Thus Let Us Drink Beer

Hop Nation & Cronulla Beer Co.

It must have been a couple of years ago that while on a quest to quench my hankering for a hopped out beer, I came across one of Hop Nation’s delicious emissions the first time. I remember that obviously the name, the label design and the overall way Hop Nation presented itself caught my eye and luckily their first IPA, The Fiend, did not disappoint on the flavour front either, which started an on-going interest in the brewery.

After refining their approach and a period of gypsy brewing, Hop Nation eventually set up their own shop in Melbourne, which was the starting point for a journey that eventually established them firmly on the firmament of Australian quality craft beer breweries with their focus firmly set on the creation of hop forward styles, centred around the experimentation with quality ingredients and minimal filtration.

With the Hop Nation founders having a pedigree in winemaking and a curious interest in experimenting, over the years a diverse array of barrel aged brews were given birth to as a side projects under the moniker Site Fermentation Project, which also saw the release of idiosyncratic beer-wine hybrids and fermented brews.

Hop Nation’s over-the-top hazy hop-hash informed tour de force that is the juicy and citrusy J Juice and the pale gold, grapefruity The Chop, which is informed by the best of what the quartet of Ella, Cascade, Simcoa and Mosaic hops have to offer, along with their take on a traditional American red ale, The Buzz, have become a reliable staples in my fridge 

Apart from consistently knocking things out of the park with their hop-centric releases, it was interesting to see Hop Nation branch out into sour beer styles, the first of which I experienced via their refreshingly salty, delicately acidic and passionfruity The Punch, which is a Teutonic-styled mango gose in nature and proved to be a perfect companion to be teamed up with a wee dram of Port Charlotte.

I have to admit that when I first learned about Hop Nation diversifying their offerings via the Ray Seltzer brand, I was a bit sceptical as carbonated water combined with alcohol and fruit flavouring does not exactly sound like an exciting proposition, however, with their natural brewing approach and reliance on real fruit, it makes for a refreshing tipple, especially when one feels like accommodating the urge to indulge during the earlier hours of the day.

Apart from the way Hop Nation is expertly channelling their alchemy in the realm of brewing and fermentation, their meticulous attention to detail not only can be experienced via the artful presentation of their drink range, but also with the creation of their top notch merchandise, which both in terms of designs but also the quality of their garments aligns with their quality approach.

Cronulla Beer Co.

We have covered a myriad of Australian craft beer distilleries from all necks of the woods of terra australis, however, an area that was not necessarily on my radar in the brewing department was Sydney’s Sutherland Shire. 

All the more exciting it was to see a brewery pop up that fully embraces the DNA of the place and channels the local vibes into their interpretations of hoppy nectars, which to culminates in a liquid, fun- and flavour filled equivalent to what Cronulla and its beaches stand for – an ethos that also expands to the branding and their high quality merch range, which given the stylish components it is based on, should be more than well received both by beer aficionados as well as folks a bit more invested in what garments they invest in.

Having initially started out with a core range of four beers, i.e. XPA, mid-strength, a lager and a pale ale, my current favourite expressions are Cronulla’s Next Level XPA, which is essentially based on an NEIPA by transforming the grain bill and hop schedule,  and their Pavlovian response evoking Ultra Hazy IPA, both of which are lipsmackingly great and dangerously more-ish due to the slightly higher ABV content.

Especially with the Ultra Hazy IPA, Cronulla Brewing Co demonstrates that they are naturals when it comes to expertly calibrating the finer nuances of subtleties, which are often overshadowed by lesser releases in the current haze craze breweries find themselves competing in.

Cronulla’s Ultra Hazy IPA is a beautiful union of solid and liquid, resulting in flavour that you can see, with each ingredient contributing to the haze without running danger of cancelling the impact of other ingredients out. 

An example par excellence for the best one could hope for when merging the triumvirate of protein-rich grains, yeast activity, and hefty hop additions, which results in a foggy brew that one would be hard pressed to distinguish from a class of orange juice as far as appearance is concerned, and thereby representing the provenance and natural hues of Cronulla and its surroundings.

The Formative Years - Kyuss 

There is something to be said for music that not only serves as a mere accompaniment but as the sonic equivalent of a psychedelic experience as it makes things infinitesimally better and literally adds another dimension to things.

It must have been in the early 1990s that I first was introduced to Kyuss and while my surroundings did not even remotely resemble the vastness and harsh environment and debilitating heat of the Californian desert, things clicked instantaneously.

What emerged out of Palm Springs seemed perfect and magical as the way that the four-piece channelled its alchemy in ways that combined what I loved about both Black Sabbath and Black Flag only to slow it down, make it heavier, add their idiosyncratic groove and infused it with an unrivalled vibe.

While their debut Welcome to Sky Valley in all its raw and unfiltered beauty. Music that felt like the desert come alive, dangerous, distant, white hot and intense while incredibly beautiful.

While their debut Welcome to Sky Valley and …And The Circus Leaves Town were solid offerings, their magnus opus remains Blues For The Red Sun  in all its raw and unfiltered beauty. Music that felt like the desert come alive, dangerous, distant, white hot and intense while incredibly beautiful.

For the band and its incarnations there was no staging needed: Their video clips just showed them playing in the desert without any added dramaturgy and still transported an enigmatic quality.

Needless to say, Kyuss spawned what was eventually to become known as “stoner rock” with bands still trying to not only emulate their sound but trying to replicate their thick and heavy guitars and recording techniques, which included placings cabinets so that certain frequencies would cancel each other out,  in a bid to sound both as dusty and powerful without ever coming close to creating that magic sauce that the masters effortlessly did.

A special band that with its spirit  and rumble came and conquered at the right time, with their posthumous legend quickly outgrowing their mere musical legacy.

Water of Life

Metallica’s Blackened and Waitui from New Zealand

“…fire to begin whipping dance of the dead – Blackened is the end….” - Well, certainly not the end of celebrity and band inspired spirit creations as they are mushrooming at a pace that it proves hard to keep track of. 
However, the question more often than not is if those often gimmicky liquids are actually of  drinkable quality or if they mainly serve as another novelty merch item for dedicated fans to display on their mantlepiece.

What separates BLACKENED from other celebrity endorsed spirits is that fact that its creation is based on a true collaboration between Metallica and two veritable masters of craft in the realm of distilling and blending, i.e. the late Dave Pickerell and Rob Dietrich, both of which have created quite a legacy with how they have become known to channel their alchemy when it comes to craft distilling, e.g. by being the creative heads behind Maker’s Mark and Whistle Pig’s liquid emissions.

Apart from the underlying concept of creating a blended spirit equivalent to Metallica, this collaboration takes things a step further by literally giving it an idiosyncratic note: During the final stages of aging, the whiskey barrels were sonically assaulted by a Metallica playlist via a specifically created “Black Noise” sound system in a bid to literally shake things up and thereby imbue vibes to the process that would enhance interaction of the bourbon and rye blend with the charred former Brandy barrels with the result being the extraction of  deeper flavours.

The efficacy and physics of the aforementioned process might be disputed by scientists, however, the result is an immensely enjoyable and unpretentious drop:

Bottled at an ABV of 45% , the stylishly and aesthetically well- crafted and nicely understated decorative vessel it is housed in pays homage to the Black Noise process via its label and each batch comes with an accompanying curated playlist of Metallica songs to enjoy it with.

Honey amber in appearance and with a distinctly creamy and slightly oily mouthfeel, BLACKENED tickles the nostrils upon approach with a melange of burnt caramel, plums and honeyed oak, rounded out by spicy highlights. 

On the top of the mouth citrussy honey nuances take on centre stage courtesy of the inherent sweet profile of the dominant bourbon component, flanked by spicy cinnamon, apricots, baking spicy and clove notes derived from the rye, to then culminate in a deliciously elongated finish, reminiscent of cognac and dominated by burnt butter, an intriguing saline aspect, caramelized sugar and molasses.

A well-balanced very decent sipper with a complex flavour profile that holds its own and does not need to rely on the celebrity endorsement. 

In Oceania, BLACKENED is available from the fine people of Groglords, which offer a wide array of well-selected band endorsed quality spirits, along with specifically designed limited edition merch, e.g. an Australian exclusive Metallica x BLACKENED shirt designed by Sindy Sinn.

Waitui Whiskey 

As part of this series I have covered the Australian whiskey landscape far and wide and while there is no vestige of the mushrooming of new boundary pushing distilleries ebbing at any time soon, I am always excited when I get to sample something new from across the Tasman, i.e. New Zealand, which at least for me is largely uncharted territory in the spirits realm.

We have covered and praised the excellent handcrafted emissions from the family owned Kiwi Spirits Distillery before, so needless to say that when a package from the Golden Bay of New Zealand’s South Island arrived, containing their latest 8-year old Waitui Whiskey expression, I was giddy with a excitement as the family’s credo is firmly focussed on creating quality over quantity.

What I loved about previous incarnations of Waitui is that all ingredients are locally sourced, i.e. garden to glass, and produced in small batches without any additives, spending eight years in two-hundred litre barrels that previously were used by local monks to create a Pavlovian response evoking, lip-smacking delicious honey mead. The fact that previous Waitui incarnations only got better over time, once they interacted with air, only adds to the appeal.

Now, channelling one’s alchemy in the realm of honey malt whiskeys can be tricky, as the honey aspects can easily run danger of overshadowing finer nuances, so it is good to see that with Waitui, things are on the more subtle side of things:

What tickles the nostrils upon approach is a pronounced fruitiness reminiscent of fruitcake, backed by a melange of honeyed oak and cinnamon, which seamlessly transitions to the palate where via a delicate oily mouthfeel, dark chocolatey nuances are married with the distinct New Zealand malted barley notes, i.e. nutty and faintly smoky notes with cocoa characteristics, and an interesting peppery heat.

The elongated finish reverberates for days and leaves on lusting for another dram.

A beautiful, unique creation that given its quality, makes me wonder what facets could be added if it was bottled at cask strength instead of the tame 40% it is currently being made available with. 

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images from company websites

The Necks

Opera House

Sydney, Australia

February 9, 2022

This has been in the making for the longest time, as I have been an avid The Necks aficionado ever since I was first introduced them in the 1990s.  Unfortunately, so far I have never had a chance to see them channel their alchemy in the third dimension, which – spoiler alert - turned out to be exactly the unique and mesmerising experience I had hoped for.

For the uninitiated, The Necks is a trio of accomplished musicians that has released over twenty long players, with each constituent adding an idiosyncratic facet, resulting in a effortlessly improvised whole that is so much more than what the mere sum of its individual parts would suggest  – both in the sonic realm but also in terms of how they approach music making, i.e. moody, unorthodox and innovative takes on how they use their instruments, not merely for novelty sake but evoking unrivalled atmospheric sound landscapes, melodic yet with deliberately amplified atonality, the seamless interplay and dazzling array of which should not but does make perfect sense.

Sweet melodies create a melange with waves of noise as they ebb and flow in spontaneous implosions emitted from percussive weaponry, thereby creating an evening that feels transcendental, psychedelic and far beyond of what one might think freely improvised classical ambient-jazz music can conjure.

What I love about The Necks that despite what could be perceived as a strained high-brow approach, it never feels elitist over overintellectualized as there is a tangible, radical  immediacy, a vibe not unlike of what I appreciate about the emissions of Teutonic krautrock outfits, that uses the acoustics and context of the environment they operate in as an integral component that makes each performance one-of-a-kind. This is further amplified by the band interacting, which sometimes resembles a Mexican standoff daring each other to make the transition on to the next bit, only to then follow suit to up the ante.

I have yet to come across purely instrumental music that creates such upheaval as far as my internal weather is concerned in the best possible way, ranging from anger, sadness and an appreciation of all that is beautiful on this earthround.

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photo provided by Sydney Opera House

Mark Rothko

1968: Clearing Away

Pace Publishing

Since its inception in 1960, Pace Gallery has established itself as a veritable heavyweight on the firmament of contemporary and modern art galleries with nine locations worldwide, which unfortunately I have not had to chance to experience yet in the third dimension.

Learning about Pace Gallery focussing its London gallery’s inaugural program on Mark Rothko’s paintings of the late 1960s intrigued me, especially since it marked the first time a whole exhibition was dedicated to what some perceive to be Rothko’s most accomplished yet rarely seen paper-based output.

The accompanying opulently illustrated catalogue is not only framed by essays penned by esteemed curators like Eleanor Nairne, but is endorsed by Christopher Rothko, who introduces and contextualises Mark Rothko 1968: Clearing Away.

Compiling Rothko’s emissions from the late 1960s, the catalogue zeroes in on paintings that were produced during times of turmoil as Rothko suffered from ill health and problems in the realm of his personal life, which resulted in him scaling back from monument sized canvases to more intimate formats and saw the ignition of Rothko’s enthusiasm for luminous colours accentuated by acrylic effects.

While I have always enjoyed Rothko’s oeuvre and the meditations on it, claiming that Rothko’s subtle manipulations of pigments paired with his meticulous attention to detail and the way he negotiates space to create an interesting tension between geometrical forms is sublime, would be an understatement par excellence. 

Inspired by the Nietzschean notion that the artist should strive to eliminate all obstacles between both the paint and his work as well as between the behold and underlying ideas, 1968: Clearing Away is an example par excellence for Rothko spontaneously interpreting infinity and boundlessness.

Given the way Pace Gallery expertly sheds light on a master of the New York School and managing to portray part of his oeuvre in a new light through which Rothko’s experimental engagement with process is highlighted, makes me want to delve deeper into Pace’s five hundred title deep legacy in bookmaking.