Training in an ancient art
I’ve been self-employed for a decade. I’d like to say this means I’ve got no boss but the reality is that even though I’m an equal partner in a family business, my mum’s still the boss.
Self-employment is well enough but I’ve always harboured a concern that should our hospitality business fail, as hospitality businesses tend to do, all I’ll be qualified to do is drink beer and tell lies.
What could a hack like me do? I’m about 20 years too old to get back into journalism and my shoulder has failed, which ends my original trade as a shovel operator.
So I’m always looking for how we can grow our business in order to ensure I never have to get a real job. So where to?
I’ve dreamed of running a hospitality garbage empire but after a month of writing a business plan I realised this was a rubbish idea.
How can we grow our business? Open another bar? How about getting a fleet of cattle and growing our own hamburgers? It would mean I could flip-flop and become a raging pro-cow person. I’d love to make all sorts of wild statements about how I once saw a townie pooing in a river.
Or how about making our own beer? If you’re gonna be an alcy you might as well make a career of it, right? That’s it. That’s the one. Let’s do that.
So we went and bought a blimmin brewery. The Twisted Hop Brewery in Wigram, to be precise. We’ve been contract brewing so much beer over the past few years that our accountant positively insisted on it.
I clearly remember the former Twisted Hop being the first craft beer pub I ever visited in Christchurch. Way back in the olden days when I thought warm, flat beer would never fly with Kiwis.
Look at us now. The country is awash with craft breweries. I mean, there must be more breweries than there are men with beards.
From the advice we’ve received it’s a great time to be moving into the brewing game: an oversaturated market, margins slimmer than a vegan yogi, the medium-sized guys at war for the lowest price point, increasing cost of goods and a society gradually transitioning from late nights, fun and laughter to self-righteous sobriety, early mornings and sincere silence.
But what the heck. If I’m going to be on this ride I’d better end up with a half-practical trade. So I’m retraining as a brewer. A statement so many men my age would love to be bashing out on a keyboard.
I’ve been working on this theory that being a brewer must be one of the oldest and longestrunning professions in history, after hooker, theocrat and slave. Surely there’s something in the longevity of a profession that survived kings and revolutions, industry and mass production.
What amazes me is that, after all this time, the process of brewing beer is much the same as it’s been since humans first settled down to grow grain in order to make beer – something even ancient people understood was a lot of fun. Grain, water, hops and yeast. What a magnificent combination. God exists.
Now all I have to do is go crawling to my mum and ask if I can have a few days off over Christmas. It would be great to work on a bit of product testing and it’s important that my beer in to beer out ratio stays in cosmic balance with the universe.
Good health everybody.