Pubs close due to lack of choice

[nzbrewer]

Finally we see consumers voting with their feet

CEA receiver closes down Grumpy Mole
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/2399719/CEA-receiver-clo...

Shame the owners don't realize that because their selection of beer was limited to just Lion beers that this $32 million pub empire has just failed.

Give consumers a choice of good products and they will keep coming back, and not look for somewhere better.

[Reviled]

lol, shame :oP Serves them right really!

[James P]

The Grumpy mole was situated across from Shooters and The Loaded Hog, and is the worst bar of those three. Then you have His Lordship's Lane just around the corner with even better bars atmosphere wise, all of stock swill. Then The Hop not 5 minutes walk from there....

I'm not sure you can just say it was a crap beer selection that caused it to close down. Add a crap bar that hasn't been updated in years, crap environment with no atmosphere, and staff that were more interested in talking to each other than serving a drink. The Grumpy Mole bar did have monteiths on tap, which at one time would have been a good thing and better than 80% of the bars in CHCH.

[Stu McKinlay]

These sort of places come and go like the ebb and flow of tides. If good craft beer was being sold at them it would be no different (but it would possibly make it harder for those current craft beer specialist bars to survive).

The Warehouse is NZ's biggest music retailer. They used to have an ok selection of music but i hardly ever purchased from there because I'd rather support the specialist music store, even if it was a dollar or three more... why? The places where I shopped would be guaranteed to get what I want and to the staff could give me some good tips on new music. Now that the squeeze is very much on the physical sales of music the Warehouse have slowly crept back to old crooners and top 40... the middle of the road music stores have all been killed of by the combination of digital music and the warehouse... the specialist stores still survive.

I don't know what relationship that has, if any - it just came out and i couldn't stop typing.

[Bambule]

Ah Stu, I think their is plenty of currency in the music:beer metaphor. For some reason I've been thinking about this lately, there's food and beer matching why not beer and music matching.....anyway. So, the old crooners (like drinking lion brown), top 40 (fizzy coloured alcoholic softdrink), "the rock "radio station (tui..safe, bland and repetitive), Kenny G (Budweiser)... I could go, and enjoy myself whilst at it. The craft beer listener will not go to the warehouse for his music but to the regional wines and spirits of music shops. Then there is malt (rhythm), hops (melody), yeast (lyrics) to be appreciated, or the style. I recall you likening drinking mild like listening to country or other such americana.....
Right thats enough fun for a monday morning

[James P]

Hauraki is definately the craft beer of radio!

[Reviled]

I love Hauraki, I used to be an avid "the rock" listener, but it has just become less and less rock and way more "new age metal" "pop-rock" "emo" these days :o(

And you cant go wrong with their advertising "We play the music that your parents got laid to" :o) haha

[James P]

That's a classic one, then there is the "If we were a rock star we would have choked in our own vomit by now..."!! They don't know of the term PC on that station, go the Pirates!

[Stu McKinlay]

I'm listening to Tom Waits right now... Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers and Bastards. There's a few pints o' mild, an American IPA and nice quaffable Stout or Porter (or both) in that one.

What would you match a lambic too? And what beer would you drink if you were listening to The Sundown Playboys... hmmm, it'd have to be moonshine I suppose.

[Bambule]

Tom Waits, that would be a bourbon porter then, probably with a chaser of some description! Lambic is possibly some noodly free form jazz, or maybe bitches brew era miles davis, that's the belgian funk your hearing.

[Stu McKinlay]

I was just thinking about Bourbon Porter the other day. I was wondering what the best three NZ-brewed beers i've ever drunk were.

I basically came to the conclusion that they were:
Emerson's Bourbon Porter
Limburg Oude Reserve
Emerson's 1812 Anniversary Ale

And Chris O'leary is now working at Emerson's...


Then I thought, what are the three i could go out and buy any day of the week...

And I thought...

And I thought...

Epic Pale Ale
Emerson's Pilsner
Invercargill Pitch Black


None of them really really get me going. Why? Is it because they are so readily obtainable, day in day out?


No thread jacking take down requests, please.

[Rusty Chch]

Having spent a fair few nights in the Mole, I can safely say that the range of beer was never the biggest problem with the place.

[Ged]

Apart from the bogan element, the one pool table, the dance floor you had to traverse with 4 pints in hand whilst handing off the punters...Ugly birds..uglier blokes and the odd drunken jock figuring you must know Hamish as he lives somewhere on a remote island off the west coast of Scotalnd noising you up..:)

Couldn't agree more Dylan!