Pop Culture Odds and Ends, Part Two

These bits were originally posted to the now-closed Castle Co-op between December of Twenty-and-Eleven and March of Twenty-and-Twelve. I'm reposting because why not and shut up.

Best Robbed Picture

(or; Best film to be nominated for the Best Picture Academy Award but not win.)

The history of the Academy Awards is replete with Best Picture Winner travesties, so it’s been, as I’m sure it has been for others, difficult to single out the most frustratingly cheated nominee of all time.

1994 is a particular cornerstone of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ ability to get it so very, very wrong. The winner that year was Forrest Gump, against clearly superior films Pulp Fiction, The Shawshank Redemption and Quiz Show. (One suspects that the trio of more-deserving films split the vote and allowed Gump to triumph.)

But for me, the single greatest Best Picture nominee to have been so horridly deprived of its rightful crowning is Citizen Kane. Perhaps the most glaring mistake ever made by the members of the Academy was the loss of Orson Welles’ 1941 masterpiece to, of all things, How Green Was My Valley!

An intense investigation into the life and legacy of newspaper magnate Charles Foster Kane – based upon real-life newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst – Citizen Kane is often cited as the greatest American film ever made. Kane was a wonder of innovations in cinematography, film scoring and film narrative. It changed the way filmmakers told their stories. It began a new period in filmmaking history.

They went with How Green Was My Valley.

Best Picture To Rule Them All

(or; Best film to have won the Best Picture Academy Award.)

Rifling through all of the Best Picture winners, it becomes apparent the list of truly fantastic movies to win the Holy Grail of film awards is suspiciously thin, considering the number of truly fantastic movies to have existed.

You’d think that having a small pool to work from would make this decision easier, but it really doesn’t. Although angling towards the Coen brothers’ No Country For Old Men, I couldn’t escape the notion that it’s youth meant it hadn’t yet proven its status as a classic. But then, is such a status a prerequisite to winning or being considered the best of the winners? (Definitely not the latter, I know.)

I have therefore selected as Best Picture to Rule Them All, Francis Ford Coppola’s undeniable classic, commercial and artistic success, and sequel-of-all-sequels -- if we’re not talking about The Dark Knight -- The Godfather Part II, telling the story of two generations of Corleone men.

I’ll never forget how it made me feel on the first watching, the silhouette of Fredo sitting in apparent safely in the fishing boat, rod in hands, saying a Hail Mary to aid his efforts. Michael watches stoically from the house. We know what’s coming.

This was a culmination of two fantastic and engrossing movies, and represented, parallel with his father Vito’s journey, a great and decisive change in Michael’s character.

And, in my opinion, the best of what the Academy got right.

Most Anticipated Film of 2012

So many films to look forward to this year, but like a great white elephant with glow-sticks raving in the corner of the room, and with apologies to Messrs. Whedon, Anderson – both, actually – and Cuarón, my most-anticipated film of 2012 just has to be The Dark Knight Rises.

Christopher Nolan has proven himself a master storyteller with each of his films, but with The Dark Knight he successfully melded genre with enriched, tense and masterful film-making, and now, he believes he can unleash a worthy sequel upon us.

Gotham City, after eight years without the Batman, has seemingly eradicated its organised crime problem. In the film’s trailer, the city’s elite is self-congratulatory and thoroughly unprepared for the inevitable fall. You think this can last. There’s a storm coming, Mr. Wayne. You and your friends better batten down the hatches. ‘Cause when it hits, you’re all gonna wonder how you ever thought you could live so large and leave so little for the rest of us, warns Anne Hathaway’s Selina Kyle.

If the IMAX prologue is anything to go by, Tom Hardy’s Bane, the film’s primary antagonist, with his voice and physicality, will be the stuff of nightmares.

Am I nervous? Hell yes. The plot is mostly still under tight wraps, and there is a lot of anticipation and high expectation. But I’ll be there, day one, ready to be as enthralled as I was with The Dark Knight, and I can’t doubt it being my most anticipated film of 2012.

Pop Culture Odds and Ends, Part One

These bits were originally posted to the now-closed Castle Co-op between December of Twenty-and-Eleven and March of Twenty-and-Twelve. I'm reposting because why not, shut up, and in once instance to embarrass myself.

End-of-Year 2011: Favourite Film

'Drive'
Directed by Nicolas Winding Refn, Screenplay by Hossein Amini
Bold Films, Odd Lot Entertainment, Marc Platt Productions, Seed Productions

Ryan Gosling’s The Driver, for all his kindness and capacity for love, is a man affected by violence. Although heroic in many ways, at some point in his mysterious past, he was forever changed by violence and became something almost monstrous. Not unlike David Fincher’s Seven, Refn’s wonderfully ethereal – yet sparingly and shockingly violent – film with its brilliant thumping electro-pop score eschews (stylistic) genre conventions to make a truly original and artistic film from a plot that abides by its genre’s conventions. Sure, it’s an appealing neo-noir crime-thiller kind-of, but it truly is the study of Gosling’s fascinating character that makes the film equally so.

End-of-Year 2011: Favourite Album

'Bon Iver'
Bon Iver
Jagjaguwar/4AD

I’m sure there were a great many listeners who were initially taken aback by Justin Vernon’s follow-up to his wildly popular debut, For Emma, Forever Ago. When many had fallen in love with For Emma for its captivating and sorrowful account of a heart-broken man alone in a cabin in the woods without any lavish production equipment or techniques, there was bound to be some resistance to Bon Iver’s luscious soundscapes, obscure vocals, and sometimes big climactic moments. Despite my love for For Emma, Bon Iver fulfills the promise of the former, being both the greater album and the logical extension and expansion of Vernon’s wonderful music. But enough of that comparison, because Bon Iver in its own rights is my favourite album of the year, and dare I say even the best of the year. Vernon has crafted with his band a magnificent forty minutes of careful and affecting indie-folk-prog, again with Vernon’s melodic talent and poetic and learned lyrics. Look no further than the album’s closer, ‘Beth/rest’, which by all reason should be a whole mess of cheese, but after repeated listens reveals itself to be so much greater than its 80’s saxophone-ballad leanings.

End-of-Year 2011: Favourite Television Show

'Breaking Bad'
Created/Executive Produced by Vince Gilligan
AMC

A lot of people have jumped on board after some initial hesitation, and I do understand that to a certain extent. Breaking Bad is a slow burn that spends however much time it needs to earn every one of its bigger moments. Each season is a lesson in tension-building. Each season is a lesson in fine writing for television. This past season was Breaking Bad’s finest yet, once again building upon the foundation laid in previous years, offering more than a few oh-my-holy-good-god moments, and delivering one of the greatest payoffs surely in television history. Bryan Cranston is amazing as Walter White, with a fantastic ensemble surrounding him, most notably this year Giancarlo Esposito as Gustavo Fring. Even its photography is second-to-none at the moment. I’ll never forget the extreme wide shot of Gus and Walt in the desert from ‘Crawl Space’, no movement but for the ominous rolling clouds. There’s really not much more to say about it. It’s a fine, fine show in every respect.

Film Guilty Pleasure

Okay, I got one. Brace yourselves. I’ve probably watched Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace more times than any other Star Wars film.

Yep.

I say “probably,” but it’s a certainty. I have. I’ve watched The Phantom Menace more than any other Star Wars film.

God, how I hate this movie. I hate this movie so much, but I’m utterly fascinated by it.

Time has certainly allowed my watchings of this... “film” to abate, although I did recently give it a stab in order to listen to Red Letter Media’s Mr. Plinket commentary. It’s pacing, dialogue, it’s logic, almost everything about it is mind-bogglingly nonsensical or just plain hack. (Except, of course, the visual effects.)

But oh, how I loved to watch it over and over! I came to starting to fix it in my mind. To cut certain lines of dialogue, to lengthen or shorten different shots. I essentially re-edited it in my mind during every watching.

Let’s face it, though. It’s beyond saving. And now so am I.

STUPID FAT HOBBIT, YOU... fixed it? The Mars Volta and 'Noctourniquet'

This piece was originally posted to the now-closed Castle Co-op on March 19, 2012.

This is not a review.

From the moment I heard ‘Inertiatic ESP’ on Triple J sometime in the early 2004, it was inevitable I was going to spend the next months (and years) obsessed with The Mars Volta, the “partnership between Omar Rodriguez-Lopez and Cedric Bixler-Zavala.”

Their 2003 debut album, De-loused in the Comatorium, was something I’d been waiting for for years, a perfect blend of progressive/experimental rock with latin and jazz tinges, a good spot of ambient weirdness, stupid-good musicianship, production value – engineering, I should point out, not the master – and a great deal of passion and heart. I took to it immediately and so completely that The Mars Volta catapulted themselves above my other musical deities to the top of Mount Olympus.

They followed De-loused in 2005 with Frances the Mute, a deepened exploration of their progressive tendencies, owing even more this time around to latin and jazz-fusion, but again avoiding, and this is something I’ll discuss a bit more later, being too self-indulgent. This is of course despite really only having five “tracks,” which many seemed to have trouble wrapping their head around, including Universal Music, who decided to split the album’s 30-plus-minute epic closer ‘Cassandra Gemini’ into eight tracks on the CD release. After an adjustment period, Frances revealed itself the band’s magnum opus, and is to this day my favourite album.

The Mars Volta followed Frances with Amputechture a year later in 2006, The Bedlam in Goliath in 2008, and Octahedron in 2009.

Kinda glossed over the next three, didn’t I? Let’s talk about why.

Plagued perhaps by a rotating roster of members or Rodriguez-Lopez’s self-confessed dictatorship, prolificity and working pace, the band’s releases lacked refinement and became woefully self-indulgent and passionless.

Amputechture was a cut-and-paste of a thousand elements, quickly recorded and assembled at the desk by Rodriguez-Lopez, and while there’s a lot to like about it, it suffered for it. Drummer extraordinaire John Theodore wasn’t keeping up with the pace and dedication expected of him and was dismissed -- the beginning of the band’s lineup troubles -- which certainly must have contributed to the need for this method of recording. It seemed as though this method was carried through to Bedlam and Octahedron but less successfully, Bedlam containing a whole bunch of fat and Octahedron just being generally uninteresting.

Assigning something as self-indulgent is difficult for me. Our perspective as critic or listener is entirely subjective, and it’s a strange thing to attempt to define where the line of self-indulgence is for a band like The Mars Volta, who are clearly experimental and have made a big deal about following their own compass. (But we know it when we feel it.) So perhaps self-indulgence is not the problem with these albums at all, and they are rather merely lacking in other qualities for balance.

Last week, I was going to write about my expectations for The Mars Volta’s latest offering, Noctourniquet. That piece probably would have been mostly the same as this one at this point. From here, though, it might have gone something like:

“My patience has been thoroughly tried, and I face the prospect of discarding a band that was at one time closer to my head and heart than any before or since.”

I’ve stopped caring about bands before when their releases ran off the rails – as I’m sure you have as well –and there are a couple, like Coheed & Cambria, that I feel I can give one last chance, but to be facing that prospect of a band I loved as hard as The Mars Volta was quite a heart-ache for me.

My girlfriend had taken to barbing, “You just wish they were on drugs again, don’t you?” (For the record, I really don’t.) It was an interesting comment to me, because it revealed me for the stereotypical fan that I was, yearning for the days of old rather than future.

There were these fans and their common suggestions on the message boards about where the band had gone wrong. That they needed to stop self-producing, or that they needed to simplify their song-writing -- which didn’t work for Octahedron, I’ll point out -- or somehow just be as they were in the De-loused days.

What Noctourniquet proves is that a band constantly reinventing itself and moving away from every suggestion a fan can make can still result in something wonderful. A return to form doesn’t necessarily have to sound like anything that came before it.

In this case, it can sound more fucking bizarre than anything they’ve done before, and yet... not. It’s rock, it’s punk, it’s got a bit of synth going on, it’s – gasp – self-indulgent, but what it’s captured more than the three albums before it is a sense of actual feeling and attitude.

So was that the key? What made this album different? Well, Rodriguez-Lopez attempted to let go of the reins and allow collaboration as much as he could allow*, and Bixler-Zavala quasi-famously took over a year to refine and complete his vocal parts, much to Rodriguez-Lopez’s chagrin.

Rodriguez-Lopez strikes me as a man who writes, records, and then moves on. While I don’t doubt his attention to detail or dedication for the minutest of seconds, I seriously doubt the last few albums have been allowed to breathe and evolve on their own before being committed to tape. (Yes, tape.) I doubt I’ll mind at all where or how weird The Mars Volta go from here as long as they learn the valuable lesson here.

But then, the next album might be written and recorded in two weeks as a thank-you present to Rodriguez-Lopez and be just as fantastic, and we realise we were the ones in need of the valuable lesson.

As critics and listeners, we have our theories, but when has music been truly quantifiable? We don’t really know a damned thing. If we or the musicians we listen to had any real clue, if we could see some kind of formula, every album would be great, and wouldn’t that be boring.

For today, faith restored. Noctourniquet is ahead of the curve. It’s recaptured some glory by running head-first to the future.

The heart-ache is gone.

* This was my understanding of the situation at the time of writing. However, it was since made clear that Rodriguez-Lopez was still in dictatorial mode while writing and recording Noctourniquet and that the band's next album is expected to be the more collaborative effort.

STUPID FAT HOBBIT, YOU RUINED IT: Revisiting X-MEN: FIRST CLASS

This piece was originally posted to the now-closed Castle Co-op on January 19, 2012.

I remember seeing Bryan Singer’s X-Men at a preview screening before its wide release in July of 2000. Not only had Australia managed to secure a release of the film one day ahead of the U.S. – generally unheard of at the time – 20th Century Fox had graced us with said preview screening.

The lights went down and I still distinctly remember the film’s brief pre-title sequence taking place in that cinema, despite many home-video watchings since. The commanding voice of Patrick Stewart explaining very basically a leap in genetic evolution occurring in human beings while some fizzy-looking sparkly computer-generated things that I can only assume are meant to be nucleotides begin to move against a frame of dense black.

Films before it had shown comic-book superheroes being taken seriously in a cinematic context, but X-Men kick-started a wave of comic-book-inspired movies that twelve years later has yet to recede, and may only now, with The Dark Knight Rises and The Avengers just around the corner, be breaking after its pinnacle.

It made a shit-tonne of money for 20th Century Fox, making ~$296-million from a $75-million-dollar budget.

So it was surprising then, despite Fox’s reputation as a studio that interferes with the creative aspects of its valuable properties, when the film’s sequel, X2, was better than the first.

I harbour a strong suspicion that this was mainly due to Bryan Singer’s ability to manage the expectations of and justify his creative decisions to the studio, as well as his understanding of and unwillingness to compromise on story.

After X2 made ~$408-million from a $110-million-dollar budget, an X3 was inevitable. The X-Men and Women had proven themselves a powerful franchise that had connected with audiences.

Singer has begun work with X2 screenwriters Michael Dougherty and Dan Harris plotting the story for “X3,” which included among other things, Jean Grey/Phoenix evolving by film’s end into a cosmic being not unlike Arthur C. Clarke and Stanley Kubrick’s Star Child from the 2001: A Space Odyssey book and film. But Singer chose to leave the production for the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to helm Superman Begins, and took his screenwriters with him.

Michael Vaughan, who would one day direct X-Men: First Class, replaced Singer for a short while, but in a move that could have irreparably damaged his career, chose to leave the film, citing a need to be with his family. Although, he later admitted to The Daily Telegraph that the strict release date imposed by the studio meant he would not be able to make the film he wanted and therefore left rather than be “accused of making a bad X-Men movie.”

So who would step in to be accused of making a bad X-Men movie?

Screenwriters Simon Kinberg and Zak Penn had been hired separately to write a script for the film before Vaughan was even hired and had worked with him for a few months during his time on it. Fox refused to move their strict release date. A director was needed to jump in with two months of prep time remaining on a film that clearly wasn’t working at the script stage and just do the thing.

Enter Mr Brett Ratner.

Recently, with a spark of nostalgia and enticed by an incredibly low price for the Blu-ray Disc, I decided to sit down in the comfort of my lounge room and revisit X-Men: The Last Stand.

Would it still be the steaming shit-pile I had been so offended by in 2006? Would the years have tempered my expectations?

No, it’s still a steaming shit-pile.

I remember my anger at Ratner those nearly six years ago, and although there is a certain lack of heart that can only be attributed to the direction, I wonder now after my re-watch whether X3 could have been a serviceable sequel with Ratner in the chair had the script not been so awful.

The man came along when another director had already abandoned the project because they knew it wasn’t going to work, and with two months before filming, hardly any time at all for a big-budget action movie with all manner of expectations.

So while Ratner is most certainly a giant douchebag – Google it – I’m tempted to give him a pass on The Last Stand now that I’ve found other poor souls at which to aim my scorn.

X-Men: The Last Stand is a mess of poorly-constructed narrative, laziness, contrivance, and disrespect to the characters.

Professor Xavier, with Wolverine and Storm having found Jean Grey at Alkali Lake, recites to Logan in a scene of utterly heartless and lazy exposition that Jean Grey had two personalities as a child, that he actively suppressed that personality, it’s way bad, and now god help them all.

XAVIER

(...)

Logan, listen to me. I know I’ve always seemed like I was the moral backbone of these films, but you see, when I first met Jean, I decided to completely suppress an aspect of her personality.

LOGAN

(just angry, not at all shocked by
Xavier’s out-of-character behaviour)

But aren’t you always trying to help mutants understand and control their powers? Even if it’s as dangerous as you are stating matter-of-factly and without emotion, why would you--

XAVIER

(...)

Dammit, Logan, don’t you see! M*A*S*H was on -- that was an amazing show -- and I was like, I don’t have hours of my life to dedicate to helping this girl!

(beat)

And see, now we don’t have to spend an entire act of this movie earning her full transformation into the Phoenix!

LOGAN

(still just angry)

But taking the time to earn that transformation will allow the audience to invest in--

XAVIER

(...)

Logan, please, we have to get on with it. We’ve been told to keep the running time to a solid 100 minutes to allow more sessions during the day, and that means more money!

LOGAN

I hope you die in, like, ten minutes from now.

Rogue, spurred by Bobby’s affection for Kitty Pryde, takes the cure in order to give him the sexytimes he’s so clearly after. It would be a shame if the primary thematic element of the X-Men stories was acceptance and even empowerment, wouldn’t it? If that was the case, Rogue taking the cure would be random and infuriating to an audience that has gotten to know the world of the X-Men through her point-of-view since the first film.

And so on.

Kinberg and Penn, with years to work, couldn’t see their script’s most glaring problems, and showed disregard for characters and themes they, as self-described X-Men geeks, supposedly cherish.

So just for fun, let’s look at their track record:

Kinberg has written XXX: State of the Union, Mr and Mrs Smith, Jumper and Sherlock Holmes (2009).

Penn has written, among other things, Inspector Gadget, Behind Enemy Lines, and, swear to god, Elektra.

Writers like Kinberg and Penn have their place in the movie industry. The movies they write, they make money. But when you have an established franchise that has enjoyed both critical and monetary success, why do you hire them? Why risk turning the fanbase away?

When you’re 20th Century Fox, and you want control. ‘Cause you love the money you’re making, but you don’t trust or understand what this X-Men thing really is, but these guys seem like fans, so surely they’ll just give the other fans what they want in between us telling them to change that thing we don’t like about it.

The franchise is seeing a bit of resurgence with X-Men: First Class, produced by the returning Bryan Singer and directed under strict time restraint, funnily enough, by Matthew Vaughan, telling the story of how the X-Men came to be in the 60’s. But I for one would appreciate a fine continuation of the original films. A retcon might not be out of order either.

In parting, I’ve decided to scare you a little.

Zak Penn wrote The Avengers.

...

It’s okay, Joss Whedon re-wrote it.

A New Despair: Musings on the Blu-ray Release of Star Wars

This piece was originally posted to the now-closed Castle Co-op on October 4, 2011.

Even if you’ve been hiding under a rock for the past month or so, beyond querying you on what kind of life situation has prompted you to go so far as to hide under a rock – and why the rock is large enough to hide you but hasn’t crushed you –  I’d still expect you to know that recently all six movies in the Star Wars Saga were released for the first time on Blu-ray Disc.

In Australia, September 14th 2011 was the day hundreds of thousands of voices cried out in terror and were expectedly and overwhelmingly ignored. Again.

There has been a lot of discussion and frustration expressed about George Lucas’s continued meddling with his, Irvin Kershner and Richard Marquand’s films, often and in one recent example new to the Blu-ray set, altering the original intention and mood of beloved scenes. There is even a film about the love-hate relationship between Lucas and his fans called The People Vs. George Lucas.

But I would say, and this is certainly true for myself, the main frustration is not that changes are made, but that the original unaltered versions of these films are not made available along with their updated versions. Lucas is notoriously stubborn with regard to allowing the unaltered films to be released or seen, and even claimed at one point to have destroyed the films’ original negatives. (Which doesn’t actually mean that 35mm prints of the unaltered films don’t exist, by the way. Just go with it.)

However, the original and unaltered versions of the original trilogy of films were released on DVD in 2006 in individual sets coupled with the 2004 DVD release versions of each film, which everyone had already bought two years prior in a complete set with an extra bonus features disc. In the true childish spirit in which George Lucas must have felt forced to again release these versions of the films, they were non-anamorphic letterboxed widescreen for old 4:3 televisions (as opposed to anamorphic widescreen for 16:9 widescreen televisions) and were restored not one iota.

The image retained all manner of artifacts, dullness of colour and terrible black level consistent with Lucas’s apparent disdain for these versions of the films and his fans’ yearning for them, and the sound fared no better.

(I expect these were just sourced from the pre-1997 home video masters for VHS and/or laserdisc.)

So to celebrate the release of ‘The Complete Star Wars Saga’ on Blu-ray, I decided to sit down and watch this 2006 DVD release of the unaltered Star Wars.

It was, quite honestly, wonderful.

Despite crappy video quality and sound, this movie was comfortable. This movie was the classic. From beginning to end, I felt engrossed in Star Wars as I haven’t been since the mid-90s.

I discovered that the greatest damage to this film in recent versions is not actually altered intention such as when Han Solo, originally gunning down bounty hunter Greedo without giving the latter any chance to harm him and revealing a great deal about his character, instead kills Greedo in retaliation for firing first in an awkward display of computer-assisted tweaking. (Which isn’t to minimise this incredibly bothersome revision of a classic scene, nor any other examples sprinkled throughout the original trilogy of films.)

No, the greatest damage to this film is truly the random bursts of showy computer-generated imagery, often affecting the pacing of scenes and the flow of the movie.

These scenes break the movie. You are made acutely aware of the fact that this is a movie and that there are things happening that don’t belong in a movie that’s now thirty years old. It’s the antithesis of seamless.

I couldn’t even remember what it was like to not feel that subconsciously while watching Star Wars. I was able to just concentrate and let it take me where it was going. I got that feeling I used to have when I watched it as a child. I felt that connection to my childhood. Not because I was re-connecting with the film as I knew it years ago, but because I got the same feeling that I used to. Because the film worked. Because I wasn’t snapped out of it. Pulled out of it.

It’s difficult now, having resigned myself to no longer caring about the Star Wars Saga after purchasing the DVD set in 2004, to not get angry about the whole situation when for a while I was content with apathy.

This unaltered version of the film, with its crappy video and crappy sound, involved me way more than it has since that first “special edition” in 1997 and the 2004 revision with its pristine presentation and big, high-quality sound.

It makes me yearn for good restorations of the unaltered versions on Blu-ray, and it’s certainly solidified my decision to not buy the recent set.

Where Lucas’s head is at, I don’t know. He’s an extremely successful man surrounded now by a gaggle of awed employees who don’t know how to express a dissenting opinion. What that does to a person I’ll never know.

But I know that despite his feelings towards the unaltered films, he let them out again in 2006, relenting as lazily as he could to what must be great pressure from fans and film historians. Maybe he thought that’d get them off his back, but it didn’t. It most likely won’t, and maybe not even until his death.

I’ve seen pleas of reason, but maybe pressure, the kind of pressure that culminated in the 2006 releases, is really the only way to preserve this cultural icon.

That said, maybe it will just result in another low-quality throwaway release with next-to-no marketing, proving to Lucas again that no-one really cares about the theatrical versions.

But all of this has been said before. It’s a sentiment shared and echoed by a collective of people more numerous than seems reasonable. It’s not frustrating, it’s maddening. It defies any form of reason.

And now I care again.

God dammit.

A Moment of Waking

There is a moment of waking. The moment my brain manages to catch up and survey the scene. It's that moment in that war movie where the protagonist has been shocked by a nearby grenade explosion. The sound is sucked away, leaving only the high tone of tinnitus and slow-motion movement.

The tiles have been splashed, covered in a coat of reddish-brown liquid. It has pooled at the base of the kettle, soiled the mat beside the sink for drying glassware. I can feel it against my face and down my torso, this liquid. I see it dripping down the face of the cabinets to the floor.

What has happened? Am I hurt?

I think. I remember a contemplation. A choice, of whether to indulge, knowing perhaps that I shouldn't.

And then I feel the glass held tight in my hand, and the metal object in my other. I hold the glass up to my eyes.

It says "Black Lung," and below, "Bourbon-Barrel-Aged Smokey Stout," and further below, "Moon Dog."

The horror.

The horror.

2 Brothers Brewery

I hope the Kooinda boys have been to 2 Brothers Brewery. It really showcases how to make the best of a warehouse space.

Divided pretty much down the middle, the bar acts as a separator between the social area and the brewery, a series of towering, polished fermenters. Although cloaked in darkness, the fermenters remain clearly visible behind the bar, if only because they're so shiny and new-looking, reflecting and amplifying the lowest light rays right back to your eyeballs.

The social area, a series of tasteful couches and modern art, runs along the left-hand side and the length of the looong bar, before expanding at the rear.

As 2 Brothers Brewery is only open for business two nights of the week, I expect it's something of an occasion for the locals, who, on the night of my visit, occupied it very much like any local pub or bar. (The location, hidden a fair way south of Melbourne city in Moorabbin, probably deters a lot of visitors from making the trip.) A few security guards stand ready to eject any rowdy louts, stumblers, or the curious from crossing the Holy Line of Demarcation between bar and brewery. In that sense, it's probably the least brewery-esque brewery I've visited.

Which isn't to warn anyone away due to my general distaste for the common douchebag. 2 Brothers Brewery occupies a space between a local hangout and classic brewery that can form a bridge akin to that between mass-produced lager and the finer things in life, and I've already recommended it to some friends.

So, the beer! Have to say, I was a bit disappointed in this area. Not specifically in terms of quality, mind, more that there were only three brews on tap.

If you've spent any time moving about Melbourne's venues, you've probably at least seen the 2 Brothers Taxi Pilsener and the 2 Brothers Growler, their two mainstays. These beers too bridge the gap, containing a very serviceable level of complexity and quality while remaining highly sessionable.

So the only tap remaining belongs to a single seasonal, which I can certainly cope with as long as that seasonable is anything like the 2 Brothers James (Belgian) Brown.

I was first introduced to the James Brown at one of the Federation Square Microbrewery Showcases in 2010. Already heavily interested in exploring dark and Belgian beers, it sounded right up my alley. While certainly good, this batch of the brew was more an interesting curiosity. Very heavy on banana, it was something I imagined I could revisit, but only on odd occasions.

This time, however, James Brown was truly the right kind of funky, with the banana dialled back and the alcohol making it pop just that bit more. Very nicely done.

Still missed The Guvnor, though...

Did your heart grow fonder?

Wow, I have been quiet, haven't I? There's been a whole bunch of stuff happening and I just haven't had any time to blog or write.

What kind of stuff, you ask? Well, I guess the big thing is that I recently turned thirty. (Woo! Congrats to me for not dying so far!) I had, without a shadow of doubt, the best party of my thirty years. It was at a little place you may have heard of called The Local Taphouse. Everyone really enjoyed themselves, plenty non-beer-drinkers were trying things – the aunties especially found a friend in the Bridge Road Chevalier Saison – the food was great, of course, and I'd just like to thank the Taphouse publicly, even though they made away with a fair amount of my money and that's probably all the thanks they were looking for. Ha!

Scored some amazing beer-related gifts, one in particular I will have to write all about in the coming month and a half.

I would be remiss if I didn't throw in an almighty plug for the The Beer Lover's Guide to Australia 2011. As well as being the only reference to Australia's breweries and venues you'll surely ever need – until next year's edition – it features a piece by yours-truly! It's also nicely designed and looks pretty. You like things that look pretty, right? It's the result of a lot of hard work by people who are not me, and I'm very proud to be published in it. I'd be very keen to hear what anyone thinks of my piece if you care to spend the time.

Oh, and please excuse my photo on the contributors page. There was actually a Little Creatures Pale in that photo somewhere. I promise from now on I'll use this one. I always wanted a photo of me with a beer, leaning on somethingorother. Oh yeah.

Actual blog soon.

Ring, meet hat.

He of the intimidating surname, Matt Kirkegaard, editor-in-chief of Australian Brews News, earlier this year posed the question, What is ‘craft’ beer? He has also recently dedicated an episode of Radio Brews News to the question.

It—the question—was prompted by the U.S. Brewers Association, who had decided to provide a strict definition of what craft beer is.

Except that they didn’t. What the U.S. Brewers Association answered is, What is a ‘craft’ brewer? and offered three high-level descriptors—small, independent, traditional—with some lower-level detail for each.

So here’s why the U.S. Brewers Association is a little bit full of crap.

I’ll begin by defining craft beer.

craft beer n. Any beer brewed with an emphasis on craft (i.e. quality, and with skill), with or without the use of traditional methods of brewing, where profit is not an overriding motive of the brewer.

Now that’s a pretty loose definition. If one were to stoop to using dots to distill the essential impacts of this definition, it would look like and mean that:

• It’s all about intention; thus
• A massive, commercial powerhouse brewery is perfectly capable of brewing a craft beer;
• A brewery need only attempt to skillfully craft a beer of high quality, regardless of the end result;
• A brewery need not have to meet any old-school standards when attempting to skillfully craft their skillfully-crafted beer of high skill-level; and
• Although profit is obviously required of all breweries to remain viable, a craft beer is not brewed with a fundamental goal of being as accessible to the masses as possible in order for market penetration to lead to buckets of money.

Now I know dot number two comes as quite a shock to all of us, but it certainly doesn’t mean that said powerhouse breweries are craft breweries, only that they can, if they wake up one morning and feel like making the world a better place, decide to brew a craft beer alongside their regular mass-produced and mass-marketed offerings. For example, Carlsberg has their yearly Jacobsen Vintage, a barrel-aged Barley Wine that, while admittedly massively overpriced, fits the definition.

To define a craft brewery then, I would say:

craft brewery n. A commercial brewery whose output is predominantly craft beer.

Dammit, I went and done did a loose definition again! Prepare for incoming dots!

• A craft brewery should be a registered business with commercial output; and
• A craft brewery’s output should, for the most part—or if you want to get technical, >50%—be beer that fits the earlier definition of craft beer.

I’m not so rigid on that second dot. We can haggle on the percentage, but I know that it has to be more than fifty percent.

But now we have a problem. What happens when a craft beer starts to see true market penetration and starts appearing in mainstream pubs and bars and the brewery is now dedicated to outputting a certain volume of the exact same recipe to satisfy their monetary requirements through growth and the expectation of regular drinkers? Is that beer still a craft beer?

Anyway, I too may be a bit full of crap. I welcome any and all forms of discussion and disagreement.

Warehouse 28 (Kooinda Boutique Brewery)

Kooinda Boutique Brewery is branching out, growing even. Known best for their only "wide" release up 'til now, Kooinda Pale Ale – an American Pale Ale with some bite – the lads at Kooinda have moved into a new warehouse brewery and are adding a couple of brews to their arsenal.

We now find them in Heidelberg West, in an industrial estate, in an unassuming warehouse. If you're lucky and eagle-eyed you might notice their decal, no larger than a landscape sheet of A4 paper, on the glass door. Inside, a freshly-painted branded wall and a bar of corrugated iron against a large expanse of concrete floor with newly-stamped kegs stacked at its perimeter. There's a bottling and labeling station near the back, there's of course the brewery itself behind a large sliding door, and in this room, most tellingly, the old brewery. The reminder. Against the southern wall of Kooinda's new brew room, facing a series of shining new fermentation vessels, the old, worn kit. And seeing this certainly informs their new adventure. These guys are really taking the next step.

The name Kooinda, to me, seems to equally belie and befit the brewery's output. Although tending towards purposefully high-hopped and/or roasted-malt bitterness, such as with their new Full Nelson Black IPA, which one might describe as anti-establishment, there's also a very Earth-like quality to their beer. Sticking your nose into one of their brews – by which I mean the glass, obviously – the strength and quality of the aroma from dry-hopping evoked for me the feeling of holding freshly plucked hops in the palm of my hand.

This event was definitely more of a private family-and-friends occasion, so in that spirit, I won't comment too specifically on the taste of the beers on offer; to do so I feel would betray the continued process of refinement and exploration in their new home. But I will say that among those poured were of course the Kooinda Pale, as well as another release being bottled, a Belgian Witbier. (With a Kooinda twist, of course.) There were a couple of trials, including their Valhalla Golden Ale, and my favourite, a Porter that I forget the exact name of. More balanced and seasoned than their other offerings, the Porter was a classic alternative to their established theme, and a good one. There might be a little more work to go to keep it consistent – the second keg had a more pronounced bubblegum flavour – but it's something I quite enjoyed and I hope they'll think about releasing it at some point.

Good luck, guys. I'm sure this'll be a success for you, and I sure hope you don't mind me talking about the day.

(Thanks, Kim, for the lend of the camera.)

I Found the Brewer's Secret Stash (Red Hill Brewery)

Nestled neatly into a southern-central section of Victoria's Mornington Peninsula is David and Karen Golding's Red Hill Brewery, which has now been operating for six and change years. This weekend gone, they hosted a Brewer's Choice Weekend, where their three mainstays, the Golden Ale, Wheat Beer and Scotch Ale, were taken off the taps and replaced with the "brewer's stash," a selection of seasonal and single batches. And not only that, they saw fit to regale visitors with their brand-spanking India Black Ale and a selection of tasting plates for the occasion. As I had been one to remark on more than a few occasions that I had driven past the Red Hill exit on Mornington Peninsula Freeway, not taken said exit and then regretted the decision, what better opportunity?

Walking from the car and past the hop vines, I was struck by how much it felt like a winery more than other breweries I had visited. Nestled almost like a hideaway amidst trees spread just a little too thin to be forest is their charming, modern-rustic eatery and bar, with the brewery immediately adjacent. It's a lovely, calm place.

So, I hear you asking, how is this India Black Ale, and what's the difference between an IBA and a Black IPA? To the former, it's a great-tasting almost-Porter with a perfect – some might say subdued – roasted malt level, characteristic Red Hill softness without any loss of flavour, and a fantastic thick, creamy head. (The hand-pump was the perfect way to go.) Very drinkable. To the latter, I expect the choice to refer to it as an "India Black Ale" as opposed to a "Black India Pale Ale" was twofold. Firstly that it probably makes more sense considering you can't really have an ale that is both black and pale, and secondly to possibly differentiate it from the hoppier versions of the style, but I must stress I neglected to ask.

Other beers on offer were the Bohemian Pilsner, Belgian Blonde, Temptation Belgian Golden Ale, Weizenbock, Christmas Ale, Imperial Stout and barrel-aged versions of the Imperial Stout and Christmas Ale. For not a one do I have a bad word, but I will single out the Weizenbock with its fruity notes and the Imperial Stout as favourites. I only had the opportunity to have the Double Barrel Christmas Ale of the two barrel-aged offerings. To my tastebuds, I was getting sweeter characteristics of a white wine, but was then informed the barrels had housed Shiraz, so what do I know.

The food, while pricey for the amount of food, was fantastic. Lamb koftas and the Gruyere and Caraway croquettes were sampled, as were a vegetable crumble and the Welsh Rarebit, the latter of which I would consider an essential upon any visit. Can't speak to the food more than that except to say again, y'know, tasty.

A tour of the brewery was also offered and gladly accepted. Dave did a very easy-going tour of the brewery's process from mashing in to fermentation to bottling or kegging, passing around some grain and hops for us to smell, and was very open to answering questions. He explained Red Hill's use of 90% rainwater, sourced from both the brewery and other local business – and there is a shared quality to their beer that I can only attribute to their great soft water – and of course the cultivation of their own hops. He explained their philosophy preferencing English, German and Belgian styles, as opposed to the hoppier American influence, and shared the journey of their new IBA from brewers Tim and Simon's home-brew experiments to finished product.

Final compliments go to the waiting and bar staff, who were honestly friendlier and more attentive than I've encountered. A great day, a great place, and I will be back.

Good Beer Week: Nathan's Good Beer Week Not-Awards, 2011

Were you to think this was a way for me to be lazy and not have to blog about each individual event, well then, you'd be-- SHUT UP.

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BEER NATHAN WOULDN'T SHUT UP ABOUT FOR TWENTY-FOUR HOURS

Morning Peninsula IPA

I've already expressed how great I think these guys and/or gals are doing for a new brewery, and I'd heard good things about the IPA, so when I saw it on tap at the Terminus, I launched myself at it and was not disappointed. T'is a fine, sessionable IPA to be sure, and I wouldn't stop yakking about it. And I see now it also got a Silver medal from the AIBA. Nice one.

BEER NATHAN WOULDN'T HAVE SHUT UP ABOUT FOR TWENTY-FOUR HOURS HAD HIS BRAIN NOT BEEN FRIED BY THIS POINT

TIE: Holgate Beelzebub's Jewels/Orkney Dark Island Reserve

On Friday evening, we went along to the Gold Medal Tasting at Purvis Beer in Richmond. Although the samples were smaller than previous tastings and some people just didn't know how to move out of the way once they'd had their latest poured, there were both interesting and fantastic beers on offer. Essentially, the idea was to have a previous Gold medal winner and then move to a worthy challenger, courtesy of the Purvis lads. As it happened, there were two tables. The left-hand had the lager and paler styles, and the right-hand had the darker styles, and it turned out to be an interesting contrast. Which is to say the left-hand table was mostly rather uninteresting, but as soon as you got to that second table...

And on that second table, two in particular really stood out for me. Beelzebub's Jewels is a barrel-aged Quadrupel/Abt that weighs in at 12%, and comes from local brewery Holgate, well-known for their ESB and Temptress Porter and who impressed the hell out of me with their Empress Imperial Porter at the previous SpecTAPular. It was, well, it was a Quad, but you were really getting some of that Pinot Noir from the barrel. The Dark Island Reserve is a 10% Barleywine, also aged in barrels, but this time whisky. (Apparently I have a "type".) The bad news about these beers would of course be the price.

BEER NATHAN DID THE BIGGEST DOUBLE-TAKE ON

Yeastie Boys Rex Attitude

My last SpecTAPular I found to have a really good range of interesting styles. Obviously this latest, a Kiwi SpecTAPular, wouldn't quite be the same as the beers weren't specifically brewed for the event. Somewhere in between the Pilseners and the Pales and the Renaissance Stonecutter Scotch ale was this, a "peat-smoked Strong Golden Ale" from the Yeastie Boys, they of the superb Pot Kettle Black (a Black IPA). This was the SpecTAPular beer. Peat-smoked, people, peat-smoked. Give it a shot. I dare you.

NATHAN'S BIGGEST MISTAKE

TIE: Straddling the inflatable palm tree at Mrs. Parma's/Not taking notes!

Sigh. If only that photo didn't exist, and if only those notes did.

NATHAN'S BIGGEST DISAPPOINTMENT

Why no current single batch at Little Creatures?

Seriously. The best part of going to Little Creatures for me recently has been their single batches. I enjoyed their IPA a few times, and then most recently their Märzen, which was more than drinkable, so, to my dismay, when we decided to give Little Creatures a shot... no single batch. During Good Beer Week! Come on!

NATHAN'S FAVOURITE VENUE

The Local Taphouse

What can you say? Even if it wasn't a fantastic venue anyway, for Good Beer Week they hosted the Barley's Angels event, the Brewer's & Chewers dinner and, of course, the Kiwi SpecTAPular. Way to bring it, guys.

NATHAN'S FAVOURITE DISCOVERY

Deco Wine Bar

I'd wandered past Deco with Sharika recently, after an unsuccessful attempt to eat at the Moroccan Soup Bar without a reservation. Looked like a pretty cool place décor-wise, so we filed it for later. Last Tuesday, when Josie and Ali led me there on the Crafty Crawl quest, queue my reaction, "Oh, this place!" So yes, it's a nice-looking quirky bar with that good ambient-light atmosphere and a pile of complimentary blankets near the bar that tells you a little more. There are no taps to speak of, but there is a fridge with a more-than-decent selection of beer, including some Australian crafts, some good overseas crafts like Hitachino Nest, and even the BrewDog Tactical Nuclear Penguin. And we had a great talk with the owner/bartender – I'm sorry, I didn't get your name; I do that a lot – who was full of suggestions and opinions.

NATHAN'S PRIZE TO THE MOST ENTHUSIASTIC CRAFTY CRAWL VENUE

The Rainbow Hotel

EXT. RAINBOW HOTEL BEER GARDEN ENTRANCE - NIGHT

BOUNCER

(bouncer tone)

Sorry, guys. It's one-in-one-out at the moment.

JOSIE

Is it okay if we just go in and come straight out? We're doing the Crafty Crawl and just wanna--

BOUNCER

(suddenly chipper)

Oh! Yeah! Hey! No worries, just pop on in and go up to the bar. They'll sort you out. Cool.

CUT TO:

INT. VERY CROWDED RAINBOW HOTEL BAR AREA - NIGHT (LATER)

BARTENDER

Oh, yeah! Awesome! Hang on, I'll just get it.

(retrieves treasure)

How cool is this? Such a great idea.

After being to a few places and asking bartenders who had no idea what we were talking about or were even a bit annoyed – and please do not take that to mean there weren't of course plenty of venues that were perfectly happy with it – going to the crowded Rainbow and being greeted with that was a great breath of fresh air and I thank them for it.

Good Beer Week: Brewers & Chewers

I'm going to skip ahead a little to talk about the undisputed highlight of Good Beer Week for me and probably everyone else who attended, the Brewers & Chewers dinner at The Local Taphouse in St. Kilda. I will, however, attempt to be brief.

What a fantastic fucking idea. Seriously. A dinner with brewers from interstate and overseas. You get great food, beer included – which I understand was donated by the brewers, which is really just amazing of them – and the "Beer Champions" are rotated, giving each table equal time to chat them up.

This was really a first for me. I don't know the who's-who of the Melbourne and Australia beer scene. I'm learning that the brewers are generally the ones in their brewery's t-shirt, but I'm a little lost about who Professor Pilsener and the Beer Diva are, and I don't know who Sam the Brewer is or why she's so awesome. So I guess for me it was an eye-opener as well as just a great event.

It was quite the circumstance, really. After being introduced with their own theme music, the Beer Champions – Søren Eriksen (8 Wired, New Zealand), Steve Grossman (Sierra Nevada, U.S.A.), Brad Rogers (Stone & Wood, N.S.W.), Brendan Varis (Feral, W.A.), Kirrily Waldhorn (Beer Diva), Richard Watkins (Wig & Pen, A.C.T.) and James Watt (BrewDog, Scotland) – were escorted to their first table, and upon the ringing of the twenty-minute bell, were escorted along with their drink and food, cover plate and all, to the next one. I definitely have to compliment the Taphouse here for their great treatment of both the Champions and the guests. It was treated as quite an occasion, which I found to be a welcome piece of humourous irony considering the rather casual and boisterous nature of the evening.

Our first visitor was BrewDog's James Watt, all the way from Scotland. Initially shy in mannerism, he quickly relaxed into the situation and started firing off questions of his own, keen as can be.

Steve Grossman from Sierra Nevada was quick to have us attend the tale of Sierra Nevada having been illegally imported into Australia up until very recently, which was both a fascinating and effective conversation starter. He was a truly nice guy and only happy to accept my feigned ignorance of the fantastic taste of the Sierra Nevada Tornado IPA with a laugh.

My personal favourite was Richard Watkins from the Wig & Pen. The first words from his mouth as he sat down were, "I'm sorry, I'm not very good at these things." And yes, the man has an awkwardly shy streak a mile wide, but you get him going and he's incredibly engaging. Having only been to the Wig & Pen the week before, I was acutely aware of the current batches, which we talked about, and my dismay at the Big Ass Barleywine having run out upon my arrival seemed to spark a bit of pride. We talked briefly about the future of the Wig & Pen, styles he wanted to try, and even the excise. That twenty minutes was over far too quickly.

Kirrily Waldhorn was a great conversationalist. As one might expect, the topic floated along to Women in Beer. Personally, I'd had a bit of an issue with Professor Pilsener's earlier line of questioning, essentially, "What's it like being a woman in a man's beer world?" I bear no grudge or ill sentiment towards the man, to be absolutely clear, but I do think it's counter-productive to focus purely on that and reduce women in the beer world to that Issue rather than successes in their own right with their own expertise. Try asking the men about the role of women in the beer world, I say. Anyway, back on track. She was kind enough to talk personally about how she feels about such things, and humoured me by listening intently to my theory about beer culture being akin to geekdom, those of whom that geek generally and naturally being the kind of human being easy to acceptance.

I definitely feel like I've talked too much – especially since this post will have no photos – so to round things out, I will just say that Brad Rogers from Stone & Wood and Søren Eriksen from 8 Wired were both really fun guys. After the dinner, the girls pounced on Sam Füss from True South, who I will definitely admit was pretty darn awesome, but I'll let them speak to that. Oh, and I will need to sample this Black Saison of yours, Doctors Orders Brewing.

To the Taphouse, thank you. The food was the unsung hero of the evening. You're really onto something here. Please to have another.

Good Beer Week: North Coast Brewing Company Launch

Well, it's over. The inaugural Good Beer Week is over and detoxification begins. Nothing but veggies, sushi and water for the next two weeks! No, I don't think so, but I'm at least going to have lots of vegetables and lay off beer for a little while. We'll see how long that "little while" is.

Overall, I felt Good Beer Week was a definite success, and I hope many other punters, venues, brewers and international guests felt the same way. There were of course some things I hope the organisers will learn from, but it's all part of the process; it was the first one.

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Good Beer Week began for me on Monday, May 16 at Beer DeLuxe for the North Coast Brewing Company launch. Having never been to Beer DeLuxe on a Monday evening, I can't speak to how many customers were there for after-work drinks and how many were there for the launch, but there was certainly a decent amount of people and from what I could see, there were plenty with their North Coast postcard or shiny new glass in hand. It's nice to think that perhaps some of those people had no idea what Good Beer Week was, and just thought ten tastings and a free glass for $20 was a pretty sweet deal.

The tastings were served from bottles by the barstaff. The first few at the lighter end I was happy to have poured into my new Old Rasputin Imperial Stout glass – I was lucky enough to have been given a choice – while the later samplings I had poured into a proper tasting glass. I'm generally of the opinion that tasting from bottles isn't the ideal scenario, but we manage.

North Coast Brewing Company boasts "some of the best beers in this world... or any other" and has a pretty good average going on beer rating websites like Rate Beer and Beer Advocate. They'll have to forgive me for not finding any of their beers particularly memorable, save one. That said, some highlights for me were the Red Seal Ale, the ACME California IPA, and the Old Rasputin Russian Imperial Stout. Personally, I found the Scrimshaw Pilsener, which I started with, to not be as bad as some were commenting, but I definitely agreed with the consensus on the ACME California Pale Ale. I'd be tempted to give it another try from the tap, but for as long as it's available to me just in a bottle, I will avoid.

Now, the interesting sample of the night for me was the Brother Thelonius Belgian-style Abbey Ale. As someone relatively new to the whole beer tasting thing, this is the first beer I've had that I really felt a difference after giving it a swirl. At first, I got a rather unpleasant junkyard aroma as you get with some cheeses, but after oxygenating, it really opened up and possibly ended up as my favourite. But I am quite the sucker for Abbey and Trappist ales.

For those not content with a free glass, there was even a raffle of various items. A cap, a six-pack of the IPA... I could speak more positively about this, but I have that ever-present grudge you only get from being a consistent loser of raffles.

Anyway, that'll do. I will go and plot my revenge now.

Not dead.

Contrary to our own belief that we may in fact be dead, for myself I am at least vaguely alive. In fact I'd say there's more of me than there was before, but only in the actual and technical sense. (Avoiding the scales.) We have done many things and have met many people, including some brewers that I can't wait to talk about. For now, here's a photo of me before I realised an entire pint of Wicked Elf Dubbel might be a bad idea.

Just a taste...

Beer (noun) - an alcoholic beverage made by brewing and fermentation from cereals, usually malted barley, and flavoured with hops and the like for a slightly bitter taste.

Brew (verb) - to make (beer, ale, etc.) by steeping, boiling, and fermenting malt and hops.

Craft beer (noun) - an all-malt or nearly all-malt specialty beer usually brewed in a small, regional brewery.

To the lax beer drinker or the uninformed, I have been seen as a snob. Many a night over the years I have copped a ribbing from the near and dear for judging their choice impotable or for arguing with a bartender over what constitutes “specially imported.” (Just because it is imported does not make it special.) To my friends I was a font of beer information, boring them with narratives on beers, breweries and this fancy thing called “craft beer.” I converted a few (most of which have surpassed me) and caused many to tune out, knowing that the only time my ears would prick up in a large congregation was at the mention of that palatable amber nectar. Only then would I engage in the conversation, monopolising it with tales of many an ale or lager.

To the beer connoisseur, I’m but an infant, a toddler just starting to find her feet in a world of crystal malts, hop backs and weizenbocks. Only scratching the surface on an entirely different planet. What has opened up is a world of warm familiar faces at every beer launch or showcase, enticing banter over who brews the best stout, or whether there is such a thing as too much hops. A community which embraces those who want knowledge, who want to experience what it’s like to savour a truly brilliant Imperial IPA. It’s a secret glint in the eye, a knowing joke that the rest of humankind haven’t cottoned onto yet.

Good Beer Week to me is better than Christmas. I get to have dinner with my Santa Claus, Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy. The first ever Good Beer Week, and I get to be a part of it. Beer: it’s more than just a refreshment, it’s a way of life.

Insert Morricone Score

He's a pathetic, lonesome figure of a man. A man who, having escaped jury service early, wanders aimlessly, and yet purposefully, through Melbourne city. His Facebook friends have failed him; he is alone. What's with these people and this "employment" they speak of? He will show them. He will spend his afternoon sitting alone, nursing an Australian craft beer or four. And he will vaguely enjoy the hell out of it, dammit!

He will see and learn things as well. He will see some guy who looks like Opie from Sons of Anarchy. He will re-enforce his position beyond a shadow of a doubt that tights are not pants! But mostly he'll be awkwardly sitting alone, drinking his beer.

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Mrs. Parma's is a pub-restaurant tucked away in the Eastern Melbourne CBD on Little Bourke Street, and I credit it with truly lighting the fire under my ass. A couple of visits to James Squire and its Amber Ale had excited a curiosity within me about beer in general after quite the sabbatical, but it was a visit to Mrs. Parma's that really introduced me to the wonders of craft beer and Victorian microbreweries. It was such a small taste and yet such a significant leap. Nowadays, I still find Mrs. Parma's well worth the trip. It's like coming home, and it's nice to feel that way among a group of beers that are distinctly a product of my home. I still live by the method established that day, hardly ever having the same thing twice, always exploring the taps.

So anyway, I popped in. First up was Mornington Peninsula Brown ale. I don't know what else to say other than I've been quite surprised at the MP brews I've had so far – which would be the Pale, Brown and Saison – after avoiding for quite a while, although not on purpose. My initial reaction is that they're doing great stuff for a new brewery. The Brown I'd had before, but had to have another. Just a good, well-balanced, flavoursome brown ale, and exactly what I want from one.

Now second, I decided to give the Mildura Choc Hops Stout a shot. Josie had sung this one's praises after the last microbrew showcase in Federation Square, which I was not able to attend, and after trying the bottle, I was beginning to wonder if she was a little cuckoo-crazy, but it's really something you need to try from the tap. Just an explosion of roasted chocolate malt, and I swear they've put vanilla essence or something in there, 'cause there were vanilla notes – look ma, I'm using the vocab! – that wouldn't quit. The nose is just pure chocolate.

After this, satisfied I had lingered long enough to perhaps draw attention to my pathetic lonesomeness, I decided to bounce my way over to Beer DeLuxe in Federation Square. To my mind, it lacks the necessary atmosphere – there's a very commercial air to it – to be a comfortable place to spend an evening, but this doesn't seem to stop me from enjoying their often fantastic range of always-rotating taps and knowledgeable staff fairly frequently. (Their Murray's tap takeover alone catapults them to a special place in my heart.) To the dude on the bar whom I did not get the name of, you were a delight, sir, even when I seemingly ignored your recommendations. Sorry about that.

First up, I had Murray's Easter Ale. As may have been detected in the previous paragraph, I'm a little bit in love with Murray's at the moment. The Easter was sold to me as being akin to "hot-cross buns," and while it is surely that, and surely as deeply flavoursome as all Murray's are, I must note the presence of fruit, which I now learn are raisins, and a pretty good smattering of spice, although not overpoweringly so – I'm looking at you, Orval – at least for myself. Interesting one to try, most certainly, but I imagine many finding it a little out there and powerful.

As a side-note, had a taste of the Murray's Retro Rocket light IPA just to see if they were talking shit. They were not. Seriously big flavour for a light. They have, however, added very little to no aromatic hops. It's a high-alpha punch to the kisser.

Last up was the True South Dark Ale, which is starting to head into Porter territory with its slightly roasted malt. Nice, well-balanced, hints of caramel, and I'm not smart enough to say anything beyond that, so please forgive me.

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And so then the lonesome man did stand and he observed the many Good Beer Week posters wallpapering the establishment's columns. Then, allowing a half-smile of recognition, he went off to pee before heading to the station.

A Thought Occurs

While I first wait nervously to find out if I'm required to report for jury selection tomorrow, and then probably wait nervously tomorrow to find out if I'm required to sit as a juror during Good Beer Week – yay – I ponder nervousl-- no, wait, the other thing. I ponder quietly to myself, and now to a text-box, about the role Good Beer Week could play in the quest for a fairer beer excise system in Australia.

I think we've already noticed how well this group of events – collective noun required – has come together, and I sure hope there will be a throng of giddy Melbourne/Victorian/maybe even inter-state beer lovers in attendance. Surely such an event can be used as a prime example of the potential of Australian microbreweries as a growth industry in need of a little assistance, possibly in the form maybe of a fairer excise system perhaps, and of consumer interest in alternatives to Big Beer. [Note to self: "Strong Ale" or "Imperial Beer" might be funnier alternatives to "Big Beer".]

Of course, I could be getting way ahead of myself. Realistically, it would be a hope of mine that Good Beer Week is a great success and that it grows and expands to other states in subsequent years, which would be a great example of interest in the industry that could be used to assist in the cause.

So then, what about now? Well, to start with, and if it's not too tacky, why not have petitions at Good Beer Week events? This could be particularly helpful at free-entry events at normally busy venues such as Cookie. Plenty of regular punters could sign. Just a thought. The Australian Association of Microbreweries' 6,500-signature petition, great achievement though it be, should merely be the beginning.

Pondering over. Now to come up with a witty collective noun for a group of beer events.

Up the River

As the inaugural Good Beer Week draws ever closer, an official program has been released by the organisers. For a first-timer, there's just a whole mess of events on offer. I still have a night or two I need to decide on, so pore over this I shall.

[PDF, 1.8 MB] Good Beer Week Official Program

Inaugural

As you may or may not know – and hopefully you may – Australia is about to break the champagne bottle – irony! – on its inaugural Good Beer Week, a week-long celebration of mostly Australian but also international craft beer. At the epicentre is the city of Melbourne, which we personally are fortunate to call our home. For Good Beer Week, its craft-beer-friendly venues and stores are hosting a great variety of dinners, tastings, beer launches, and even a debate, each day from Monday May the 16th to Sunday the 22nd.

Were you to know our faces, you may vaguely recall seeing us floating around some of Melbourne's craft beer events over the past year or so, and we have to say how proud we are to see a real surge towards craft beer in Australia, and Melbourne especially, and away from, well, you know... We could rant about the quality of the mass-produced and consumed lagers in this country and about the brand loyalty, but chances are you know what we're talking about and spouting negativity is something we'd like to stay away from. (At least until we can stand it, and even in the case of the beer excise, a reduction and/or remodelling of which we fully support.) Anyway, it's an exciting time to be a beer lover in Melbourne, and we'd like to talk about it a little please.

And so, with Good Beer Week fast approaching, tickets purchased and otherwise organised, what better time to get started? We're also hoping to pull some Sydney-siders into our orbit to talk about the 'Meet the Yeastie Boys' event at the Darlo Taphouse. (Which they better go to, dammit!)

To start with, we'd like to introduce ourselves, which we'll do over the next week; Nathan will be playing with the layout and design to make it more pleasant for our and your eye-holes; and then we'll blog our experiences and thoughts of Good Beer Week and see if anyone finds it interesting.

So, hello. Nice to meet you.