It is easy to just cut and paste and link back to another piece Jason has written on Brew Hui. You should follow his posts because they are well written and thoughtful and he makes an effort to talk to the brewers out there making it happen, oh and Jono 😉
http://brewhui.wordpress.com/2014/07/04/marooned-part-1/
Below is just the piece which is relevant to this blog, but make sure you click-through to the whole article. Teaser: Kathy Ireland.
Luke Nicholas (Epic)
Of all my marooned guests, Luke pondered his answers the most carefully. His SMaSH beer ingredients arrived eventually, and weren’t entirely surprising given his One Trick Pony reputation: Golden Promise (a pale ale malt) as the base, hopped with Centennial(a variety from the West Coast of the USA) and fermented with an American ale yeast (Wyeast 1272 American Ale 2). The ingredients scream American Pale Ale – but Luke insisted that he would brew an Imperial IPA, a decision no-doubt swayed by the delicious Hop Zombie we were sipping at the time.
Luke found it difficult to narrow-down the consumable beer that he’d hope would be in the container – but he did offer a top three; and given the fact that I was swigging freeHop Zombie, I was obliged to bend the rules ever-so-slightly. Top of the list was Hopsickle, an Imperial IPA from Moylan’s in the US; closely followed by Emerson’s Porter (on the hand-pull, he was quick to add) and Kauri Falls Pale Ale from Hot Water Brewing.
There was no pondering when it came to the beer that he hoped wasn’t in the container: namely, anything gluten-free. As a judge at this year’s Australian International Beer Awards, he spent the majority of the week trying to swap his place at the gluten-free judging table with someone from the barleywine section. Strangely, no-one took him up on his offer.
As far as companionship is concerned, Luke settled on a three-headed monster: namely,Dave Kurth (from the aforementioned Hot Water Brewing), Martin Townshend (from the eponymous Townshend’s) and Kelly Ryan (now brewing at the Fork and Brewer in Wellington). Luke said that these three brewers continually challenge him to be better,and that between them they represent the most potential in New Zealand brewing. He did add one small caveat: due to similar personally types, it’s likely that Luke, Dave and Martin would all kill each other within 30 seconds of being marooned – leaving Kelly in solitude with all that Hopsickle.
READ THE REST NOW http://brewhui.wordpress.com/2014/07/04/marooned-part-1/
