The changing face of New Zealand brews.

New Zealand is in the midst of a brewing renaissance as almost weekly new beers appear from an ever-increasing number of small craft brewers and bigger, industrially owned brands that are trying to keep pace with the rate of changing beer tastes.

Around 1870 there were more than 60 breweries in New Zealand, most of them supplying local pubs with a domestic version of the beers that the mostly immigrant community recognised as in the tradition of the brews of England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales, whence most of them came. A century later there were only three, New Zealand Breweries, Dominion Breweries and Leopard, which was itself in the thrall of NZB, but over the past 30 years there has been a revolution in New Zealand brewing, and once again the country’s craft brewing industry, and its industrial copycats, are thriving.

While Christchurch is a hotbed of brewery craft and innovation, and in Blenheim there is a similar surge of artisan enthusiasm for the efforts of the “little creatures”, this is not a phenomenon that can be claimed by any particular corner of the country. Nelson could fairly claim to be the initiator, with Macs brewery in Renwick the first new brewery in the country to break the century long stranglehold of the DB/Lion empires.

The Macs innovation, while not exactly in the true brewing craft of artisan beers, did rattle the big cages and gave more artistically inclined brewers, such as those who would later start Founders and the remarkable brewing adventure of the Mussel Inn in Takaka, the necessary inspiration. Now both Founders and Mussel Inn’s Captain Cooker can be found in bottles in your local supermarket, evidence that the real taste of local New Zealand can be found in beverages other than wine.

Supermarkets have been the vector by which this artisan beer virus has spread around the country, and the stimulus that has turned the initial draught brewing inclinations of most small operators on, to the advantages of glass. Sure, as beer has taken on the big brands have swept into supermarket aisles with a vengeance, complete with the certainty of price cutting and bulk discounting.

However, this has not undermined the commercial viability of craft beers, nor eroded consumer interest for paying more and drinking less, but better, beer. Indeed the range of beers in most supermarkets becomes daily more dazzling as every beer tradition from Munich lagers to German smoked beers, English bitters and American pale ales appears in New Zealand guise.

Not that anybody has yet dared to give lambic a try, as the Belgian wild ferment beer is one of those extremes that even the most experimental local brewer is decidedly ambiguous about. However, Trappist is not an uncommon style to find in the bottle of a Kiwi brewer, and there are even examples of cherry fruit beers that would put a smile on a Belgian’s face.

The advantage in this widening range of styles and characters is that consumers and retailers alike have their interest stimulated. It is in effect the same evolution of complex market development that came with the expansion of serious wine drinking in the late 1970s.

Put simply, that advantage, both commercially and consumer-wise, is that the product being more complex carries more stories, and thereby more opportunities for interest and for making a sale. It is also the driver behind increased margins as consumers become accustomed to paying more for more challenging, and ultimately, more satisfying, products.

This expansion has been claimed in part by the big brewers, with both Lion and DB Breweries having their own ‘craft’ labels. How much they conform to the notion of craft brewing is in the eye, and taste buds, of the beholder and the advertising agencies that dolly up the packaging and brand image to give the impression of handmade beers from romantically isolated establishments.

The reality, of course, is that these brands are as much industrial beverage as their corporate stable mates, calling city factories home rather than the provincial locations prescribed by their spin doctors. However, if you really are in the beer business these products have the advantage of being infinitely better quality, and more advantageously priced, than the bland brands that they are replacing in the favour of consumers.

Even the accountants at head office are now admitting that the future of beer is in craft, not in the mainstream brands of yesterday. The future is there if you want to go with it, quite simply because the rest of the beer market is shrinking in volume faster than the craft sector grows.