Saturday, 11 July 2009

Does My Bum Look Big in this Barrel?


Some odd things happen to me in the course of my work, not surprising when you consider the amount of booze that it involves, but this is a weird one even by my standards!

To set the scene for you, a couple of months ago Luke Nicholas from Epic brewery was over here brewing for Wetherspoon's and I met up with him and his mate Colin Mallon (a Scotsman who runs a great-sounding pub called the Malthouse ) had some beers, a bite to eat and an all-round good laugh.

They went back to New Zealand, we did the Facebook thing to stay in contact and I didn't think much more about it - until a tagged photo of a barrel appeared with my name on it on Colin's page, which I found a little odd/slightly insulting!

So, a faux-indignant enquiry was made and I got back a very cryptic 'you'll have to wait and see' response - worst thing ever to say to a nosey journalist.

Unfortunately, my attempts to get more information out of Luke yielded even less fruit, which was even more frustrating - particularly when Tweets started appearing saying things like 'just filling Melissa' which, I must say, came as a surprise to me!

Anyway, I had pretty much forgotten about it until this morning when I finally got around to reading Colin's recent message - and all has been revealed.

Basically, inspired by Pete Brown's new book Hops & Glory (which I've mentioned previously), Luke & Colin cooked up the idea to put two wooden casks of beer onto the New Zealand Interislander Ferry for six weeks to see what effect it has - the decided that the barrels should be named after Pete and myself, which is sweet... I think!

I can't wait to hear what the beer tastes like because, although it won't be the same length of voyage, it will be fascinating to see if there's a similar effect on the strength of the hop character in the beer to the one that Pete experienced with his.

p.s. I'm disturbed by how much Luke appears to be enjoying hitting 'me' in the picture, I thought we got on quite well!!

11 comments:

Kelly Ryan said...

Haha, that's great! I've always liked to think of myself as a receptacle for beer and now you have one named after you! Agree though, Luke looks like he's having far too much fun!

Colin Mallon said...

The Armageddon IPA is now on the Interislander ferry Kaitaki- looking forward to seeing how it turns out.... I think.

Colin @malthouse

Unknown said...

actually in the photo I'm banging Pete, and filling Melissa ;-)

Melissa Cole said...

Oddly enough that doesn't make me feel any better - in fact I think I may need to go and wash now... you're a bad man Mr Nicholas!

Unknown said...

Here is a link to the full story, including five videos, many links, photos, blogs, to give you an understanding of what is going on.

Enjoy.

http://epicbeer.com/blog/2009/07/videos-so-whats-story-behind-epic.html

Scott said...

Interesting story and FUNNY comments!

Melissa Cole said...

Thanks Scott, we don't stand on ceremony much around here!

Sat In A Pub said...

Good story and you can now sleep easier having found out the truth about having a barrel named after yourself:)

Melissa Cole said...

Yes the existential doubt was killing me, as I said on Twitter - to misquote the Killers 'Am I human, or am I barrel?'.

And I've stopped rolling out of bed... okay, I'll stop now!

Unknown said...

Can I just say it's a privilege to be banged by Luke. Looking forward to hearing how the beer turns out!

Melissa Cole said...

I love this blog - the randomness of it all is just wonderfully life-affirming not to mention fricking hilarious at times!