Sharing the Love

One week in and the off-licence is working just as we hoped. A few customers are going out of their way to pick up modest orders of Rogue, Mikkeller and Flying Dog bottles. And we've had the odd rigger too. Some come in purely for a takeaway order but quite a few are deciding to take an extra bottle home after they've had a couple in the bar. No trouble, no debates, and certainly no "pushing booze on children" or whatever it was that the hysterical Bernard O'Shaughnessy predicted.

But the time to take things to the next level is approaching. Following a suggestion by a regular customer (thanks Ben) we found shopify, a web application that lets small operators like us come up with an online store with little effort. And as long as we handle issues such as shipping, pricing and payments in the simplest way possible, cultbeerstore.co.nz should be in business within days.

I should elaborate on those three issues a little because I'd like to invite constructive feedback.

1. Shipping. This will be by courier. We have to get back in touch with the courier company that we planned this with several months ago to confirm pricing. They gave us a complicated menu of pricing that takes into account weight, volume and destination. This is probably far more complicated than we can achieve with our simple website, so we will just simplify these down to a couple of prices and absorb the differences.

2. Pricing. For now, pricing is based on our bar prices, discounted 20%, which is what we've been doing with takeaway sales in the bar. The results still resemble bar prices as much as bottle store ones, so there's potential to drop them. In fact shopify will let customers claim a percentage discount using a code. At this stage we plan to let people do exactly that if their order is sufficiently large. And trade pricing can be enabled the same way.

3. Payments. We're looking into using payments gateways but it is actually possible to go live without one. The solution is to invite customers to make bank deposits using (in general) internet banking. I think this will actually prove acceptable to most people. I assume that trademe customers use this method regularly. It must be more cost-efficient than using a credit card. A payments gateway may not be too hard to implement and we may even have one by the time we go live, but I'm tempted not to just to see how acceptable direct credits will prove.

Shopify has proven pretty powerful so far. From what I gather there is an API that developers can use to make it perform tasks more complicated than its generic capabilities can be manipulated for. It would be good to hear if anyone has experience with it.

Nuisance Dealt With For Now

This came in the mail last week.

So Mr O'Shaughnessy and the forces of [insert mocking phrase here] have been defeated for now and we can sell takeaways.

More info will follow, but for anyone interested, you can now come in between 4pm and 11pm and buy anything off the beer menu to takeaway at a discount.

It's an ill wind

At least Bernard O'Shaughnessy has helped us score some free publicity... http://www.capitaltimes.co.nz/article/2741/Publicnuisance.html

Food

We kicked off our 2010 tasting programme tonight (the 26th) with a matched beer and food evening. The event was proposed by our regular customer "M", who happens to be the executive chef at a Wellington restaurant that will remain nameless, but which most of us will never get to dine at. Chef M looked at our grill-less, oven-less, extraction-less kitchen and decided he could make it work. He and I picked some beers that he could work with and he figured out a menu. I expected some shortcuts here, some stuff out of packets with a bit of garnish there, and maybe one serious, thought out dish. How wrong I was.

Chef M and his assistant turned up with an array of prepared portions, sauces, garnishes, a couple of extra domestic appliances and a plan and got to work. They were ruthlessly efficient, cleaned as they went, never raised a sweat and did things with certain kitchen devices the manufacturers never intended. Without extraction we had strong food aromas spreading through the bar and our normal cooking methods are designed to avoid this, but as a one off the glorious seafood and red meat aromas could be tolerated.

The results were stunning. It was a real eye-opener for us beer geeks who struggle to turn out passable meals and snacks from our primitive equipment. The full menu is below.

• Nelson Scallop & Tauranga Prawn Duo on Coriander & Carrot Mousse with Three Boys Wheat
• Venison with Black Pudding Crumble, Rhubarb Compote, Kumara Porridge with Mike’s Organic Ale
• Nori-wrapped Salmon with Pickled Cucumber & Raspberry Balsamic Glaze with Baird Angry Boy Brown Ale
• Bacon Wrapped Angus Beef Fillet on White Bean Cassoulet with Rogue Chipotle Ale
• Kikorangi Blue Sandwich with Sea Salt Chocolate Canache served with Renaissance Craftsman Chocolate Stout
• Banana Tarte Tatin with Vanilla Bean Ice Cream served with Eisenbahn Bier Likor

For the record, the most popular dish of the night was the Angus Beef Fillet, the most popular beer was the Baird Angry Boy Brown Ale and the most popular match was the Banana Tarte Tatin with Eisenbahn Bier Likor.

Many thanks to everyone who participated and especially to our chef and sous-chef.

Objectification

It has been our intention for some time to get an off-licence. Mainly this is so we can get faster turnover and a quicker return on our imports, but also because it's something that customers are asking for. It took a while to organise all the paperwork because September to December of last year were simply so busy. Then having set the whole thing in motion, something went wrong with the publication of our public notices and the whole thing was set back several weeks.

This delay has had even worse consequences than we could have foreseen because it means we've unwittingly come to the attention of one Bernard O'Shaughnessy of Newtown. I say we've come to his attention but in all honesty, I find it unlikely that he knows the slightest thing about us. I say this because he has lumped us together with every other company that published a public notice regarding a liquor licence on December 17th and the text of his "formal" objection makes no connection between his problem with the liquor trade and the way we do business.

His objection is expected to delay the issuing of our licence by one or two months. This is even though the local licensing authority have said that they support our application and are as frustrated with O'Shaughnessy's wholesale objections as I am.

I'm using very restrained language here. I don't think I need to say what I really think, because here, here, here and here are the four pages of his objection. I won't even suggest what readers' reactions might be. Feel free to comment, but please don't use language and terms that might raise legal issues, because I'm considering legal action for defamation myself, in the hope that it will convince O'Shaughnessy that using the provision for objections in the Sale of Liquor Act in this manner is a misuse of the process and an unjustified slur on businesses such as ours.

But you be the judge. And if anyone has any suggestions that will help us throw out this objection sooner rather than later then chime in.

New Year

With the mailing list, facebook and the demands of work in general this blog has been a little neglected lately. But for the hell of it, here are some clues about what may or may not happen on the night of December 31.

At the very least we will be putting on what is probably the last keg in New Zealand of Hopwired, the extraordinary IPA from 8 Wired Brewing.

What else goes on is pretty much in the hands of our Freight Forwarding/Logistics company and the trucking companies they use. Apparently our shipment of fabulous west coast beer was due to arrive in Tauranga today (the 24th) and then has to be taken to Auckland then Wellington. I've got no idea why it can't come straight to Wellington. But apparently there's a chance it will arrive by New Year's Eve, in which case we plan to unleash two kegs of fresh hoppy goodness at different times during the evening.

Of course the chances of this working out are still around 50%, so we happen to have some good backups in the cellar. Croucher's Vicar's Vice and Emerson's Maris Gold maybe.

Update :- a container ship that may be the one carrying our order docked at Tauranga at about midnight last night.

Craftheads

This was a huge bonus. I got invited to a small gathering at a new bar in Shibuya called Craftheads. It's the second outlet belonging to Koji Nomura (the first one being the far more remote Sal's in Saginuma).

I like the way Koji has taken a fairly basic space and let function pretty much define the way he has filled it. But by using solid, chunky furniture and letting his taps and bourbon collection dominate the bar he has actually created a surprisingly inviting atmosphere. See http://www.craftheads.jp/craftheads/Welcome.html.

As well as the owner Koji (a.k.a. Michael) were beer writers Tim Eustace and Bryan Harrell, Kjetil Jikuin of Nøgne-Ø and Eigo Sato of Tamamura Honten (brewers of Shiga Kogen beer).

Koji has cultivated such good relations with US brewers that he can stock beers on tap and in bottles that are rare in the cities they originate in, let alone in another country. The bar is pretty much a home away from home for breweries like Three Floyds, Bear Republic, Stone and Allagash. All official imports - not grey market.

Koji had heard about the fuss created when Greg Koch of Stone learned of grey market imports of Stone into New Zealand and isn't short of an opinion. I'll leave readers to guess the nature of those opinions.

Kjetil didn't arrive empty handed. He provided a very early, uncarbonated sample of a radical new Nøgne-Ø beer called Red Horizon. It was fermented slowly, at low temperatures using a sake yeast to no less than 17%ABV. You'd swear it had been fortified. With a little age and a little carbonation this is going to be an instant classic.

Kjetil also hinted at some other upcoming Nøgne-Ø releases, such as an Imperial Dunkelwit(!), Beetroot Ale and a collaboration with Mikkeller and Brewdog. And sake brewing will begin soon.

I won't bore you with more details of what was said and drunk. Here is a picture of Kjetil, Sato-san and Koji discussing the technicalities of eco-kegs. What a pity that in a city of 37 million people the public transport shuts down so early.