Tasting Calendar

We've been planning a calendar of regular tastings at Hashigo Zake and now's the time to make some noise about them and start accepting bookings.

First up will be a journey through the beers of Norway's celebrated, maverick brewery Nøgne Ø.

Nøgne Ø was founded in 2002 by two home brewers. One of them (Kjetil Jikiun) also happens to be an airline pilot who has used his time travelling and his affability to forge links with renowned breweries in Japan (Shiga Kogen), Denmark (Mikkeller) and the US (Stone & Jolly Pumpkin). Luckily the beer is also uncannily good, so for a small brewery their reputation has spread disproportionately.

I was lucky enough to meet Kjetil in Tokyo late last year and this set in motion a sequence of events that led to us becoming Nøgne Ø's first outlet in New Zealand.

At the moment we have seven of Nøgne Ø's beers and this includes some of their best - the intense Imperial Stout, the IIPA/Barley Wine called #100, the puzzling Sahti and (don't tell DB) their Saison. Try it before they set their lawyers on us.

We are now taking bookings for this tasting.

A week later we will host something a little different - a Sake tasting with live (televised) Sumo thrown in. Our cocktail and sake expert, Shigeo Takagi, will guide us through a sampling of our sake range, plus a few special extras, climaxing in live coverage from Tokyo of the September Grand Sumo Tournament. The tasting will be oriented to beer drinkers - experience with sake will not be a pre-requisite.

To book for either of these, call the bar at (04) 384-7300 or send us an email at bookings@hashigozake.co.nz. The price for both events is $30.

Cylon Beer Dispenser

We found some space on our bar top to install one of the self-contained keg pouring systems that White Cliffs Brewing make available for serving their 10 litre kegs. So we now have nine taps and Mike's Mild is in our lineup, with the new Mike's Pilsener waiting to come on next.

Tagger Caught in the Act

I was thinking of offering a prize to the thousandth person to come in and suggest that we put a sign outside. Well soon we'll have the sign pictured, plus a sandwich board and eventually a sign bolted to the facade of 25 Taranaki St.

Speaking of taggers, someone fitting the description of the culprit in my Crimewatch post has a court appearance in a few days. I might have to take the day off to be a spectator in the courthouse. Or maybe even a witness.

Preview time

The paint's dry, the taps are working and an eftpos terminal miraculously appeared late on Friday. If the business was software we'd be in beta testing. So since the middle of last week (Aug 26) we've been letting customers in. Not everything is working yet, but beer lovers are well looked after.

It was appropriate that the first customers were the Beervana volunteers, who patiently waited while the first four taps came to life.

On tap now are:

Emerson's Pilsener

Epic Pale Ale

Renaissance Elemental Porter

Hofbrau Weissbier

Harringtons Monsoon

Three Boys IPA

Emerson's Bookbinder

Mussel Inn Captain Cooker.

Waiting in the storeroom are Three Boys Pils, Three Boys Wheat and Renaissance Stonecutter. And thanks to Beervana we've had the brewers of almost all of those beers through the doors as well.

I'll think up some comments soon about the experience that was Beervana 2009.

Anyone in Wellington who's inclined to come in, please do. We're opening the doors at 5pm every day.

Crimewatch

Another watershed. Our first crime and it was before we've even opened. Our friend wandered in as if he owned the place and started looking for something to steal. The fact that we confronted him, asked him what he was doing and continued to watch every movement didn't stop him finding the nearest bottle, picking it up and taking off. It didn't occur to him that one of us might be armed with a camera phone and be pissed off enough to chase him for as long as it took to get a good shot.

And here it is:

Cutting a hole in the tunnel to let the light in

Joking aside, it's all coming together in dozens of small but frantic steps. Taps are on their way in, as is a heat pump, TV, Sky, flooring, leaners, the enomatic system, artwork, glassware... a couple of pieces left but there's light at the end of the tunnel.

Baird Beer

Baird Brewery (recently voted the best craft brewery in Japan at http://forum.beerinjapan.com) are packing their first shipment to Hashigo Zake. This is a huge coup for us, not least because the brewery is in the process of opening only their third outlet - the Harajuku Taproom.

We'll be getting most of the brewery's year round beers, including the beer that sustained me through three years in Japan - Rising Sun Pale Ale. To top it off, Bryan is throwing in a small amount of Rainy Season Black Ale and Harajuku Celebration Ale. As good as the year round beers are, it is seasonals such as these that really get their regular customers in Japan excited, so we hope that there will be more of these to come in future shipments.

It's unlikely that this shipment will arrive in time for Beervana. This might be a good thing as I don't want to be cleaned out of rare and special imports on two days in August. But we'll mark its arrival in Wellington with a fitting celebration in September. Stay tuned.