Here at the Brunswick Beer Collective we mention a lot of things, and every now and then an idiotic joke will emerge that seems to linger far longer than it probably should. So to save you having to listen back to every episode again (although we obviously recommend it) here are a few of the more prominent terms you might hear in the episodes to come – our craft beer dictionary you might say.
The Kristoff Scale
Whenever we drink a beer on the show we always check it in on Untappd, an app that allows you to comment on a beer and provide a 1-5 rating. While a beer’s rating can swing wildly, one thing that is always consistent is that if Paul thinks a beer is average (he’d drink it again, it was perfectly acceptable, but nothing special), he will give it a 3.5 out of 5. This has since become known as the Kristoff Scale and is often referenced if any member of the Collective gives a beer a 3.5.
Untappd has since introduced the option to rate beers in 0.25 increments, meaning there is the potential for the Kristoff Scale to swing to 3.25 or even 3.75, but so far this hasn’t swayed Paul greatly. There was, however, an average beer in Iran which Paul rated 2, thus potentially breaking the scale, but this was non-alcoholic so we think can be largely ignored.
The Nap List
Jeff is notorious for falling asleep at venues, and this has since become a running joke among almost everyone who knows or meets him. On the Nap List are venues that Jeff can fall asleep at without being mercilessly thrown out onto the street. You can read the full list in detail soon.
The Banned List
If a venue has done Jeff wrong, it will often end up on his Banned List.
This wrong could be anything from their staff members not knowing what beers were on tap, to the beer list being woefully out of date, to the venue being out of beef ribs. Whatever the reason, Jeff will only return there under sufferance, and he will go out of his way to ensure any one he knows will also not return to these venues, unless they want to risk also appearing on the banned list themselves.
It’s a complicated and often internally inconsistent system, if we’re honest, and from certain angles it shows all the traits of being a potential plot for a Marvel comics villain, albeit one of the sillier ones.
The ‘Fabled’ Macaroni and Cheese Burger
One of our favourite venues is the Park Hotel in Werribee, just outside of Melbourne. It’s great for a few reasons, but the one that continues to linger in our taste buds is its Macaroni and Cheese burger. It’s pure carbohydrates (plus thick cut bacon, which makes everything better), and probably terrible for anyone with anything remotely resembling a heart condition. However, if you’re medically sound, then the Collective can’t stress enough how much we recommend this burger. Check it out.
Jumping the Left Shark
One of the great and legendary beers made by the Melbourne-based Moon Dog Brewing is Jumping the Shark. It’s quite strong, and it deserves to be set down for a while before being drank. Like the brewery’s other fabled beverage, the Bad Boy Bubbly, this beer has been known to be the welcome hitchhiker a drinker might meet on the road to ruin. You can find out what the term, Jumping the Shark means here.
Left shark, on the other hand, is a term in the popular zeitgeist that refers to a dancer at Katy Perry’s 2015 Super Bowl half-time show, who, while dressed as a blue shark, was unable to keep up with the moves of the other dancers and instead chose his or her’s own way of dancing. You can see the show below, and an excellent fictional diary of Left Shark’s life is also out there, thanks to The New Yorker.
It has long been the campaign of the Brunswick Beer Collective for Moon Dog Brewing to rename their 2015 Jumping the Shark beer to be Jumping the Left Shark. We think this would work because it is the almost-perfect interception of a unique beer and the ‘left-shark’ ineptitude it brings to anyone who drinks it.
If you would like to help the Collective in this campaign, use #jumpingtheleftshark on social media and help us convince the good people at Moon Dog Brewing of the idea.
The Noosa Effect
In episode 12 of season 1, our frequent guest host Ben commented on being in Noosa in Queensland, Australia and searching craft beer but being completely unable to find any trace of anything that even remotely resembled it. We all mused on this for a while and came to the obvious conclusion that the craft beer revolution must not have happened yet in Noosa. This delay has since become known as the Noosa effect, where a part of popular culture is delayed in arriving at certain geographical locales.
Mark Twain (apparently) said a very similar thing:
“When the end of the world comes, I want to be in Cincinnati because it’s always twenty years behind the times.”
So we think we are onto something here.
Last updated 26 July 2015.