the beer in the conditioning vessel. And that’s where it’s been for the last four months.

No rum barrel, that will have to wait, but a beer that I’m proud of. It’s dark and complex with a rich tan coloured head. The flavour is at once rich but then dry at the end of the pallet. It’s warming at 9% abv. The raisins are there, and a hint of the rum. It may not be perfect but I’m happy.

It is a beer to be savoured, to reflect over. For us it’s a time to think back over the 24 beers we’ve brewed over the last 19 weeks (we got a bit excited early on and finished too soon, oops). We’ve had a ball, and we hope you’ve enjoyed the beers we’ve delivered. We hope they were always interesting, and we hope that there was something special in there for you. Thanks to all of you who made the Tuesday night pilgrimage to Hashigo Zake (it wasn’t that hard really was it?). If you haven’t made it down yet and always wanted to, now’s your chance. Rum & Raisin, with a little something special that we’ve planned on the side. Well worth the effort. We’ll see you there.

Is this really the end? You know it isn’t… 

American Double IPA

This beer is 10% abv and 100 International Bitterness Units. It’s all about excess - the kind of excess that has become the hallmark of the American IPA style. It is a double IPA, twice the malt and twice the hops. It’s made using a truly decadent amount of Centennial, Simcoe and Summit hops, something that in this current US hop crisis is a luxury afforded only to those who brew on a nano scale. We simply couldn’t brew this on a larger scale – there aren’t the hops. In keeping with this celebration of excess it was dry hopped twice, once in the fermenter and again in conditioning. It even used two yeasts – one yeast to start the process and give the desired flavour and another, more alcohol tolerant strain to “mop up pockets of resistance”.

But for all this excess, the finished beer is, I think, surprisingly smooth (I fleetingly thought of renaming it The Velvet Glove). Can you have this much excess and still achieve balance in a beer? It’s pouring tonight from 5pm at Hashigo Zake. See what you think.

This beer is 10% abv. Be mindful of the threat of collateral damage. Lock and load..