There was a flurry of New Day Job productivity here, but the ramp-up to Beervana evidently derailed that somewhat. It's an awesome time of year to be a beer geek, and I've got a brilliantly-enjoyable new gig in the beer business, but my best writing hours have always been from midnight to four — it's probably genetic, for all I know — and I just haven't found the time. That should begin to swing back, on the far side of this weekend.

So, with apologies for the delay, we here present an unintentionally-apt reintroduction and recap podcast episode, with less of a Topic For Discussion and more just two guys sitting down over a few beers. George and I hadn't caught up for a while, and now — collectively — we haven't seen you lot in some time, either. But nevermind that; welcome back and hello again. In his travels, George picked up a seriously neat new little recording gizmo, and it here makes its début. One immediate effect is that we suddenly go all stereo. We kind of like the effect, but if it drives you all mad — or just annoys some statistically-significant subset of you — we can smoosh it back to mono. We'll also soon première some on-location footage that the New Gizmo gave us the opportunity to record, out and about. Feedback is always welcome — but even moreso when we go changing things a little.

George and I ventued into the (not really) wilds of Upper Hutt to have a chat with Jo Wood (of Liberty Brewing) and Mike Nielsen (of Tuatara); two homebrewers turned professional brewers (in very different capacities) who still love to get together on a weekend and knock up a random batch of something. We talk about how they got in to brewing, how they 'monetised' it for themselves, their favourites and the recurring pains in their respective asses.

We do apologise for the difficulty you might have in hearing us all (well, not me; I'm loud), but we are definitely lacking a bit of Jo Volume and there are intermittent glass-on-the-table thumps. Our on-the-road setup is still fairly rudimentary and George had to do the editing quickly before heading away on holiday (though he's hoping to grab some nicer gear while overseas). Demand-dependent, we might have another crack at the audio when he gets back; let me know how you get on. Cheers!

This one got a little lost in the post-post-production pipe (i.e., it was my fault, not George's), but here we are back for episode 2. In which I ramble about Australia, since I'd recently been there and was soon going back (for beery and non-beery reasons), we celebrate the return of fresh-hop beers, celebrate new employment opportunities (both mine and someone else's), offer a few recommendations -- and a word of warning.

Back for a second 'season' -- are more-or-less arbitrary division, but we watch a fair amount of (good) TV and can't help but think of things like that -- George and I sat down a little while ago to talk about collaboration in craft beer.

We recorded this a while ago -- as becomes obvious once or twice from the conversation -- but the same things keeping me from blogging Diary entries got in the way of uploading it. My apologies for that, but I'm pleased to report that George already has s02e02 edited and ready to go; I should find time to upload it while I'm in Melbourne -- the topic, ironically, is "Australia" -- or very shortly after I get back.

Hardly rushing in to things, we here present our 2011 Year in Review, recorded mid-February and published in the first few days of March. The Oscars for 2011 releases only happened this week, after all, and we don't have their kind of budget — or Billy Crystal. Instead, we took vague inspiration from the "Golden Pints" lists that popped up around New Year's, and take the chance to look back on the year past to pick out some themes and some favourites.

Inspired by the impending holidays -- impending, that is, when we recorded -- we have a little bit of a ramble about Strong Beer (partially also to balance the ledger after our Midstrength Beer episode). There are a lot of ways to be a strong beer, and equally-many reasons to enjoy one. And then there's a fair amount of silliness in the field, too. But the point remains: there's a beer for every occasion that might otherwise bring wine or whisky to the front of your mind.