Furious George: Top of the Hops

The enigmatic Frank Zappa once said of a nation, "you can't be a real country unless you have a beer and an airline - it helps if you have some kind of football team, or some nuclear weapons, but in the very least you need a beer". Hard to argue with Zappa's impeccable reasoning on that one.

It appears, using the Zappa blueprint, we are indeed a 'real country' and quite an impressive one at that. We have an airline that's simply world class, in fact two-time Airline of the Year Award winner. We certainly have a football team, at least our version of football; the three-time World Cup-winning All Blacks with an unrivalled record in the history of sports and this week named the Team of the Year at the Laureus Sports Awards, beating the likes of Barcelona FC and the Golden State Warriors. We don't have nuclear weapons; we actually hate them, which is a good thing, and in fact more famous for our dislike of them. Our banning of nuclear armed and/or powered US warships into our harbours in 1984, punctuated by David Lange's "uranium " quip at the Oxford Union debate the following year, made us a virtual pinup for anti-nuclear sentiment, which culminated in the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior.

So what about beer? Like Air New Zealand, the All Blacks and David Lange, we're nothing short of world-class. I'm a pretty big beer fan and, like the 'Hoperations Manager' for Auckland's Liberty Brewing Company, Joseph Wood, I started to get a little dissatisfied with the country's beer offerings. Unlike Mr Wood though, I didn't do anything about it other than embark on a journey to sample as many of our diverse offerings as possible.

I've given it a fair crack but Joseph Wood has taken it a few steps further. The Liberty founder has headed up a team that produce some of the most brilliant beers this country has ever tasted. The likes of Yakima Scarlet, Knife Party IPA and Oh Brother Pale Ale are next level genius.
Liberty's story was the subject of this week's Top of the Hops segment on Farming First, a weekly spot in which I feature one of this country's many outstanding craft-beer producing breweries. Last week we put the spotlight on the equally impressive Epic Brewing Company, also based in Auckland and founded by Luke Nicholas, who recently took out the top prizes in the IPA and Pale Ale categories of the New World Beer and Cider Awards. These are just two of our more impressive breweries paving the way for New Zealand to inevitably become known as one of the best beer brewing nations on earth.

While it's very easy to fall into the trap of becoming a beard-manicuring, insufferably boring hipster beer wanker, the brewers themselves are fine examples of dedicated Kiwi craftsmen who are endeavouring to master this most noble and ancient primary industry. Their dedication to sourcing the finest hops from around the globe is testament to their passion.

Our own hop growers are also reaping the rewards of the growing craft beer obsession. Micro or craft breweries are growing a rapid rate of knots around the world and our are hop growers are cashing in with over ninety percent of New Zealand's hop crop exported overseas. Legend has it a new craft brewery starts up in the United States every sixteen hours, while the number in Italy and Spain has doubled in the past seven years. There's added pressure on European breweries as well after a drought on the Continent and disease in Britain cutting their production by around twenty-five percent. As this year's harvest comes to a close, it all bodes well for our hop growers in Nelson who for years were bent over the proverbial by the big brewers who could basically turn up and offer a price. How things have changed in the past decade for the farmer, the dedicated brewer and us, the drinkers.

I'll raise a hoppy glass of amber nectar to that, and Air New Zealand and the All Blacks and No Nukes! Frank Zappa would have loved the place.