Wellington’s Garage Project have bought bStudio in Napier, moving from client to owner.
It is a massive investment as bStudio — housed in the landmark National Tobacco Company building in Ahuriri — is one of the largest breweries in the country. It features a five-vessel Krones brew house and can produce batches of up to 25,000 litres. It has all the bells and whistles, including a tunnel pastueriser.
The details of the sale are confidential but it’s a certain to be a multi-million investment for Garage Project.
The facility was set-up nearly 10 years ago by Simon Gilbertson and Rob Godwin, who transferred experience in contract winemaking into beer. Garage Project were a foundation client at bStudio, moving their core range beers there because their Aro Street brewery in Wellington was at capacity.
Following the death of Godwin a few years, Gilbertson carried on with bStudio and the wine businesses, but as he approaches retirement age he’s stepping back a little bit.
“It just seemed like the right time for him to pass on the bat and since we’re a big part of what they do, we were the natural people to chat to,” Garage Project co-founder Jos Ruffell said.
Fellow founder Pete Gillespie added: “We’d been doing some serious soul searching over the last year or so about where do we go from here? What do we do? Do we try and grow? How do we secure our future? As you know, times have been pretty challenging.
“So when Simon flagged that this was a possibility, it suddenly, felt very natural.”
Jos said the purchase of bStudio allowed GP to have all their brewing “in-house” after a decade of out-sourcing a lot of the production.
“Originally bStudio offered us an opportunity to keep growing but also do things like Hāpi research and Wild Workshop — things that wouldn’t have been possible if we had just done a huge production brewery and taken on a crap load of debt at that time.
“But we’ve always been a brewery and wanted to have everything under our own roof. So we’ve always thought [contract brewing] would be a bit of a detour.”
Jos and Pete say it will be “business as usual” at the brewery.
“We’re a big chunk of it,” Jos said, “but there is meaningful other beer being brewed there and our intention is to keep that going. It started life as a contract facility and we want to honour that and keep that going.”
The most obvious gain for Garage Project is better margins as their production costs will fall.
“Obviously that’s the hope, but it’s also got its own fixed cost base and while we’re no longer be paying to brew there, but we are now paying for everything else,” Jos said.
“It definitely should put us on a path for good efficiencies. At a time of relentless excise increases and cost increases you’ve got to look for those efficiencies where you can find them.”
Possibly the biggest upside for GP is that bStudio is where all their non-alcoholic Tiny range is brewed, and with the increasing demand for those beers.
“It is the home of Tiny and securing where that beer is brewed is really an important part for us as well. And it gives us the confidence to keep building and investing in that,” Jos said.
I’m going to round back to Tiny a bit further down this newsletter when we talk about the latest Stats NZ data on falling beer consumption.
“This is a way forward for us and we can remain independent. We have grown and stayed independent and found a different way through.”
Same name, new owner
The brewery assets will transfer to Brewwell Napier Ltd, with the business continuing to trade as bStudio.
Garage Project co-founder Jos Ruffell said it was a big risk for Gilbertson and Godwin to build the brewery.
“Simon Gilbertson and Rob Godwin took a big swing when they built bStudio. We were lucky enough to be there from the beginning, and over the years we’ve watched the brewery grow and become an increasingly important part of Garage Project.”
Gilbertson said he was proud of what bStudio and its team had built and confident Garage Project was the right owner for its next chapter.
“I’m incredibly proud of our team and what we’ve built at bStudio. It was important to me that the brewery continued with new owners who understand what it is and what it can be. Garage Project knows bStudio as well as anyone, and I’m excited to see where they take it from here.”
Gillespie said the acquisition brings the story full circle.
“We started Garage Project on a 50-litre kit in a former petrol station. When bStudio opened, we took that same little kit up to Hawke’s Bay and brewed the first beer there. Now, nearly ten years later, we get to call bStudio part of Garage Project. That feels pretty special.”
Terms of the transaction are confidential.
ABOUT BSTUDIO
bStudio is an award-winning contract brewing and beverage manufacturing facility based in the landmark National Tobacco Company Building in Ahuriri, Napier.
Established in 2017, bStudio was created to bring high-quality, large-scale contract brewing capability to New Zealand’s independent beer industry. The brewery was built around highly automated German Krones technology, including a five-vessel brewhouse and top-of-the-line bottling and canning lines. Since opening, its capability has expanded beyond beer into broader beverage production and co-packing.
bStudio has been named Champion New Zealand Manufacturer at the Brewers Guild of New Zealand Beer Awards three times — in 2021, 2023 and 2025 — recognising the quality of beer produced for its contract brewing customers.