I'm one of those beer drinkers that craft beer connoisseurs mock. A cold Asahi is the height of exotica for me. Not so Greg Bruce, who spent a weekend at the GABs beer festival in Melbourne (it comes to Auckland next weekend) and found himself in the toasty and masculine embrace of a community of fellow beer drinkers.
As Greg writes, it's a world whose spiritual centre is a wooden paddle that holds five tiny glasses of beer; a world where grown men sing along to Marvin Gaye's Sexual Healing, and are free to openly describe a beer flavour as being "like the outgoing tide at Pt Chev". A world where men can be men, but in a low-key, affirming, cuddly sort of way.
From next week you'll see a few changes to Canvas, including an elegant new design, the introduction of beauty content, and, I'm delighted to say, Annabel Langbein joins the magazine as our food columnist. We thought it high time to have a New Zealand cook in the pages of Canvas and can't think of anyone better than someone who has had such a huge role in shaping the way Kiwis eat as Annabel has.
