Since last year’s AGM, the SOBA committee has been very focused on building better systems. As the society grows, we’re finding more and more challenges involved in staying on top of our membership base. We had started with a small and servicable spreadsheet when we numbered less than 50 members. Nowadays, with membership in the [...]
The Costanzo Brewing School are holding two courses in brewing later this year in Wellington and Auckland – a comprehensive four day Masterbrew Brewing Course in grain brewing and a one day Essentials Brewing Course for those that find it challenging to make time for their brewing pursuits. Both courses concentrate on what it takes [...]
We recently emailed Hancocks to ask them to drop their application for the trademark of “Growler” – Joe Jakicevich, the owner of Hancocks responded – We have since responded to Joe declining his kind offer to gift the trademark to SOBA – Joe then followed up –
Sigh. It’s happened again. We missed this one as it was lodged under ‘bottle’ not beer. Stokes Brewery has registered the term ‘Bomber’ as a trademark when used to refer to a bottle. In the States and elsewhere a 22 oz bottle has always been referred to as a Bomber and of course the term [...]
SOBA’s presence in Hamilton has grown substantially in the last few years. Sadly, due to the fact that I’ve nominally been the guy who organises things, and I’ve not had a lot of time to devote, SOBA in Hamilton have been less than active. That’s all about to change though. I put out the call [...]
In this issue, Kieran Haslett-Moore looks at the Pale Ale family of styles tracing its origins with advent of precision malting through to the modern English Bitter. Style is incredibly important to the world of beer. From the customer selecting which beer they want to purchase, through the beer judge assessing a beer, to the [...]
This year’s SOBA Homebrew Championships was our biggest yet, with over 400 entries – which means it had more New Zealand entries than the Brew NZ awards! Last year’s SOBA Homebrew Championships attracted over 400 entries and required three organizers, 13 talented judges, eight enthusiastic stewards and a lot of time. The competition itself ran [...]
Bill Fennell fills us in on what he and the organisers of the SOBA Nelson Home Brew Competition learnt from their first home brew competition. Well, I have to say, for our first ever SOBA Nelson home brew competition, it went quite well. We got off to a slow start, having to bag’n’tag 31 [...]
Ian Caig is a long-time CAMRA member and a founding member of SOBA, serving on our committee for a number of years, including filling the role of National Secretary. He recently moved back to South America and has joined Somos Cerveceros, an Argentine home brew/craft brewer organization and will be joining Loggia Gambrinus! Here Ian [...]
Since mid 2011, Nelson SOBA members have been meeting on the 1st Wednesday of each month at 6.30pm. The meets are held in different bars, some of which the members may not have been to before. In each case there will be a selection of Craft Beers from one of the many breweries within the [...]
Walking the urban jungle that is Wellington’s Terrace, I slip in to Gather Café & Bar. It seems fitting that the owner of this comfortable tree I’ve decided to spend my evening in, is named Balu.
In May this year, during the long twilight of a sunny spring evening at the edge of Copenhagen’s Royal Danish Horticultural Society Garden, a few dozen of the world’s luckiest diners assembled outside the restaurant known as Mielcke & Hurtigkarl.
Kevin Buckley writes from Melbourne – Was drinking, and eating, over in a trendy part of Melbourne (yes, there are some) last night and, in one of the obviously “trendier” bars found that, as well as a massive range of beer, many of which were recognisable from Hashigo Zake, (eg Baird) and/or were NZ craft [...]
