Way back then, employers could pay any worker under 18 less than the minimum wage which from memory was something exorbitant like $3.50 an hour.
Along with most of best friends, I worked in a suburban video store and the owners had developed what they probably thought was a very clever plan indeed. Like clockwork, every single teenage employee got a written warning three weeks before their 18th birthday for either “the till being out” an unspecified amount or an unnamed “customer complaining about the service.” One week later, we all got a second written warning for “the till being out” or a “customer complaining about the service” (whichever one was not listed the week before) and on the day before their birthday we got fired. [1] I’m not sure how they did not expect us all to notice.
One day, before I fatefully turned 18, I was working in the Linden [2] store. Well, working perhaps may be an overstatement. This was the same shop I had a ten-hour shift where nobody rented a single video. The till was opened just once when someone bought a blank tape. I really earned my $30 pay check that day. Part of the problem was a rival video shop literally across the road. It was called “Roger’s Pizza and Videos”. Our rival was run by a guy called Roger and it sold pizzas and rented videos. [3]
The most challenging aspect of the video store job was figuring out how to get dinner. Usually this involved locking the door and running off to one of the many the nearby takeaways. Some of the more customer focussed establishments would even have your meal ready if you rang in advance. At around tea time on a particularly slow day, Roger sauntered into my shop and asked how business was. Even though there was literally only one video out on hire, I was contractually obliged to tell him that we were flat out as always.
He had the decency to only laugh quietly at this outrageous lie. It turns out he had brought me a free pizza. He had gone to deliver it only to find out it was a hoax order and a fake address. Roger was adamant he should have seen it coming because of what they ordered – nobody, he told me, likes olive and anchovy pizza. However, it was mine if I wanted it because absolutely no one in his store did. Now, I did not like olives and I did not like anchovies but I didn’t like spending money either. As a result, I ate the pizza and really, really enjoyed it. In one afternoon I discovered a new love of olives and anchovies, particularly when combined on a pizza. [4]
There are a number of things that people often come to appreciate only later in life. That list would traditionally include blue cheese, the writings of Joe Bennett, oysters, Winston Peters, caviar and driving gloves. On the beer side, dark beers are often an acquired taste but the absolute standout would have to be sour beers. They polarise drinkers more than any other style. The Oxford Companion to Beer has this to say about sour beer:
“While a certain level and quality of acidity is widely considered desirable in wine, often forming the backbone of its flavour structure, acidity is usually considered a flavour fault in modern beers. When speaking of beer, the word ‘sour’ is usually pejorative.
That said, there is a range of older beer styles that are traditionally acidic, and together with modern variants inspired by them, they have been termed, perhaps a bit rakishly, ’sour beers.’ When well made, they can be among the most complex and refreshing of beers, terrific with food and easily pushing the boundaries of what the modern drinker thinks of as ‘beer’.” I’ve never gained a taste for them. I once described the internationally revered sour beer Russian River Supplication as tasting “like a bat took a whizz in my mouth.” I like beers made with brettanomyces, lactobacillus and pediococcus as much as I enjoy golf, avocado, communism, sparkly vampires, light beer, wearing a tie and triathlons.
However, some people do and for them the Malthouse is currently stocking an extensive range. This includes sour beers from the highly decorated Belgian brewery Lindemans, Liefmans (which has been revived by Duvel Moortgart after going bankrupt), 3 Fonteinen (a Belgian specialist in Gueuze and Kriek), St Louis and Mort Subite (literally “sudden death”). There are also fresh stocks of Hoegaarden Citron (infused with citrus zest), Hoegaarden Rose (a raspberry beer) and Orval which is a beer that everyone should try before they die. It has the distinctive nose of sweaty horse blanket and it is really quite brilliant.
In non-sour, fruity or horsey beer related news, there is more 3 Boys Coconut Milk Stout available. This was apparently a firm crowd favourite at the Darkest Day celebration on Friday – as correctly predicted by this blog last week. [5]
Next time, we drink to Robbie Deans, the best double agent since Kim Philby.
[1] I’m pretty sure they had a big stack of written warning letters out the back and just filled in the date and name.
[2] Linden is to Tawa what Glasgow is to Edinburgh – a somewhat disreputable and scruffy younger cousin.
[3] The marketing team really went all out on that one.
[4] The Rogue and Vagabond pub does a mean olive, anchovy, caper and salami pizza. It appears I am not entirely alone in my love for salty delicacies on dough…
[5] I know – I’m as surprised as you are about this rare lapse of accuracy.
Cheers
Beer Writer
Beer and Brewer Magazine
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