What follows is an updated version of the list of New Zealand beer brands following input from readers. (Updated again, February 2023)

I started out asking the question: How often have you seen the “fact” that New Zealand has around 220 breweries?

It’s been an oft-touted number and I’ve always wondered where it comes from. It’s popped up in various places over the years — most recently in this EECA report on decarbonization of the brewing industry. Though at least they had it as “over 200”. I think much of this erroneous data comes from an NZIER report in 2019 that had the 218 number, which was unsourced.

Beer writer Phil Cook took a more hard-lined approach to this analysis three years ago when he focused on physical breweries and came up with 161.

Statistics New Zealand had a count of 174 as of last year based on how business categorise themselves. The peak was 180 in 2020, which represented a trebling in breweries from 60 in the preceding decade: rapid growth by anyone’s standards.

What I’m not sure of from Stats NZ’s data is whether, for example, Lion’s various “brands” — notably Panhead and Emerson’s and to a lesser extent Mac’s and Harrington’s are rolled into one enterprise.  Ditto DB with Monteith’s and Tuatara and Asahi with Boundary Road and Founders. It feels like they probably are.

So what I decided to do was count them using the resources from Phil Cook’s original effort; Jules van Costello’s book Brewed; the regional powerhouse of SOBA, which has people on the ground throughout New Zealand who know what’s happening in their local area; the Companies Office and — somewhat usefully, Google Maps. And now readers and brewers themselves have come to me adding in some and taking out others.

Unlike Phil I did count contract breweries, because you can’t have a list of New Zealand breweries without Yeastie Boys, for example.

I omitted brands that are under one corporate umbrella but which do not have a physical brewery. So no to Mac’s, Harrington’s (Lion), Founders, Boundary Road (Asahi), Monteith’s (DB), or Southern Alps (Moa). But yes to Speight’s, Emerson’s, Panhead and Tuatara. You could argue that Boundary Road is in a grey area. Yes, it’s an invented brand and brewed by Asahi but for a long time it was the main brand associated with Independent, but I’m trying to be as clear-cut as possible so they’re not counted.

Initially, I left out large contract breweries such as Steam, B Studio and Craft Brewing Co (the brewing arm of Crafty Canners) as this is more focused on brew brands that sell to the public, whether on- or off-premise. But in reconsidering this, I’ve added them back in because if they didn’t exist then many contract brands would not exist either. And they employ people, so from a wider industry perspective they are super-relevant.

At first I was going to omit secondary breweries such as Garage Project Wild Workshop and DB Timaru, but then I started thinking about Tui and Speight’s (and how they have their own identity even though they are “secondary” to Lion’s and DB’s main operation …) so I’ve now included these.

There may be some brew brands or breweries I’ve missed, which is to be expected when there is no real register of these things! So if you know of one I’ve omitted let me know at michael@hoppiness.co.nz and also if there’s someone on the list who has since closed. In cases where I’m unsure I’ve given the benefit of the doubt.

In total, I get 208 breweries or brew brands. There are 125 in the North Island and 83 in the South Island.

Ok, so not quite the 220 so often quoted but still — a lot! And honestly, I’m surprised. It’s more than I expected. And it’s thousands of percent more than 40 years ago when we had just two major breweries (Lion and DB) and half-a-dozen brew-sites (Lion and DB in Auckland, Lion in Christchurch, DB in Timaru, Monteith’s and Speight’s).

how many breweries are in NZ
New Zealand Breweries, the forerunner to Lion, created this map of their breweries in 1960.

North of Auckland (11)

8 Wired

Bay of Islands Brewing Co

Colab

Kainui

McLeod’s

Pacific Coast Drinks (opening January)

Phat House

Puhoi

QBrew

Sawmill

Three Mountains

North Shore (6)

Browns Bay

Deep Creek

Isthmus

Laughing Bones

Mythica

Paraoa

West Auckland (7)

Basement

Black Sands

Craft Brewing Co

Hallertau

Liberty

Little Creatures

Mandrake

Central Auckland (23)

Asahi

Bach

Badass

Batsmen

Behemoth

Brewport

Brothers

Citizen

Cowabunga

DB Breweries

Dr Rudis

Epic

Galbraith’s

Lion

Manaia

Shakespeare

Small Gods

State of Play

Steam

St Leonards

Sweat Shop Brew Kitchen

Urbanaut

Yeastie Boys

Gulf Islands (4)

Alibi

Aotea

Waiheke Island Brewing

Heke

Coromandel (4)

Blue Fridge

Boilerhouse

Coromandel

Hot Water

Waikato-BOP (17)

Bootleg

Brewaucracy

Croucher

Fitzpatrick’s

Good George

Hopnotic

Karamu Barrelworks

Lumberjack

Mata

Mount Brewing

Patron’s

Raglan

Rocky Knob

Slab

The Island

Three Fat Pigs

Workshop

Central & Lower North Island (9)

Brew Union

Brews on Drews

Crafty Trout

King Country

Lads

Lakeman

Mothership

Roots

Ruapehu

Taranaki (5)

Forgotten 43

Mikes

Shining Peak

Theoretical Brewer

Three Sisters

Lower East Coast North Island (15)

Abbey (formerly Fat Monk)

bStudio

Brave

Giant

GodsOwn

Hangar

Hawkes Bay

Martinborough

Napier

Ninebarnyardowls

Roosters

Sneaky Brewing

Sunshine

Tui

Zeelandt

Kapiti (3)

Duncan’s

North End

Tuatara

Porirua / Hutt Valley (8)

Abandoned

Baylands

Beer Engine

Boneface

Brewtopia

Kereru

Panhead

Te Aro

Central Wellington (13)

Bassline

Choice Bros

Double Vision

Fork

Fortune Favours

Garage Project

Garage Project Wild Workshop

Heyday

Mean Doses

Occasional Brewer

Parrotdog

Waitoa

Whistling Sisters

Nelson / Tasman (11)

Brood Fermentation

Eddyline

Flavourtorium

Golden Bear

Hop Farm

Hop Federation

Mussel Inn

Sprig & Fern

McCashins (name of brewery) / Stoke (name of brand)

Townshend

Wakachangi

Marlborough-KAIKOURA (5)

Boom Town

DNA

Emporium

Moa

Renaissance / Funk Estate / Level Up

Canterbury (22)

Beers by Bacon Bros

Beer Baroness / Pomeroys

Bodgie (formerly Twisted Hop)

Brew Moon

Cassels

Chinchiller

Concept

Derelict

Eruption

Five Peaks

Ghost

Kaiser Bros

Laboratory

Lighthouse

Moon Unit

Southpaw

Test Lab

Three Boys

Two Thumb

Volstead

Wigram

Wilderness

West Coast (2)

Short Jaw

Woodstock

Central South Island (6)

Burkes

Craftwork

DB Timaru

Scotts

Ship Hop

Valley Brewing

Dunedin (10)

Arc

Cell Division

Dog Star

Emersons

Green Man

Noisy

Saddle Hill

Speight’s

Steamer Basin

Toitu

Lower South Island (27)

4 Mates

Altitude

Alpine Ale Works

Arrowtown

B Effect

Bannockburn

Canyon

Cargo

Catlins

Catlins True Brew

Double Cone

Ferris Road

Gadoochi

Glenorchy

Ground Up

Lake & Wood

Manuherikia

Queenstown Brewers

Rhyme X Reason

Richmond Bros

Rough Rock (Otago Brew School)

Searchlight

The Factory

There Be Dragons

Victoria Store

Wanaka Beerworks

Whakatipu