Brewing Craft Beer in a Lucky Camper Van While on the Road with our Partners Black Rock Brewing and iKegger, New Zealand

It Should be Simple

We've set ourselves a challenge. Can the Two Cowboys brew craft quality beer while on the road in a campervan? We tried it out this summer in New Zealand with mixed results. We've learned a lot and saved ourselves quite a bit of money not having to buy beer in New Zealand.

We enlisted a group of beer friends to take the beer-show on the road. Brewers Coop provided us with our favourite Black Rock Concentrated Wort, Hops and the right Yeast for a juicy Riwaka IPA. iKegger New Zealand provided the gear to show how simple it is to pressure ferment and serve beer in simple kegs and we travelled with Lucky Camper Vans. 

We have three installments documenting our journey below.

This is part of the TWO COWBOYS' EPIC GLOBAL TRAVEL & CULINARY EXPERIENCE - 2019! 

Ep1

Ep2

Ep3

DO YOU WANT YOUR BUSINESS OR COMMUNITY FEATURED?

Some Background

Riwaka Hops (Riwaka™) is a real standout. It has powerful grapefruit “citrussy” characters that are literally breathtaking. If you want to say “New Zealand Hops” in your beer, then this variety says it all. The pure weight of the oil character experienced during selection carries right through to the glass. It is a punchy addition to the new world styles of Pales Ale and  New Zealand Pilseners.

We combined additional Riwaka Hops with Black Rock's specialty crafted Riwaka Pale Ale kit as if it didn't have enough of a hop kick already. Black Rock Crafted Riwaka Pale Ale is already dry-hopped with Riwaka hops. This kit is quite scarce to get because the hop is so in demand all over the world and it means if Black Rock can get their hands on it, then they brew a batch. Usually, all the kits are sold long before it comes out of the brewhouse.

We brewed the recipe with a specialty US ale yeast, Safale US-05. To get closer to the hazy ale style and a creamy finish with more volts, we also added a kit of unhopped concentrated Wheat Wort.

Our strategy was to use two Cornelius kegs with a spundling valve similar to our Beer Cowboys Brewing Kit bundle. Obviously, these are in Canada, so Andrew from iKegger stepped up with the gear, taps, connectors and whatever we needed to get on with the job. He runs a neat business that brings people closer to kegging and transporting their beer, which is in our opinion a much better strategy than bottle maturation. It also means you can drink your beer as soon as it is done fermenting. It stays carbonated.

We knew at the outset that temperature control was going to be a challenge. Lucky for us, it is summer in New Zealand with mild sunny days, and it turned out not to be too hard to get the beer fermented and carbonated under pressure. The fact that it was an Ale that wasn't too sensitive to hotter temperatures also helped to speed up the process. To do the cold-crash we had to borrow a fridge for a few days, which meant we could pay a visit to some good friends in Onemana with a promise of fresh cold beer at the end.

Observations

New Zealand is not just the land of milk, honey and sheep. It is also a hotbed for craft beer. We are amazed every time we visit just how passionate kiwis are about their beer and about making their own beer. We would be too if we were charged up to $25/litre for beer. Thanks to astronomical excise and overbearing duties Kiwis stepped up to liberate their beer by finding all kinds of ways of making it themselves.

We see the taxation burden grow in our country (Canada) too and we cannot be happier than to introduce our friends all over the world to making one's own beer. As we've discovered, making your own beer actually also means creating a better beer. We've had misfires. It doesn't always go to plan. Most of the time though it is pure deliciousness.

Thanks to our partners we can continue to push the boundaries of excellent beer brewing and our travel experiences along with it. We thank them for it.

Hendrik

Beer Cowboy

We earn our livelihood by producing great content and supporting inspiring people, businesses, and communities. Please book us here so we can tell your story too.

Photos

Hop Shopping

Beer Machines 

Cowboy Growlers

Blankies!

Best Place to Bew!

Hacking All Grain Brewing with Kiwi Ingenuity and Simple Affordable Tools at Bevie in Auckland, New Zealand

Hacking Our Beer

How do you take the beer brewing process, and make it accessible to the average Joe? Simple, you hack it!

The processes for brewing quality beer have been refined over centuries and continues to evolve even today. From an outsider's perspective, it appears to be safeguarded by an eclectic club of weird scientists set on excluding ordinary folk from the inner circle. They mumble of gravity, sparging, yield, steeping and other incomprehensible nomenclature. They keep their brewing secrets close, their recipes even closer, and their influence as wide as it can go within their brewing circle of friends. 

While brewing good quality beer used to be a regular kitchen affair, a couple of hundred years ago, it slowly evolved into dark science, out of reach for ordinary people, like the Two Cowboys. Now, with the help of some simple equipment like a kettle, a pump, some tubes, and good ingredients like grains, yeast, hops and water, a company called Bevie, in New Zealand, managed to apply modern-day control-flow systems, and a mobile app, to unlock the highly complex all-grain brewing processes for ordinary people.

This is part of the TWO COWBOYS' EPIC GLOBAL TRAVEL & CULINARY EXPERIENCE - 2019! 

DO YOU WANT YOUR BUSINESS OR COMMUNITY FEATURED?

They call it the Grainfather. It takes the best brewing practices from craft breweries and puts them into a simple to use, all in one system, to ensure anyone can brew a professionally produced craft beer, no matter their brewing experience.

You can also turn the Grainfather into a microdistillery by changing the top parts and adding the Still Spirits Alembic Pot Still Attachments. It is highly illegal to distill liqueur without a license in Canada, while pot smoking is now allowed (...go figure!). We are just saying that you can make fuel for your car or truck from your Grainfather brewing activities if you should ever need it. If you store the fuel in an oak barrel lying around, to keep it safe, it is between you and the RCMP to work out who gets what share when they come knocking.

There are many all-grain brewing equipment manufacturers and lots of equipment for brewing beer on the market. If you buy quality, it is expensive. People are spoiled for choice if they know what they are doing. Herein lies the problem - you need to know what you are doing! Short of learning from an expert or enrolling in beer school, it takes time, trial and error, and lots of learning to work out the best way for brewing beer from grains.

The innovation of the Grainfather is that it is a highly affordable, all-in-one system, for producing an excellent quality wort that you can ferment in the ways you prefer. It also drastically reduces your learning time and eliminates many costly brewing mistakes.

The one-pot brew system may not even be the most innovative around because there's been many that copied the approach and tried to improve on it. Some may also claim that not even Grainfather can be credited for coming up with the approach, although Kiwi's have been known for their innovation in all kinds of industries.

What struck us about the Grainfather is the innovation that Bevie put into the control of the brewing process. The smarts are in the software, not the pot! It offers the ability to a brewer to dial in an exact recipe and then execute it flawlessly, with a built-in controller, and the help of a mobile app on their phone or iPad.

Good brewing's foundation is precision and repeatability. Couple this with good ingredients, great water, and perfect fermentation, and you are on your way to consistently delicious craft-style beer and the envy of the neighbourhood. Not only do you get to execute the brewing tasks flawlessly, but you can also collaborate with other users, all over the world, on recipes and outcomes so that you have a massive database of brewing information on hand for your perfect beer. It gives new meaning to brewing with your mates!

Apparently, Bevie also has an answer for fermenting and serving your beer and provides you with another shortcut by having portion perfect fresh ingredient packs ready for a variety of standard brews. That is a story for another time.  

Observations

The brewing process is getting hacked. People are now liberated to brew their own craft quality beer consistently from grains with simple equipment and software that not only dramatically reduces the learning curve but assist in controlling the quality of the execution.

I don't want my beer to be made for me. If I did, I will just go and buy it from the next brewery or liquor store. I want to make my own beer, simply, affordably, consistently, and deliciously from available ingredients. That is what true beer liberation is about.

There are no gimmicks with the Grainfather offering a "one-push button dark magic beer brewing box". It is old-fashion grain brewing done right. They should have called it the "BigBrother" of beer. The whole solution comes in under $1,000 with free support and an ever growing database of brewing/distilling knowledge and beer recipes. It allows you to make a batch of 23 litres of beer with the ingredients of your choice.

Herein lies the problem. We want to brew more during the few weekly hours we can dedicate to this delicious hobby. Apparently, Bevie is working on a system that can do three times the volume of the existing Grainfather, and it will likely still be an electric system you can use in your shed. Yeehaaa!

The Two Cowboys has been on a journey for the last three years to liberate our beer. Bevie is giving us another option with the Grainfather to get closer to drinking what we make ourselves. We cannot wait to tell you what more they have installed for average people like us, on our beer and do-it-yourself journey.

Hendrik

Brewing Cowboy

We earn our livelihood by producing great content and supporting inspiring people, businesses, and communities. Please book us here so we can tell your story too.

Photos

Smart Pot! 

One Pot

Learning Fast!

Eating Mopane Worms, Biltong, Pang and Pap at ATKV - Klein Kariba in Bela-Bela, South Africa

Coming Home

While Canada is in the middle of winter’s icy grip, we decided to head south towards the sun and to explore and rediscover our homeland of South Africa. After eighteen years away, not much has changed, yet everything is different. 

It is the start of the TWO COWBOYS' EPIC GLOBAL TRAVEL & CULINARY EXPERIENCE - 2019! 

Biltong Potjie at ATKV - Klein Kariba.

Township Tour - Bela Bela

Wildlife Safari

Pang!

Toeka se Dae

Cooking at the Koswerf

DO YOU WANT YOUR BUSINESS OR COMMUNITY FEATURED?

Coming to South Africa is coming full circle for the Cowboys. This is where it all started. We were born South African and grew up during some of the more turbulent times in the country's recent history. In 2001 we set out to see the world and broaden our horizons. We are still on that journey, and it is ironic to come home eighteen years later to find it a place very much the same as the one we've left behind, yet very different - good different - in many respects.

The international perspective of South African travel is mainly negative due to news coverage about safety, corruption, and ongoing conflict. It is an out-of-the-way destination with concerns for the traveller. It is why the destination is unfortunately frequently moved to the bottom of the travellers' priority bucket-list.

Mexico is similar in that it offers phenomenal vacations and experiences to travellers and at the same time it is also marred by adverse news reporting related to safety and corruption. The difference is that Mexico succeeded in positioning its travel and tourism products by addressing these concerns. They've done it through all-inclusive packaging, offered to the travel trade, and marketed accordingly. Travellers' concerns are addressed through "white-glove" handling in a controlled manner, from the moment they step off the aeroplane until they are safely back at the airport's departure hall.

South Africa offers as much, if not more, at an equally competitive rate. Wildlife, culture, cuisine, natural beauty, history, human capital and yet, it hasn't even started to fire up its tourism machinery. It lacks packaged products that overcome travellers' concerns and that are competitively positioned and highly rated. If you compare its positioning and messaging to other similarly developing world destinations, it definitely has the opportunity. It is now merely a matter of South Africans grasping it.

The Two Cowboys hope that we can play a small role in promoting this unique destination, its businesses and its people. We will be sharing content about our experiences. With our travel partners, we will be bringing you along for an incredible journey.

This is how our tour of South Africa started at one of the happy places we enjoyed as children, ATKV's - Klein Kariba Resort in Bela-Bela.

ATKV - Klein Kariba

Klein Kariba has a lot to offer as a typical South African family resort. It is a beautiful setting close to the main cities of Gauteng, with great weather, wildlife, beautiful camping, chalets, glamping tents, and hot and cold swimming pools. It has been a must-do family vacation spot for as long as we can remember. The resort continues to be a local favourite. Weekends and holidays are packed with visitors. Some have been patrons for generations.

I know the place well. After frequent trips tenting there during the early 1990s, I eventually wooed and married my wife at Klein Kariba, 26 years ago.

Our favourite spot at the resort, then and it still is now, must be the restaurant, Koswerf. “Koswerf” is the Afrikaans term for an outdoor kitchen or cooking area. This one is unfortunately mainly indoors. However, with the beautiful weather of the Waterberg Region, there is ample opportunity, all over the resort, to partake in cooking outdoors. Wherever you turn, the iconic cultural pastime called "braai" (cooking over an open fire outdoors) happens spontaneously, every day for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

We were fortunate to be hosted by Riaan Maritz and his team. They reluctantly handed us the keys to the pantry, and we kicked off our week cooking up a storm in the Koswerf’s kitchen. On our menu was a Cuban-style Arepa with a South African Peri-Peri Chicken Livers and Mango-Salsa twist. To round it off, we were introduced to the local tropical passionfruit samba sensation of Pang!! (more about this later).

In turn, they reciprocated with a Biltong Potjie (a risotto-like stew made with a lot of cream and cheese, and cooked over an open fire). We lubricated festivities with Caipirinhas as it was our turn to quench the thirsts.

When you visit ATKV - Klein Kariba, the resort has a lot to offer at its facilities. However, it is easy to miss some of the many attractions and other rich offerings of the Bela-Bela area. Klein Kariba sees its responsibility not only to be a destination of choice but to also encourage visitation around the area. That is why Riaan introduced us to M Court Township Tours. They afforded us an eye-opening opportunity to experience some of the curiosities that make up everyday life in a typical township in South Africa. We even tasted the local beer they brew (no license or permit required) and ate mopane worms and pap!

We visited one of the more popular "Padstalle" (roadside shops) called "Toeka se Dae". Here we were treated to freshly baked bread, home-made ginger beer, biltong, and enormous cold and crispy koeksisters.

Do you remember Pang?

What if we told you that we discovered absolute passionfruit gold just outside the gates of ATKV Klein Kariba? Chances are that if you ate anything real passionfruit-related in South Africa or Europe, then Stilhoek Boerdery had something to do with it. They are one of the largest passionfruit producers in South Africa. Nine months in the year they are shipping their products all over the country and some export markets.

It doesn’t stop there, they also bottle the passionfruit pulp with a swig of vodka and call it Pang! The range expanded from there with Mango, Strawberry and even a spicy Jalapeño, as its popularity grew in the local cocktail consuming market. Klein Kariba is fortunate to offer this locally produced godly elixir at the resort, where it is popular with their younger patrons during the summer holidays ( (legal drinking age, of course!).

Observations

After eighteen years away not much has changed, yet everything is different. Klein Kariba still feels like home to us. However, it is apparent that it evolved in that it reached out to play an increasingly important and more inclusive role in the more diverse local communities of Bela-Bela.

After decades, during which people in a changing South Africa treated each other with animosity and suspicion, it is evident that those that are reaching out to each other, are the ones making a positive difference in their community. Klein Kariba is the main attraction, yet it collaborates with local entrepreneurs and businesses across the spectrum to lend a hand and facilitate success for others too. Business is always more natural when people work together. Those that discover it early continues to prosper.

We are enthused to see that our home language - Afrikaans - is treasured by everyone, even more than we remembered. Yet, everyone is welcome if you speak English, Zulu, German, Cantonese or another language. The South African culture of food, friendliness and hospitality is found around every corner, and the beautiful wildlife setting of the resort’s facilities remains absolute and intoxicating.

Klein Kariba is for everyone. We cannot highlight this single feature enough. Yes, the people of South Africa knows it well and loves it. It is such a gem that they will be forgiven to try and keep it to themselves. However, we hope we can entice the world to come and see it too. We are so proud to be home and proud of what we see and experience, that we want to share it with the world.

Enjoy our programming and see what makes this such a great place to visit. Then, book your ticket and see for yourself. Come for the food, the wildlife, the weather. Above all,  meet the great people of Klein Kariba and Bela-Bela. You may just find us here as well.

We are glad to be home, again!

Hendrik
Wandering Cowboy!

We earn our livelihood by producing great content and supporting inspiring people, businesses, and communities. Please book us here so we can tell your story too.

Photos

All Over the World - of South Africa!

Boere Cuban Arepa

Koeksister!

Uber Africa!

Bushlab

New Friends

Fans of the Cowboys!

The Two Cowboys are Planning to Brew and Keg Our Own Beer on the Road with iKegger, New Zealand

Counter Beer Culture

If there was ever a time to justifiably promote counter-culture, then the time is probably now. 

More and more people are coming to terms with the real current state of living in our westernized world. Folks are waking up to the perils of consumerism, the emptiness of meaningless jobs, and the realization that even the things they thought they have, they don't truly own, and never will

DO YOU WANT YOUR BUSINESS FEATURED?

Having more stuff, doing meaningless work to get it, and not being in control of what you already own, is no longer an acceptable way of living. Especially, if it doesn't make you happy and you have to exert more and more effort every year to keep up with demands. 

Some people blame their problems on someone else or on their circumstances. By transferring responsibility they are sinking even deeper into the abyss of the infirm. "It is someone else's fault". They have to fix this. There should be a law against this!", is a common refrain. The Government is doing it or not doing enough. It is Trump's fault. Trudeau cannot be trusted. Soros paid them off. The Chinese are to blame. Idiots are voting. The system is rigged!

Unfortunately, no amount of calling on the Government, someone else, demon, or deity, to solve our problems or bowing to postmodern moral grandstanding will solve the problem we have. Changing our leaders is unlikely to have the desired outcome. Protests won't work. It is more likely to get people killed or jailed. Life will not get better when the racists desist, men disappear, you change your gender, white privilege is punished, refugees leave, sinners stop sinning, we all become vegan, Brexit is cancelled, Mother Earth "saved", or feminism wins.

Taking Command

Instead, more and more people are looking for alternatives to the current conventional way of living, and they are doing it by changing their thinking. People are downsizing, leaving behind, moving on, checking out and taking back control of their lives for themselves and the people they love around them. 

These folks all have one thing in common. They no longer give away control and responsibility for themselves and for their circumstances - not to an ideology and not to an institution, religion or state. They alone are taking command for their own sake, and for those around them!

We like it. 

There are a growing number of "movements" that is evidence of transitional thinking. Homesteading, tiny houses, minimalism, self-education, growers, makers, Vanlifers and Fulltimers, are only a few ways of how a counter culture is developing. It is a movement in opposition with the conventional way we are told we should live to be happy and successful. People are going against consumerism with living tiny, minimalism and through homesteading. They are leaving meaningless jobs behind and becoming self-educated makers, craftsmen, growers, bakers, brewers, traders and online entrepreneurs. They are throwing off the shackles off locality by adopting nomadic lifestyles and avoiding mortgages, licensing and taxation. They barter and use alternative currencies for trade!

People are realizing that we alone can take responsibility for our life and our destiny. It is the only path to a happy and fulfilled life. We have to solve our own problems first before we decide to put the blame on something external from us. It is done in small steps and by tiny increments. 

We believe that people's value system changes when they decide to take control of, and for themselves, and when they start to make things. Something as simple as frying an egg, folding your clothes or making your bed has the power, over time, to change a life. It changes a person because it restores ownership. With ownership comes responsibility. This simple concepts of ownership and responsibility confirm value or worth. With worth, there is meaning and purpose for yourself and for those with whom you choose to share. 

Making Beer

We are big proponents of making things. Our hashtag states, #makesomething!

We are making our own beer thanks to the innovate beer brewing equipment of WilliamsWarn, and the quality concentrated wort from Black Rock Brewing, both from New Zealand. By making our own beer, we believe we make better tasting, fresh, more healthy, and affordable beer. We drink our beer without the need to front-up for licensing, packaging, distribution, excise and taxation. It is probably one of the most liberating things to do in today's age!

We are encouraging all beer lovers to give it a try.

We are so enthused by this that we checked in with Andrew Hope from iKegger NZ to see if there is an even easier way we can make our beer while we are traveling in our vans in New Zealand. He gave us what we needed from his selection of kegs, taps, lines and sleeves and we are set to start our van beer brewing experience this March when we return to New Zealand.

Observations

Andrew confesses that he has a vast and enormous love for beer. He and an Aussie mate came together and founded iKegger.

iKegger NZ is a kiwi owned and run business that specializes in stainless steel portable Mini Beer Kegs and Growlers which have integrated taps and are powered by CO2 through mini regulators. It's like having your own personal bar with beer on tap, at home, but also the flexibility to take it with you when you are out and about!

iKegger kegs are based on the same ball lock fittings that homebrew keg setups work on so they can easily link into existing kegerators or "keezers" and the fittings will work with your existing kegs too. We think that they not only have a better way to transport and keep beer, but we can also brew in the kegs while we travel. We will do it with the help of Black Rock Brewing ingredients.

Andrew kindly provided us with what we need to get started with our brewing experiment. We ran a few test runs during this southern summer and will be ready to showcase it when we return this March to New Zealand. In the meantime, please meet Andrew and reach out to him if you are in New Zealand. He may have a plan for your next fresh beer.

Hendrik
Beer Cowboy

We earn our livelihood by producing great content and supporting inspiring people, businesses, and communities. Please book us here so we can tell your story too.

Photos

Brew Keg

Brew Team

Beer Tanks

Hellfire!! Story for another time...

Getting Slapped in the Face with a Hoppy Rag at Deep Creek Brewing Co in Auckland, NZ

Hoppy Beers

If you say "hoppy beer" to anyone that doesn't know beer, they think of bitter beer.

Bitterness is a typical characteristic of some European style beers. The lighter beers of the Pilsner and Lager styles thrive on a bit of bitterness to quench your thirst. Some readily available mainstream commercial beers which used Pilsners and Lagers as their foundation for their taste profiles perpetuated this play on bitterness. We think it is to the detriment of the beverage's reputation. Beer should be better.

DO YOU WANT YOUR BUSINESS FEATURED?

In the early days of craft brewing, the brewers also managed to get bitterness wrong (some still do). You often end up with tonsil-throttling gill-destroying bitterness in an American or Indian Pale Ale, with a healthy dose of excuses claiming that if you cannot stand the heat (bitterness) in the kitchen (craft brewery's beer), then you better get out (drink some Bud, bud). Bitter is cruft!

No, it is not! Hops have many roles to play in beer. It imparts bitterness. It has a preservation effect to keep beer yeasts happy. Most importantly, Hops is about flavour. Flavour is all about profile and balance.

What people are discovering, with more beer choices on the market, is that bitterness is only one part, although an important, part that hops play in the flavour profile of a style. We believe there is a much bigger part, which most beer drinkers don't really know about, understand or appreciate. It is the ability of Hops to impart unique flavours to beer.

If hops flavouring is where the rubber hits the road for a good beer, it is also where the wheels come off. For all the angelic flavouring qualities the immaculately expensive hops from all the corners of the world bestow on our favourite beverage, they have one unfortunately quality. They are masters at escaping. As soon as you get them into beer, they have this one unfortunate peculiarity. They pull a vanishing act.

It has driven many a brewer to drink trying to solve this simple dilemma. They can pull off a juicy, citrussy cloudy ale with perfection, only to discover their creation became just another flat clear pale ale three weeks later. If you know what they know, and we know, you will drink the beer when it is fresh and ready. Choose your timing wisely. A week later and it is no longer be the master creation it was intended to be because the Hops flavours departed.

What if you can make the perfect beer and still have it perfect for weeks and months later with the same breathtakingly beautiful aromas and flavours, as the day it came cold crashed from the fermenter?

You can now. The world of beer is about to change forever. Steamed distilled Hops Oil makes it possible. It is popping up everywhere - even in New Zealand, and it is making the beer better. We've had our own disasters brewing with it. However, with a little practice, refinement and restraint we have discovered a whole new world of taste in beer - the way it was meant to be.

For more about Hops Oil, have a look at this entry in our Blog about Glacier Hops Ranch and their HopzOil Product.

Observations

On our recent whirlwind tour of New Zealand, we crashed into Scott Taylor of Deep Creek Brewing Co., at the Dunedin Craft Beerfest. We did a double take when he mentioned that they have a beer, a very popular one, that they made with Hops oil.

Now, there is Hops oil and then there is Hops oil. We were skeptical. But, he had our attention when he mentioned that it was steam distilled oil from fresh New Zealand hops. Apparently, they bet the Hops farm, bought a whole bunch of fresh hops from a farmer in the South Island and got a lavender oil distillery in Christchurch to distill them some oil. Next thing is, they are selling out on Hops Oil beer!

We thought that that North American craft brewers were the pioneers. In typical Kiwi fashion, they knocked something up in the barn and before you know it, the Kiwis are not just keeping up with the Jones', they are leading the charge!

Meet Paul, Scott and Jarred.  They’re the original guys behind Deep Creek Brewing Co, the craft beer brewery from Auckland, New Zealand. Deep Creek was born from a long-term friendship and a burning desire to produce flavour fuelled handcrafted beer and bring it to the kiwi masses (and people as far as Norway) to enjoy.

We loved their beer and their innovation. They have a pretty good restaurant and bar in Browns Bay, North Shore, Auckland too. We will be back with more from Deep Creek. In the meantime, enjoy the video and let them know the Two Cowboys sent you!

Hendrik
Hoppy Beer Cowboy

We earn our livelihood by producing great content and supporting inspiring people, businesses, and communities. Please book us here so we can tell your story too.

Photos

Napkin for the Juice

Go for Brew and Eats

Flavour Palace

Juicy, Juicy!!

Good Fair!

How to Really Get Mugged in Mexico!

Not The Way You Think

You've seen the headlines, and you've heard the warnings. Mexico isn't safe! Don't venture outside the resort. People will trick you, skim your credit card, empty your bank account and shake you down.  It is easy to get mugged in Mexico, and some even end up dead. Stay in the resort people say - they will look after you.

We haven't experienced much of the above during our travels so far to this fantastic country. The truth is, we cannot get enough of Mexico, and we are looking for reasons to spend more and more time there. It is one of our favourite destinations. 

Mexico has only served us with pleasant surprises. We love their food, rich culture, natural beauty, and friendly people. We've discovered that the real gems are outside the resorts in popular tourist destinations of Cancun, Los Cabos, Mazatlan, Porto Vallarta and others. If you go where people can only speak Spanish, you've arrived at authentic Mexico. That's where you want to be. Then the real adventure begins.

Our most recent and unpleasant experience in Los Cabos confirmed this again for us.

Leave the resort!

If you want to be tricked, have your credit card skimmed and your bank account emptied, all you have to do is accept a "Gift Certificate" from a prestigious Mexican holiday resort, and make the trip as an unsuspecting tourist. They will "take care of you".

We stepped right into this one. Instead of the horror crime stories you read in the news, we discovered that the typical Mexican holiday resort has a much more subtle and civil approach to shaking you down. Here's what happened to us at The Grand Mayan at Vidanta Los Cabos.

Our timeshare company dished out the annual "gift certificates," and we were the lucky recipients of two this year. For around US$300/week and change, plus a nominal daily resort fee, and an exchange fee, we get a week in the off-season with an available holiday resort of our choice. A good deal isn't it? Yes and no. It all adds up once your annual levies and fees come into play and your cost of funds for buying the timeshare in the first place is added in. But, that is a sad story for another time.

Shaken Down

This is how we booked two weeks at The Grand Mayan at Vidanta Los Cabos in early December of this year. We couldn't wait for the welcome break and landed on a sunny winters day after a reasonably pleasant flight with Westjet in San Jose del Cabo.

While we checked in at the resort, we made the disturbing discovery that what is usually a nominal daily resort fee (generally around $15/day) turned into US$60/day per person expense (US$120/day for my wife and I, which translated roughly into CAD$165/day or CAD$1,155 for a week). Luckily we've sent the other Cowboy home to South Africa for Christmas and left the kids at home, or this would really have turned into an even more expensive holiday since the fee is a per-person fee.

However, all is not lost we were assured by the reception that it is not as bad as it sounds. We have the opportunity to get 75% of our resort fee "back" if we spend the money at the resort's spa, restaurant and shops. Oh yes, and then there is the small matter of going to a complimentary breakfast and a short presentation as well. It will not take more than 2 hours of our valuable vacation time we were assured. Yeah, right! We know about these things.

Heck, the prospect of getting back some of the exorbitant resort fee, which we are now paying in a fast sinking CAD$ made me jump at the chance to attend a short presentation and get some of my money back. After five years of dodging the despised breakfast and presentations in these resorts, I was finally outwitted into one. I was a sitting duck.

As you know, the presentation was not just for two hours. It was an almost three-hour highly unpleasant battering to shake us down for a "Vidanta Holiday Club" membership. During this time the price came down from USD$120,000 to below USD$10,000 for a week, and an on-the-spot nominal deposit of USD$900 for something I still cannot comprehend and don't care to understand. We were not in the market for it. We made it clear every step of the way.

What I do know was that when the fourth and final "handler" couldn't get me to agree to the purchase, she finally threw our "client assessment forms" at us across the table while telling us to take our documents to reception and check out. I was ready for war, and my wife had a micro melt-down. She oscillated between disgust for the way in which we were treated, scolded me for losing my temper, and fearing that our holiday just came to an end. All that remained was for someone to escort us off the premises.

No one came. Instead, we dutifully handed over the extorted loot of a resort fee every day on Tacos and breakfasts at the resort's overly priced restaurants. We paid five times the going rate. Drinks at the pool bar made our eyes water when we saw the bill. Let's just say the price of a couple of beers can buy you a case at the local grocery store. You can purchase a small coconut plantation for the fee of a single pina colada.

We changed our flights. We shoved the second week up Vidanta's arse to return prematurely to a snowy Canada, while vowing never to set foot at their facilities again. More importantly, to never fall again for this cleverly disguised and very civil scheme of extortion and skimming. It cannot be good for business and definitely not for the people of Mexico!

From this day onwards we will only spend our Pesos with a local property owner, buy our tacos and beer like locals and invest in Mexico - the real Mexico. Viva la Mexico and Vidanta be damned!

Hendrik
Taco Cowboy

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Photos

Local Beer

Local Taqueria

"Traditional" Resort

Dead Cow

Bliss!

Outperforming Craft Brewers with New Zealand's Best Concentrated Wort - Black Rock Brewing

Beer Liberation, Rebooted

You can see New Zealand's phenomenal standard of home-brewed beer side-by-side with some of the best craft brews on offer at the Dunedin Craft Beer and Food Festival. Frankly, it is hard to know the difference. Thanks to Black Rock Brewing's concentrated wort ingredients a lot of people are discovering that they can now brew their own beer.

We had to know more about these homebrewers, and a food festival half-way around the world was as good an excuse as any for the Two Cowboys to make the trip.

DO YOU WANT YOUR DESTINATION OR BUSINESS FEATURED?

If you've been following our travels, you will know that we are on a mission to free our beer from the mystery of brewing, excessive regulation, and over taxation. In Canada, the Federal Government even sneaked in an automatic annual tax escalation for beer. We are feeling violently prohibited all over again as we get de-ja-vu flashbacks of the 1920's prohibition movement that swept the continent. In some instances in Canada, eighty cents on the dollar of beer goes for compliance, excise, tariffs, distribution and taxation.

We love beer, and we've realized that short of adopting or investing in our own craft brewery (which implies that you become a de facto public servant and tax farmer), the best way for us to have a freshly brewed beer at a reasonable price, is to take charge and do our own brew.

We are no weird scientists and don't have the time to tinker with the complex chemistry of sugars and yeasts. That is why we've been on a mission during the last two years, to find out how we can make the best beer in the simplest possible way.

Before long we, like everyone venturing into the art of brewing, we were lured by equipment manufacturers claiming their device is the next fool-proof solution to revolutionize the making of our own fresh beer. Not so fast. There is more to the story.

The real discovery is that brewing beer is no different than frying a sausage or making a good cup of tea. It takes a little longer, but there is a simple method behind it all. As with your sausage sizzle or a cup of tea, the equipment makes it easier. However, if you start with a bad raw sausage or a no-good flat and old tea, no amount of gear and gadgetry will save you from an undesired result. It is all about the ingredients.

Start With Good Ingredients

Here comes the old value chain conversation. If you want to bake a cake, where do you start in the value chain? Do you start by planting your own wheat? Maybe, you buy grain and start by milling it. Most people start by buying a good quality flour from a reputable supplier and build their prize-winning creation from there with added ingredients and a fool-proof process, combined with some talent. The same goes for any consumable item that requires a substantial amount of value to be added before the end product can be created. The value chain should be your friend or you will take a long time to make it, coupled with all the risks along the way.

Beer is no different. You can grow your own barley, malt it, mill it, sparge, mash, boil and ferment it, or you can start with a quality wort (in the middle of the value chain) that guarantees a reliable outcome. You can work your beer magic from that point onwards by flavouring it, fermenting it, and serving.

Commercial breweries are no longer farmers and maltsters. They too are now entering higher up in the value chain. Instead, for their foundation ingredient, they rely on the maltsters to provide them with base malts. Base malts are blended (like flour) to provide a consistent foundation for every style of brew. The brewer can trust that it meets quality and consistency expectations. Specialty malts are then added for character and flavour with hops (also sourced) and the required type of yeast (also sourced) for fermentation.

The homebrewer can purchase base malts, hops and yeasts like his professional counterpart and he will still have to contend with the small variations of how the malt sugars will behave through the brewing process. The alternative is to leave it to the wort manufacturer and trust that the base wort meets expectations. This is only one more value-added step in the process entrusted to someone else.

There are people like Black Rock Brewing that are manufacturing base worts for brewing at home or commercially. The homebrewer, and increasingly the craft brewers are sourcing wort and adding value to it as a base ingredient through specialty malts, hops, fermentation techniques and maturation.

The beer value chain is fragmenting with the explosion of craft brewing. It opened up an opportunity for wort manufacturing, and we as beer lovers and budding brewers are better off as a result. We can now source the best wort and make our own fresh beer fairly simply with basic equipment like a fermenting bucket and recycled glass bottles.

It the Beer Any Good?

We've seen time and again that when anyone, homebrewer, microbrewer, craft brewer, and even large-scale commercial brewers start with a solid foundation for their beer, like a well-manufactured base ingredient of wort, one cannot tell the difference between a beer fermented in a bucket and one done in a commercial brewery.

Professional brewers and craft brewers don't like us telling you this. If you don't believe us, then you should save some money and make the trip to New Zealand with us. We will show you. Kiwis know how to do it Downunder, and we are lucky to break the news and be able to show you what we've discovered.

Enjoy our feature from the Dunedin Craft Beer and Food Festival. Thank you for Black Rock that made it possible for us to be there and to brew our own fresh (New Zealand) beer - even in Canada!

Hendrik
Beer Cowboy

We earn our livelihood by producing great content and supporting inspiring people, businesses, and communities. Please book us here so we can tell your story too.

Photos

The Range

The Creations

The Crew

Fermentation

Filming

When Travel Gets Real: The Two Cowboys - New Zealand Beer and Culinary Experience 2018

Parking the Elusion

Here are some big numbers to keep in mind: Travel & Tourism constitutes ten percent of the world's GDP. The GDP contribution of travel touched $8 trillion in 2015 and is set to be rising to almost $12 trillion a decade from now. It is also one of the most fragmented, complex and misrepresented industries in the world!

Yet, for a small country like New Zealand, international visitors deliver $40 million in foreign exchange to the economy each day of the year. This is one in five export Dollars earned by the country. Domestic tourism contributes another $59 million in economic activity every day. Tourism generated a direct contribution to GDP of $14.7 billion, or 5.9% of GDP in 2017. Why is New Zealand so prosperous in their tourism campaign?

DO YOU WANT YOUR DESTINATION OR BUSINESS FEATURED?

We have our views about why New Zealand is punching above its weight in this sector. Firstly, the New Zealand landscape is unique. It has an incredibly diverse natural beauty from the North Island to the South. You don't have to go far to be in awe with the shades of greens, blacks, blues and whites that are dished up to your camera lens, all hours of the day and night. It is a nature photographer's paradise.

New Zealand has a rich and diverse cultural landscape too. It blends Pacific, European and Asian into a beautiful tapestry of people and community. It is probably one of the only places where you wash down a lamb dim sum donburi with limoncello, and have a creampuff with your kumara madras.

Speaking of food, it is an absolute culinary paradise. Everything grows and thrives in the fertile New Zealand climate. Agriculture has been the backbone of the economy since the country's inception. It was only in 2013 that Tourism took over from dairy as the dominating export of the nation. New Zealand attracts great culinary talent with all this beautiful produce, that is locally grown and innovatively cultivated. There is no shortage of food celebrations, shows and festivals which, together with sports, make the country an event magnet.

Getting Real Marketing Done Deep Downunder

Here is the real reason why we love New Zealand: Small businesses thrive! Competition is healthy, and people are innovative when they bring products and services to market. The tourism product is good, and it keeps growing. They know to celebrate their successes and tell their stories. Marketing is a crucial foundation for everyone involved in New Zealand's tourism businesses.

Our Canadian Provinces are missing this crucial point. It doesn't matter how many Dollars you throw at the not-for-profit staff-bloated destination supposed marketing organizations, if the product is not solidly good, even they cannot put lipstick on a pig. There must be an incentive for tourism and travel operators to market themselves. Like so many other matters, leaving a government in charge of this crucial business task is courting disaster.

Canada has a lot of natural splendour, but its entrepreneurs have lost their motivation. What should be a help to develop the tourism product of Canada has become like so many things in the country, just another destination marketing gravy train for tenure incentivized bureaucrats. What remains to be marketed then is... natural splendour. If only we - the Two Cowboys - can get a more significant chance to highlight Canada's tourism product and related businesses, then we may just be able to light the flame again of entrepreneurship and blow it stronger for Canada, our other home country.

In the meantime, while we sit out the cold winter months, we cannot get enough of exploring this great little country of New Zealand. We can call it our village because we also carry a Kiwi Passport. We are and remain committed to its success!

Enjoy our travels deep Downunder and we hope you can make the journey with us in person, one day. See you back in Canada again, soon.

Hendrik
Kiwi Cowboy

We earn our livelihood by producing great content and supporting inspiring people, businesses, and communities. Please book us here so we can tell your story too.

Episodes

Episode 2: Flying from Kelowna, BC to Auckland, NZ

Episode 3: Dunedin Craft Beer and Food Festival

Episode Next: Cooking in the Coromandel

Getting Lucky with Lucky Rentals

The Best Cafe in Dunedin

Wanaka, New Zealand

Lucky 2

Hosed for a Handpulled Beer

Lekker Man!

Weta Hot Chocolate

El Humero