New Zealand’s only dedicated craft beer magazine.

Bringing you news, reviews, features, opinion and travel writing from around the country.

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Cover Story

Distributor Hop And Vine Explains Liquidation

Friday 11 April 2025

Prominent Christchurch-based distributor Hop And Vine says the loss of three potential new customers combined with changing drinking habits and tough economic conditions led to their liquidation. Hop And Vine…

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Recommended

Eddyline Hoptimus Prime Fresh Hop WCIPA

Monday 7 April 2025

Fresh hop season is well and truly upon us now, with a deluge of fresh releases landing day by day. It’s been less a case of hunting them out and…

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Cover Story

Hazzy Hunter vs Browns Bay Brewing Co

Monday 7 April 2025

Andrew Ranum joined Deep Creek in 2016 as their General Manager. When the brewery sold the brewpub in Browns Bay, Andrew left his GM role and became a part-owner and…

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Features

Mac Hops Celebrates 125 Years Growing Hops

Friday 4 April 2025

Mac Hops in Motueka celebrated 125 years of growing hops with a bumper harvest, but it was also a harvest that summed up the tough nature of hop-growing — both…

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Cover Story

The Beer Project — Mount Brewing

Wednesday 2 April 2025

Paweł Lewandowski, head brewer at Mount Brewing, isn’t supposed to be here. He was travelling around the world with a plan to spend a little bit of time brewing in…

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The Dalum CO2 Unit is designed for craft breweries to recover CO2 from fermentation and the purging of tanks.

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Features

Features

Mac Hops Celebrates 125 Years Growing Hops

Friday 4 April 2025

Mac Hops in Motueka celebrated 125 years of growing hops with a bumper harvest, but it was also a harvest that summed up the tough nature of hop-growing — both…

Read More
Features

Aussie Pirate Washes Ashore in NZ

Friday 14 March 2025

Former Aussie “pirate” Jared Proudfoot is now a Kiwi landlubber. Proudfoot, known as Red, co-founded the hugely successful Pirate Life in Australia — a brewery that was sold to global…

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Features

Green, Fruity, Dank … Tom Shellhammer On Hops

Tuesday 4 March 2025

For a hop scientist, a months-long summer holiday coinciding with the annual hop harvest in New Zealand is a dream sabbatical. Tom Shellhammer is a Professor of Fermentation Science at…

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Features

Homebrewing — Dry Vs Liquid Yeast

Monday 3 March 2025

One of the great things about home brewing is the new avenues of exploration and opportunities to improve that open up to the inquisitive mind. There is always something new…

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Features

Fresh Alibi — Meet The New Brewer

Monday 20 January 2025

Jody Thomas has a beer CV that could fill this website from back to front but her new job as the one and only brewer at Alibi on Waiheke Island…

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Recommended

Recommended

Eddyline Hoptimus Prime Fresh Hop WCIPA

Monday 7 April 2025

Fresh hop season is well and truly upon us now, with a deluge of fresh releases landing day by day. It’s been less a case of hunting them out and…

Read More
Recommended

Moa Superdelic IPA

Monday 10 March 2025

As much as it was exciting to see the recent Superdelic hop step onto the stage of commercial New Zealand varieties, it’s one I’ve been struggling to really love when…

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Recommended

Hop Federation Concrete Jungle

Monday 3 March 2025

Fresh off the line this week Hop Federation Concrete Jungle is this bright version of the (also rather good) Inflation hazy IPA that dropped a little earlier in the year. …

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News

News

First-Timers Win 2025 Rare Beer Challenge

Friday 14 March 2025

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. Hosted by Wellington’s Fortune…

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News

Sunshine Brewing Wants Sale or Merger

Monday 10 March 2025

New Zealand’s oldest craft brewery, Sunshine Brewing in Gisborne, looking for new owners or — more intriguingly — seeking expressions of interest for a merger with an existing brand. The…

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News

Salt District Brewing Closing Down

Monday 17 February 2025

A bright newcomer to the beer scene is closing up after less than three years — and not because they weren’t successful. Liam Blunden started Salt District Brewing in Whangamata…

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Friday Night Beers 

Opinion

Opinion

Fresh Hops — A Cheeky Guide

Friday 21 March 2025

Having written about fresh hops for around 15 years I sometimes wonder if there’s anything new to say — but after talking to American hop professor Tom Shellhammer recently, I…

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Opinion

Instagratification: Dusty’s Best of the Summer releases 2025

Monday 3 March 2025

Photographer, beer-lover and Instagram influencer Dusty, picks his highlights from the latest releases heading into summer.

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Opinion

Is It End Days For Craft Beer?

Friday 3 January 2025

The day after I was born a human error was made on a US national security computer the size of a car. A training tape was fed into the machine…

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Travel

Travel

Coromandel — One Door Closes, Another Opens

Monday 31 March 2025

When we began brewing at the Coromandel Brewing Company, “craft beer” was barely on anyone’s radar. The most common response when offering new customers a craft beer was, “craft what?”. Fast…

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Travel

Mr Good Bar — Liberty Beers & Burgers

Monday 31 March 2025

What sweeter thing to do on a sunny Auckland Saturday, I thought, than hit the road northwest for a bite and a beer in a town called Helen. Just 50…

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Travel

Mr Good Bar — Twofold & St Leonards

Wednesday 15 January 2025

The good news is that, despite the occasional bad news, there are great new brew bars are still bubbling up all over the place. In central Auckland, for instance, I…

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