Why does the bottle have an Epic cap on it?This was a wee error at the brewery. The following batches will be a generic cap.Why does the map on the label only have a few cities on it?This was a generic map that was chosen as a graphic. We just stuck with the cities already printed on it.Why are there only 44 breweries represented on this?Not all breweries were available for us to visit in the time frame that we had. Also, some breweries did not want to be a part of the project.What ingredients did you use?We used New Zealand malted barley, British malted barley (due to the influence of the UK on many brewers and breweries around NZ) and all New Zealand hops. We used an American yeast strain. We aimed to use water from a few places around New Zealand, but this plan was affected by the earthquake.Is it really a collaboration if all of the brewers weren’t there?The recipe was shared by email so that brewers could discuss or make changes. A collaboration is defined by Wikipedia as follows:
Collaboration is working together to achieve a goal, but in its negative sense it is working as a traitor. It is a recursive process where two or more people or organizations work together to realize shared goals, (this is more than the intersection of common goals seen in co-operative ventures, but a deep, collective, determination to reach an identical objective) — for example, an intriguing endeavor that is creative in nature—by sharing knowledge, learning and building consensus. Most collaboration requires leadership, although the form of leadership can be social within a decentralized and egalitarian group. In particular, teams that work collaboratively can obtain greater resources, recognition and reward when facing competition for finite resources.
So yes, it’s definitely a collaboration!
Why didn’t you take ingredients from every brewer you visited and use them in the brew?
In a way we did... because most NZ brewers use either UK or NZ malt, we saved them and us the hassle of taking a handful from each brewery and got the freshest we possibly could straight from our supplier. The same goes for the hops, where it is very important to store these fresh, cold and out of sunlight and air. The majority of Kiwi craft breweries use the same malt and hop suppliers. Our plans to get some Canterbury Plains artesian water were thwarted by the earthquake.
Where can I buy this beer?
Our plan is to get it into craft beer stores that have a great selection of NZ craft beer, into some of the great craft beer bars and pubs across NZ and onto the supermarket and liquor store shelves as well!
Where can I watch the TV show? What channel will it be on?
Once the production company sort through the fifty odd hours of footage and begin to assemble episodes, we plan to show these online, so that everyone can watch them whenever they want on the Internet. With a bit of luck, one of the TV channels here in NZ will also pick this up and support our fantastic craft beer industry.
Why not just straight to air on television?
A show costs a lot to make. We want the rights to this show and to be able to use it how and when we want to spread the word about Kiwi craft beer. If we were to sell this to a TV station, they would own the rights and get a bunch of advertising dollars at zero risk. We didn’t want this to happen. Shows about alcohol are not often shown in prime-time also. This limits the involvement that big TV companies may want to have in a show like this.
There are a few breweries missing from the first Christchurch episode. Why is that?
The joys of technology. We were filming the footage on HD memory cards and these are pretty fragile. Two of these were damaged and the footage unable to be retrieved. We could have taken the cards to a forensic recovery team (these do exist!) but it would have cost us a coupld of grand to do so! We also had some footage that was unusable due to background noise and sound quality in some of the pubs.
Because of this, we don't have footage of Ally McGilvray from Golden Ticket Brewing, of Cassels & Sons Brewery or part of the Three Boys Brewery footage. We're fully gutted about this, but the cost for us to get back down with the film crew and re-film is pretty high!
Coupled with the fact that Luke re-mortgaged his house to fund this trip and show (and there's no money left!), it's just meant that we didn't have anything on these guys to include in the episode. We're planning to put something into one of the later episodes to explain all of this.
Sorry!
Wednesday, June 1, 2011 at 9:20PM 
