This is the fifth part in a series dedicated to breweries that have opened up since the Covid-19 pandemic. The past five years have been tough for those in the brewing industry. The data is there: higher costs, lower consumer spend, alternative drinks. All are eating into beer’s share of the beverage market. Despite the doom and gloom a number of breweries have started in the past five years. In this series we visit six from the length and breadth of the country. They are all slightly different but if there was one common denominator it’s that they’re all trying to control their own destiny in one way or another.
BS Brewing, Dunedin — Opened April 2024
BS Brewing in Dunedin is the smallest of the breweries we’re profiling in this start-up series.
“We’re smaller than nano,” says co-founder Brent Taylor. “We’d call ourselves pico but people probably wouldn’t understand what that means.”
Brent and fellow founder Steve Pulford have been brewing together for a long time but sold their first commercial beers in April 2024.
And now that I’ve given you the names of the two owners — Brent & Steve — you can work out where BS comes from. Although they don’t mind people thinking it’s the other kind BS!
Both continue to work fulltime jobs and treat the brewing operation as a hobby that brings in enough money to let them buy new kit and reinvest in the brewery.
We thought there was space in town for more local craft beer on tap — there just didn’t seem to be enough.
Steve Pulford
One of the reasons they decided to sell their own beer is that they wanted to see more local beers on tap.
“We thought there was space in town for more local craft beer on tap — there just didn’t seem to be enough,” Steve says.
And as saying goes — be the change you want to see in the world.
“We thought, ‘look, we could do this, we’ll give it a crack’,” says Steve.
“We just thought it would be really cool to go to town and drink our own beer,” Brent adds.
At the start they had a ridiculously small 30-litre home brew kit that they took to the limit with quadruple brew days to fill their 100-litre fermenter capacity.
They eventually upgraded to a 140 litre kit.
“We’ve gathered up equipment as it becomes available at the right price. And we’re both pretty handy guys ourselves. So we can fix stuff up, we can weld bits together and build electronic stuff as well,” Steve says.
Both agree that the brew days are their way of unwinding away from their 9-to-5 jobs.
“We have some drinks and laughs and talk about the week. It’s a real sort of a de-stress for us,” Steve says.
Brent: “I find brewing really good for my mental health. I’m in a fairly high-pressure job. At the end of the week, I’m absolutely shattered, but then I look forward to coming home and brewing and just not thinking about work or stress or life and just having a good time in the brewery.”
One of the tasks they’ve set themselves is to have every beer name starting with BS. So there’s Belly Smiles, Beautifully Savage, Breathless Sherpa, Bright and Soulful.
The only exception is their Dunedin Pale Ale, mainly because they couldn’t believe someone else hadn’t already taken the name.
They’ve found plenty of support in the Dunedin beer community for what they do.
Steve: “Everybody is really helpful. Everybody wants to see each other succeed. Everyone’s good at sharing information.
Brent adds: “There’s no secrets down here, which is really cool. If you’ve got a problem, people are more than happy to come over and give you a hand to work through it and work it out.”
That camaraderie was reflected in the Dunedin Beer Collective — the group of eight Dunedin breweries (Arc, Black Rock, BS, Cell Division, DogStar Brew Lab, Emerson’s, Noisy, and Rudd House) that won a trophy at the NZ Beer Awards with a Black IPA brewed at Emerson’s.
And local sells in Dunedin.
Steve: “Someone will come in and say, ‘Oh, what’s this BS?’ And when they learn it’s a local beer they’ll try one. People want a local beer — nothing against beers from the North Island, but you think of all the transportation and getting all those beers down here … local is much better.”
Neither of them are interested in getting any bigger right now because it would require such a large investment and long hours.
And you get the feeling they don’t want to lose hobby aspect.