Brewer restructured out of his own company
Kieran Haslett-Moore looks back on a decade of North Endand their most popular beer. Pirate Life founder now living in NZ, setting up brewery. Bottle store buys brewery. 8 Wired off the market.
Welcome to the Friday before St Patrick’s Day!
And as the Irish might say, this dispatch is “wild mad” … all sorts of news coming from all directions.
And one of the stranger twists in the brewing business lately is the news North End head brewer Kieran Haslett-Moore has been restructured out of a brewery he co-founded.
For this newsletter, Kieran — a regular contributor to Pursuit of Hoppiness —has written a piece about his departure, looking back on the beer that changed his life.
Kieran’s brewing career started with South Star Brewing around 2012, but that brand evolved to become North End when he went into business with a group that then owned the Long Beach Tavern in Waikanae. That business now runs the Long Beach Tavern, Salt & Wood Collective in Waikanae, Salty’s in Paraparaumu, and the Olde Beach Bakery in Waikanae.
Kieran was not only a co-founder of North End but a shareholder in the business. As I understand it, a reshuffle in the management ranks resulted in a new direction for the brewery.
The brewery will continue to service all the associated businesses and be seen in good bars, and they will continue to package beer, but it sounds like their distribution focus will be way more local in and around the Kāpiti region.
A new brewer is being sought.
Anyway, I’ll hand it over to Kieran
The beer that changed my life
Twelve years ago, the first commercial batch of the beer now known as North End Super Alpha was brewed at Townshend Brewery in the Moutere Valley. Back then North End didn’t even have a brewery name — was this the world’s first brewery flagship to predate its brewer’s brand? Perhaps.
We went on to build a brewery and brew our flagship ourselves, it would go on to become 50% of North End’s production.
The beer Martin Townshend brewed for us back in 2013 was, at the time, called Hoppy Wheat. It was what I then thought of as the ultimate beach beer, despite everything, I still think that. You should drink it, even when I don’t make it. It is good, frequently great.
Back in 2009 I was sat at a beer judging table next to Derek Walsh, the genius, pedantic beer judge who was responsible for writing the NZ Pilsner style for competition, ending years of anguish about where to enter our pilsners in competition.
He waxed lyrical about how he had stayed with our mutual friend Brad Rogers on his way out to NZ and that Brad had created this new type of beer called Pacific Ale for his new Stone and Wood Brewery. According to Derek it was a New World answer to Belgian witbier. He said it used wheat crispness, light refreshing body and new world hops to create a deeply refreshing beer that was a perfect poolside elixir before jumping into the deep blue. I soon tasted the beer, and it was everything Derek had promised.
When I met my business partners, I was tasked with formulating a beer for a small seaside community that would satisfy locals and holidayers alike. Beer for the beach, beer for the summer, beer for the sun, beer for the sweaty. Derek’s words resonated in my head.
Why isn’t it still called Hoppy Wheat? Because my idealism found it’s real-world resistance and we renamed it after the old name of the key hop variety involved in the recipe. I had wanted to teach people that wheat beer could be more than they thought, in reality I just put them off buying our beer by telling them it was a wheat beer. When we renamed it and changed the stated style to Pacific Pale Ale there was no stopping it.
In 2012, when I set about trialling various recipes on my home brewery, the comments about creating a modern witbier kept bouncing around my head. I added coriander seed to the unusual NZ hop charge. North End might be one of a handful of brewers with contracts for Dr Rudi hops. Dr Rudi was once known as Super Alpha. When the variety was renamed Dr Rudi I named our beer after the old name of the variety as I had so much affection for it. For some reason it conjured up images of the old Hilman Super Minx car I grew up in. It was also a typically defiant act from me in the face of the wishes of the marketers. Old habits die hard.
Despite, or perhaps because of my anti-marketing the beer grew to over 50% of what our wee brewing company sold, what it still sells. People around the country might know North End for Become the Ocean or Bitter Sea or Iron Sands or Baby Grand, but the local market paid our bills with keg after keg after keg of Super Alpha, and that is a beautiful thing. And it hasn’t stopped. But the founding partners have decided on differing paths, and so I am leaving the story.
Now as I step away from the brewery I founded all those years ago I find cause to stop and consider how this beer, more than any other, has changed my life. Over the 12 years of brewing Super Alpha I have lost a romantic partner (she still lives), lost a father (he doesn’t), moved away from my home city, and seen my body turn from that of a relatively young 33-year-old into the creaking, aching reality of a 45-year-old. I entered this game as a relatively young man, I exit it a middle-aged grey beard. I am trying to limit how much I shake my fist at the sky, I promise.
The prices were not just physical. I missed last Black Sabbath tours, I missed family birthdays, I missed trips away with old mates, I found myself on a coastal island hosting a beer dinner as my father died in Wellington and learnt of it by text message when my heart already knew it to be true. That is how the world works. Be careful what you wish for, you might just get it.
Likewise, my boy-like enthusiasm has moved to, if not outright cynicism, at least healthy suspicion of how the world will treat and reward the intents of the idealistic.
But don’t cry for me, I lived my dream. You do that, you pay the price one way or another, but you get to say, “I lived my dream, some days it was a nightmare”. Millions never get to say that. Billions never get to say that. I can say that.
And so, I step away from my baby and like any parent hovering on the side of the yard glass at the 21st, I hope it walks the right way without my hand leading it. It will, of course, find its own way, with my blessing or not.
Cheers
Kieran Haslett-Moore
Formerly Head Brewer North End Brewing Co.
Beer of the Week No 1
When Kieran sent me his farewell note earlier this week, I immediately tried to find some Super Alpha for this spot, but the courier didn’t quite meet my deadline!
So, I’ve gone back to my archives, as it were, for a beer that I reviewed before this Substack missive started.
If I was forced to decide my favourite North End beer, I’d be tossing a coin between Bones of the Land and Baby Grand.
But when I last had Baby Grand, a Flemish Red Ale, I wrote in the Instagram caption: “A special beer for a special occasion; tastes like life.”
It’s a reminder of what a talented and caring brewer Kieran is. I love his beer, love his outlook on life (probably more cynical than mine, and journalists are famously cynical), and love his writing.
Go well, Kieran!
Former Aussie Pirate washes ashore in NZ
Aussie-born Jared Proudfoot who co-founded the massively successful Pirate Life in Australia, is now living in New Zealand and is about to open a brew pub in the small South Island town of Geraldine.
Proudfoot, known as Red, is originally from Perth and worked at BrewDog in Scotland another Aussie, Jack Cameron.
They sold Pirate Life to global giant AB InBev for $10 million in 2017.
Red’s now settled in Geraldine where he’s about to open a brewpub with his brewer-wife Charlotte Grant, who grew up in the south Canterbury town.
The brewery is called Bonnie Day and will be in a building next to the Geraldine Cheese Shop. You can read more via the link below:
Beer of the Week No 2
Full disclosure: I got sent this can from Two Thumb and it sat in my fridge for a while because I thought: “I’m sure this was released in 2023 for the Malthouse West Coast IPA Challenge …”
But then I looked at the can and realised it was a rebrew of that 2023 beer. When a brewery goes back to a “one-off” beer in this fashion it suggests to me one thing: it’s got to be good.
And damn, this is a fine, fine West Coast IPA. Classic hop combo of Columbus, Simcoe and Citra for a powerful hop aroma and flavour. Lots of grapefruit but also sweeter citrus along the lines of mandarin and blood orange, with the sweet note reverbing through the rich malt structure.
Solid bitterness caps a parade of flavours. Loved it.
Konvoy Kegs in receivership
Another day, another upheaval in the beer business, with news that the biggest keg renter in Australia and New Zealand, Konvoy, is in receivership.
Konvoy general manager Nick Becker told The Crafty Pint their trans-Tasman business remains profitable but that their expansion into overseas markets — notably the UK — created significant cost pressures. When Konvoy couldn’t to strike up a new partnership in the UK, their main lender Aquasia decided to cut off funding.
“At that stage, we had very little debt,” Becker said, “but we couldn’t afford to keep running the business.”
Since launching in 2019, Konvoy has expanded to operate a fleet of 270,000 kegs across Australia and New Zealand, with Becker estimating they serviced around 80 percent of the local customer base and around 60 percent in terms of volume.
“Our current position is it’s business as usual,” he added. “The team is still in position, with the receivers running a process to sell it as a going concern.”
Konvoy was launched by a group that included many staff and leaders at Kegstar, among them co-founder Adam Trippe-Smith. Over the last six years, the company has expanded significantly internationally and focused on tracking technology to help streamline the logistics around moving kegs across the country and around the globe.
Konvoy’s existing customers and suppliers have been informed of the receiver's intention to commence “a sale and/or recapitalisation process for Konvoy Group”, and to continue trading on a “business as usual” basis as far as possible.
Here, the Newsroom website reported the story from the point of view of Helensville-based Liberty Brewing, who signed with Konvoy three years ago and, as part of the deal, sold them all its 400-plus 50-litre kegs. Now it's vulnerable, with no kegs of its own and no large-scale alternative supplier.
“I'm incredibly nervous about what’s going to happen,” said director Christina Pickwell. “We're going to be very wary about how much beer we are making at the moment, in case we're stuck with it sitting in a 10,000 litre tank and we've got nowhere to put it.”
“… if anything does happen, and they do go under, there is going to be a mad scramble. I don't think there's going to be enough kegs of any other brand in the country.”
Konvoy’s New Zealand operation is just three people.
Tom Madams, general manager, says they don't expect any impact on the New Zealand operation, despite being separately put into receivership.
“It is business as usual for us here in New Zealand,” he said.
Melbourne-based Keith Crawford and Auckland-based Andrew Grenfell, from McGrathNicol, have been appointed receivers.
8 Wired is no longer for sale, for now
A rumour swirled ever so briefly this week that 8 Wired in Warkworth had been sold.
Owners Soren and Monique Eriksen put the business on the market a year ago and despite some serious interest late last year, a deal couldn’t be done.
Soren told me they will now take down the listing and focus on growing the business with a view to re-listing when the economy picks up.
Tim’s Beer of the Week
Until now, Te Aro (Wellington) is one of the few breweries who’s beer I’ve not yet had the opportunity to taste. So, now that they are more available in Christchurch it’s time that I initiated my first contact procedure: Try the West Coast IPA…
This has a distinct hop haze, perhaps even to the point of contention as to whether it’s a WCIPA. And it uses an undisclosed but all-American hop bill, and is brewed up to a banging 6.9% ABV.
Strongly citrus driven in the aroma with grapefruit and lime, subtle maltiness and a ‘just brewed’ yeast note. The flavours are initially juicy and rich, but quickly dry as an incredibly robust bitterness takes hold and defines the palate all the way into the compact finish.
A rough-and-tumble approach to a West Coast for sure, but sometimes that’s just what my palate needs. — Tim Newman
Shining Peak win Rare Beer Challenge
New Plymouth’s Shining Peak Brewery were crowned — or capped, as it were — the winners of the fifth annual Rare Beer Challenge on March 7, Denise Garland reports.
Hosted by Wellington’s Fortune Favours Brewery, this year there was not only a sister bar in Auckland serving the beers on the night, but also one in the South Island, with Smoke Ashburton also getting involved.
This year’s competition also marked 25 years of the Rare Disorders organisation, and Fortune Favours decked out its bar in silver to celebrate its work over the last two-and-a-half decades.
And it was Shining Peak that shone brightest on the night; it was the first time they’d been invited to take part in the event, and they took out the title with “Medium Rare” an 11 percent Imperial Stout infused with rosemary, thyme, peppercorns and porcini mushrooms.
Alongside being a smooth, full-flavoured stout with strong rosemary, subtle peppery spice and almost gravy-like savoury notes, Shining Peak’s entry took it to the next level by drawing its inspiration from rare disorders’ cause. Brewer Emma Elmslie (pictured below) used adjunct ingredients all associated with traditional medicinal properties — though she did make it clear they were not making any claim that it was a medicinal beverage.
They beat out possibly the strongest (figuratively) field of beers yet. Fork & Brewer came in second with their Crustacean Congress Jambalaya stout; the beer was inspired by another beer competition in which Fork & Brewer won the right to name a marine isopod and was judged alongside a pie made to match by Wellington bakers Salut. Meanwhile, two-time winners Heyday Beer Co rounded out the top three with their eisbock-inspired jasmine green tea kolsch, Cryo-Reserve.
But there were also some other incredible brews — including two purple low-alcohol beers that were as much fun to look at as they were to drink. Altitude’s Transmission Fluid sea buckthorn & black carrot sour was super smashable at under 3 percent, and Choice Bros’ Violet Sky butterfly pea herbal tea sour was super flavourful despite coming in at just 2 percent.
Three Sisters took out the people’s choice award for its ice cream smoothie sour Drink Kinda, made with vegan cauliflower ice cream. While it wasn’t the prettiest beer, it tasted like everything you could want in an ice cream smoothie sour.
Hawke’s Bay Brewing sell to Big Barrel
Big Barrel — which owns around 50 bottle stores nationwide — is now a brewery owner.
The family-run group bought the long-standing Hawke’s Bay Brewing Co (formerly known as Hawke’s Bay Independent) in Meeanee.
A new restaurant and alehouse, called Barrel Brothers, is also due to open in a building next to the brewery in October. That building formerly housed The Filter Room, which abruptly closed last October when the operator’s lease was not renewed.
Big Barrel co-owners and brothers Palwinder and Avtar Singh are from Hawke’s Bay and opened their first liquor store in Napier over 20 years ago, which was the start of the Big Barrel franchise.
Palwinder told Hawke’s Bay Today that owning a brewery was a first for the group and it was attracted by the property and business, and its links to Hawke’s Bay.
Beer of the Week No 3
To borrow a term from my former life as a student of physics, there’s an interference effect going on between West Coast IPA and hoppy New Zealand pilsner. Sometimes the waves hit each other just right an increase the amplitude, other times the waves hit each wrong and cancel each other out.
This is definitely in the former category which a massive amplification of New Zealand pilsner expression.
There’s lots of New Zealand content via grapefuity Riwaka and loads of peeled white grape from Nelson Sauvin hop oil, but that’s underwritten by some herbal, citrus noise via Cashmere.
It’s unusual, interesting, appealing and most importantly, very drinkable.
Binga’s brewery goes bust
True story, former Australian cricketer Brett Lee once played an impromptu concert for my birthday.
It was on a cricket tour in India and a few journalists were having a beer in a courtyard area outside our hotel in Mumbai, on a night which just happened to be my birthday.
Lee and a couple of others in the Australian team wandered past and said, as you do: “What’s going on?”
Someone explained it was my birthday and we were having a drink, and next thing Binga, as he was known, pulls out his guitar and starts doing requests.
He was a very good guitar player and singer, and a demon fast bowler … but it seems he’s not such a great brewery owner.
Lee’s Sydney Beer Co has been placed into administration just months after a US expansion.
Documents filed to the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) show Lee’s beer company has collapsed due to a difficult trading environment.
Lee co-owned the brewery with actor Matt Nable.
And staying with Aussie sports stars …
The Crafty Pint reports that Last Man Standing has taken over Newstead Brewing’s Brisbane site, just a week after the latter closed for good.
Last Man Standing (LMS) launched in 2020 and was co-founded by former short track speed skater Steven Bradbury, who won a gold medal at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City when all his rivals fell over on the last lap. It’s a classic race, and worth watching if you haven’t seen it — it’s a truly (in)famous Australian sporting moment.
The brewing company's head of marketing, Keith Widelski, told The Crafty Pint their decision to secure the brewery and location had happened very quickly.
“We've been talking to Newstead for a while about working with them and that kind of stuff,” he says. “Then what happened with Newstead has been super quick so we've jumped in to keep the space running.”
The speed skater founded the brewery alongside Stephen and Damian Prosser, who are the sons of rugby great Roy Prosser. Since launching, the brewing company has focused on a sole beer, Last Man Standing Lager. They plan to work through Newstead's stock but intend to add more beers to the LMS lineup and hope to contact brew for others in the future.
Sticking with the sporting connection, the new brewhouse is right next door to Suncorp Stadium made it highly appealing to Last Man Standing.
Right, that’s me for another week. Enjoy your St Patrick’s Day if that’s your thing 🍀— aim to be the last man (or woman) standing!
Michael
Sorry to hear the news Kieran, go well in whatever is next for you and thank you for making so many kick ass beers! Keeping my fingers crossed for the Konvoy folks!
So sad to read this Kieran. You have done an almighty job!