http://www.thepunch.com.au/author-bios/beer-matt/ Matt Kirkegaard is living the dream as a freelance writer who makes a living writing about what he loves: beer. In addition to editing Australian Brews News, Matt writes for a number of other publications and presents beer appreciation classes in Brisbane through his Good Beer Lunches, http://www.goodbeers.com.au.  He is sought out nationally as a speaker, educator and media commentator about beer. Matt reckons that despite its status as Australia’s national drink, beer really needs to sack its current agent and publicist if it’s going to achieve the respect that it deserves as the equal of wine…though without the pretension and snobbery. And wine can keep the cravats.   en Copyright 2012 The Punch penberthyd@newsltd.com.au penberthyd@newsltd.com.au Sat, 26 May 2012 20:00:49 +0000 Sat, 26 May 2012 20:00:49 +0000 Politics, opinion, world news, sports news, latest news, views, Barack Obama, Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard, Nathan Rees, Malcolm Turnbull, Peter Garrett, Barnaby Joyce, Australian, federal politics, opinion polls, election, The Punch, thepunch, punch ExpressionEngine 1.6.7 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss 15 http://www.thepunch.com.au/images/punch-logo-rss.png http://www.thepunch.com.au/ 144 70 Politics, political opinion, world news, sports news and the latest news and views updated live, daily on The Punch - Australia's best conversation. Search The Punch keywords http://www.thepunch.com.au/search/ http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/beer-and-red-wine-can-cure-everything-except-cirrhosis/ Food producers love a good study, particularly one that finds that some ingredient or trace element in their product has some miraculous property found to cure cancer in rats. Such studies are guaranteed to make headlines around the world and lead to an aura being cast over their product. The wine industry in particular is the master of the self-serving study, with red wine being attributed all sorts of miraculous properties that should see it treated like the waters at Lourdes. The chocolate industry has also discovered the value of good publicity and the media has recently reported chocolate manufacturing giants Mars and Barry Callebaut AG have announced a cross-industry partnership to promote the health benefits of cocoa flavanols. feedback@thepunch.com.au (Beer Matt) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/beer-and-red-wine-can-cure-everything-except-cirrhosis/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/beer-and-red-wine-can-cure-everything-except-cirrhosis/#item2547 Fri, 05 Mar 2010 06:57:51 +0000 Beer Matt | Author bios | The Punch http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/sip-slop-slap-lets-stop-drinking-like-its-1969/ How times change. When I started working in an office a little over 20 years ago, you could still smoke at your desk. In fact, when you were shown the stationary cabinet on your first day in a new job you could kit yourself out with a stapler and sticky-tape dispenser as well as an ashtray. In those days, ‘smoking or non-smoking?’ was an everyday question when checking in for an airline flight’, you watched the Benson & Hedges World Series Cup over summer and the Winfield Cup over winter and the back cover of almost every women’s magazine carried an ad featuring an attractive blonde, a beach, acres of cheesecloth and a packet Alpine. At about the same time blokes would go to the beach in the middle of the day, shirtless and hatless, while women would lay for hours baking themselves to a golden brown while occasionally basting themselves with coconut oil. Sun protection was not standard work issue for workers out of doors and sunshirts and sensible hats had the same sartorial appeal as sandals with long socks. feedback@thepunch.com.au (Beer Matt) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/sip-slop-slap-lets-stop-drinking-like-its-1969/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/sip-slop-slap-lets-stop-drinking-like-its-1969/#item1915 Thu, 03 Dec 2009 19:35:43 +0000 Beer Matt | Author bios | The Punch http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/beer-matt-drinking-less-will-let-you-drink-better/ We live in an environment where alcohol is under siege. Every day we are assailed with stories of glassings, drunken and rampaging footballers, binge drinking and all manner of other incidents pointing to an alcohol-fuelled end of civilisation. Every day our politicians are making new suggestions about how to solve the problem, including today’s suggestion from the Prime Minister: confronting advertising campaigns to warn young Australians about the dangers of excessive drinking. feedback@thepunch.com.au (Beer Matt) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/beer-matt-drinking-less-will-let-you-drink-better/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/beer-matt-drinking-less-will-let-you-drink-better/#item1716 Thu, 12 Nov 2009 20:00:52 +0000 Beer Matt | Author bios | The Punch http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/Whither-the-wine-wanker/ In having a gentle dig at US beer maven, food guy and legendary brewer Garret Oliver, Paul Colgan put his finger on what is the greatest obstacle to beer becoming anything other than a weapon of mass consumption for most Australians. While it is OK – almost expected – for the urban sophisticate to have a touch of the wine tosser these days, if you show the slightest interest in what’s in your beer glass – or even ask for one when you order a beer – you are marking yourself as a twat of the worst order. How things have changed. As a child in middle class suburbs of Brisbane in the 70s, I recall my parents going to parties where the dads all rocked up with a half carton of XXXX tallies and the wives with a four litre cask of Coolabah Moselle or Riesling. feedback@thepunch.com.au (Beer Matt) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/Whither-the-wine-wanker/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/Whither-the-wine-wanker/#item912 Thu, 13 Aug 2009 19:55:10 +0000 Beer Matt | Author bios | The Punch http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/trouble-brewing-for-the-cyclists-beer/ There are few occasions when beer and politics should mix. Barack Obama has recently demonstrated one of the few times when it can work, diffusing a race row with the offer of a peace-making beer at the White House. Any Federal politician gingerly holding a beer in an RSL or public bar in an unconvincing attempt to come across as a man of the people is an example of when it doesn’t. feedback@thepunch.com.au (Beer Matt) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/trouble-brewing-for-the-cyclists-beer/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/trouble-brewing-for-the-cyclists-beer/#item775 Thu, 30 Jul 2009 19:50:56 +0000 Beer Matt | Author bios | The Punch http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/the-scientific-definition-of-beer/ Sometimes you have to feel sorry for the Government. On the one hand they are constantly criticised for making laws that are cumbersome, unwieldy, hard to enforce and costly for business to comply with. But on the other, no sooner is a law passed and no matter how plain the spirit and intention of that law, there is someone trying to find a loophole to get around it. This leaves the government having to close the loophole, followed by someone trying to get around the new law which, in turn leads to – well – cumbersome and unwieldy laws. It’s also a process that often produces the opposite result to that intended. A classic example of the syndrome is the evolution of the United States military’s purchasing specification for biscuits in the 1980s. feedback@thepunch.com.au (Beer Matt) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/the-scientific-definition-of-beer/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/the-scientific-definition-of-beer/#item643 Thu, 16 Jul 2009 19:40:30 +0000 Beer Matt | Author bios | The Punch http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/waiter-bring-me-the-beer-list/ It’s a fairly common experience for the beer drinker. Visiting a nice restaurant and being handed an impressive leather-bound volume with “beverage list” in gold lettering outlining a vast selection of wines from Australia and around the world. Champagnes costing up to and over $700-a-bottle headlining a studied offering of dozens of styles and varietals with the cheapest – or should that be least expensive – hovering above the $40 mark. Then there follows an array of dessert wines, ports, fortifieds and other dauntingly-named types of grape juice provided for the discerning diner’s post-prandial enjoyment. But if you want a beer it’s nowhere to be seen in the beverage list. feedback@thepunch.com.au (Beer Matt) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/waiter-bring-me-the-beer-list/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/waiter-bring-me-the-beer-list/#item453 Thu, 25 Jun 2009 19:25:30 +0000 Beer Matt | Author bios | The Punch http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/fruit-versus-lager-exploding-the-myth-of-the-beer-belly/ Low-carb beers are a beer of the moment. They are the “IT girl” of the beer world with their sales growing at a remarkable 900 per cent per year and every man and his dog who owns a brewery clamouring to get one on the market. Despite this, you won’t find too many brewers bragging about the beers in any sense other than the technical achievement in producing them. Beer marketers and brewery bean counters will sing their praises endlessly, but the actual brewers seem to stay silent on them – a little like Hunter S. Thompson might have done if he had had a sideline writing Mills and Boon novels. When they do mention them it is usually in the pragmatic terms of giving the market what they want. The key to the beer’s success – apart from their light flavour profile – is in their name: low carb. feedback@thepunch.com.au (Beer Matt) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/fruit-versus-lager-exploding-the-myth-of-the-beer-belly/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/fruit-versus-lager-exploding-the-myth-of-the-beer-belly/#item129 Thu, 04 Jun 2009 19:40:18 +0000 Beer Matt | Author bios | The Punch