Mike Cheyne is one half of The Bloom Theory, a Wanganui craft beer venture creating location-based brews. Photo/Bevan Conley
Mike Cheyne is in his Glasgow St backyard picking lime leaves from a small tree.
Black gumboots, black pants and black T-shirt, he soaks the leaves in a bucket of water ready for the next day. Tomorrow, two men go to brew.
The Wanganui man is one half of the The Bloom Theory, a Wanganui craft beer brewing business in its infancy but with a unique approach to brewing.
Mikes's been in Wanganui for five years, shifting up from Wellington where he met brew-partner James Chatterton.
He was at a small art studio where James was something of a resident brewer. They soon got talking beer and even more quickly got brewing beer together.
James had the kit ready to go at the studio but the moisture created by brewing would not have done any favours to the art exhibition on the walls at the time.
"So we just decided to pack the brewery in the back of the van," James says.
They found themselves in Petone, brewing on the beach, and with light fading they threw the kettle into the ocean to cool it. But it tipped and ended up "chucking half the ocean" in the brew.
"It tasted more like miso soup than beer really. I think a few of them got drunk," James says. It was serendipitous.
The Petone botch-up turned out to be the birthplace of the The Bloom Theory's Envirospecific brand of beer. That means a beer brewed in an environment using ingredients from that environment. They pick a location, lug kegs, grain and brewing paraphernalia, spend some time sussing the environment, talking to the people and discovering how to capture it all in a beer.
"We have the idea before we go, and do the research. Then we'll spend a week in the place and we'll forage and sort of identify what's there and talk to the people who know the area best," Mike says.
"We make something pretty gnarly, it gets pretty loose."
They brew about 40 litres in their portable kit and lug it all back from wherever they are, with the help of a photographer who is paid in beer.
"We have arguments over what is heavier," Mike says.
Recently they trekked to Mangaturuturu Hut on Mt Ruapehu where they discovered an abundance of heather. So they created a heather and hive ale, brewed at the hut using water from the cascade, carrots from Ohakune and heather from the mountain.
After brewing their Envirospecific creations it gets taken back to Mike's shed where the pair refine the recipe before recreating it for at the 200-litre lab at Massey University in Palmerston North, which they hire.
Among their other Envirospecific concoctions are a Paua Porter made with live paua on an island in the middle of Wellington Harbour and Wanganui brew that was about as Wanganui as can be. They gathered wild Wanganui hops from around the region and jumped in a rowboat on the Whanganui River, paddling their brewery down it. They collected acorns at Kowhai Park, slow-roasted them on public barbecues and hung them in socks of the bridge overnight to wash off tannins. "You improvise," Mike says. Not finished, they took the brew to Chronicle Glass where glass artist Katie Brown blew glass inside the warm kettle of beer.
This weekend they are in Taranaki brewing beer with cow colostrum.
At The Bloom Theory world there are no limits to what can be turned into craft beer.
"We can capture most things. If it's edible, it's brewable," Mike says.
"The world doesn't need another pale ale," James adds.
Mike has more outlandish ideas too. "I want to spend a day mincing around with Mormons."
It would involve growing wild yeast in the church and finding out what Mormons like to eat or grow and throwing it into a Mormon beer. "They might end up having some at the church service." They also have plans for Envirospecific brews based on events such as the Coast to Coast or World of Wearable Arts.
"So people are just suffering eh ... but we'll be running along brewing. If you're going to go coast to coast, lets squeeze in a beer," Mike says.
"There's lots of ice caps to melt."
With the sorts of places and ideas the pair are toying with, there are cultural sensitivities to be aware of. The Ruapehu brew was made in a Department of Conservation hut and they try to stick to private land where they can. "We are considerate," Mike says. "We don't want to be seen as pissheads going around boganising the place."
Mike will probably use his last breath talking about beer. He loves it.
"It's good times, man, it's really good times."
And there's an authenticity about what is happening at The Bloom Theory. It spreads into their life in general. Mike sits on a chair in his shed, drops the needle on an Elvis record and continues.
"I sort of like the holistic nature of drinking, it's social intercourse," he says, pouring the last of a Paua Porter into a glass. "There might be bits of paua in that."
It is the age of the craft beer and James and Mike are right amongst it - who knows, they could be at the forefront of it.
"People are opening up their palates, it's a global movement," Mike says.
"I guess access to ingredients (has helped), access to brewing equipment, access to information about brewing.
"People have travelled and gone, 'hey, there's better beer'."
It doesn't stop at the bottle, though, for The Bloom Theory. Mike and James use the spent grain from brews to make Mash Tun Crackers, a recipe developed by James. Recently they took 110 packs down to Moore Wilsons in Wellington and were sold out by 2pm.
Mike rates what they've done so far as a success.
"When you're arm-wrestling yourself, you can't lose," he says.
"If I thought eight months ago we'd be where we are now I'd be stoked."
The Envirospecific beers will for sale soon but the pair have been selling their Bloom Amber, Dr Bloom's Taraxacum Elixir and Melissa brews for a while at the Saturday market.
Melissa is the botanical name for lemon balm and is Mike's favourite drop.
The market is their testing ground for the Envirospecific stuff.
Mike isn't sure how big it will get but seems to be more interested in the creative side of things than big business. He doesn't want to be brewing every day.
"Within the Wanganui context it's not going to be a huge brewery, even within the New Zealand context, because there's a lot of craft beer on the shelves."
As for what The Bloom Theory means, like their beer, it varies.
"It's an open theory but in more practical terms it's about having a number of branches to our tree and seeing which branches blossom first," Mike says.
"But come back tomorrow and I'll tell you something different."
