What follows is an updated version of the list of how many brewing brands (Updated July 11, 2025; re-edited July 15 based on reader feedback).

I started out in 2022 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 — including 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 typically hard-lined approach to his analysis in 2019 ago when he focused on physical breweries and came up with 161.

Statistics New Zealand had a count of 174 in 2022 based on how businesses categorise themselves. Their 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 the breweries using the resources from Phil Cook’s original effort; Jules van Costello’s book Brewed; the regional powerhouse of SOBA (now defunct), which used to have people on the ground throughout New Zealand who knew what’s happening in their local area; the Companies Office, Untappd, 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 Bach Brewing, 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 and Boundary Road (Asahi); Monteith’s (DB), and Southern Alps (Moa). But, yes to Speight’s, Emerson’s, Panhead and Tuatara as they all have physical breweries. 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 the old 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 count was 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 (when it had a operating brewery) 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, or one I’ve “closed” by mistake, 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 now get 190 breweries or brew brands, down from 208 at the last count in 2023. There are 116 (down from 125) in the North Island and 74 (down from 83) in the South Island.

So nowhere near the 220 so often quoted but still — a lot! And honestly, I’m surprised. It’s possibly more than I expected, although some are very small. 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 in NZ?
New Zealand Breweries, the forerunner to Lion, created this map of their breweries in 1960.

(* indicates brew brands without physical breweries)

North of Auckland (11)

8 Wired

Bay of Islands Brewing Co

Colab

Kainui

Heavens Brewery (NEW)

McLeod’s

Pacific Coast Drinks

Phat House

Puhoi*

QBrew

Sawmill

Three Mountains

North Shore (5)

Browns Bay

Deep Creek

Isthmus*

Laughing Bones

Mythica

Paraoa

West Auckland (6)

Basement

Black Sands

Craft Brewing Co

Hallertau

Liberty

Little Creatures

Mandrake

Central & South Auckland (24)

Aka Aka

Asahi

Bach*

Badass

Batsmen

Bean Bag (NEW)

Behemoth

Brewport

Brothers

Citizen*

Cowabunga

DB Breweries

Dr Rudis

Epic

Free Flow (NEW)

Hideaway (was Brewport)

Galbraith’s

Lion

Manaia

Shakespeare

Small Gods*

State of Play*

Steam

St Leonards

Sweat Shop Brew Kitchen

Twofold (NEW)

Urbanaut

Yeastie Boys*

Gulf Islands (4)

Alibi

Aotea

Waiheke Island Brewing

Heke

Coromandel (3)

Blue Fridge

Boilerhouse

Coromandel (aka The Pour House)

Coromandel Town Supply (NEW)

Hot Water*

Waikato-BOP (17)

Alchemy Street (NEW)

Bootleg

Brewaucracy

Croucher

Fitzpatrick’s

Good George

Hopnotic

Karamu Barrelworks

Lumberjack

Mata

Mount Brewing

Neck of the Woods (NEW)

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 (4)

Forgotten 43

Mikes*

Shining Peak

Theoretical Brewer

Three Sisters

Lower East Coast North Island (12)

Abbey (formerly Fat Monk)

bStudio

Brave

Giant

GodsOwn

Hangar

Hawkes Bay

Martinborough

Napier

Ninebarnyardowls

Roosters

Sneaky Brewing

Sunshine

Tui (non-operational)

Zeelandt

Kapiti (2)

Duncan’s

North End

Porirua / Hutt Valley (8)

Abandoned

Baylands

Beer Engine

Boneface

Brewtopia

Kereru

Panhead

Te Aro

Tuatara (relocated from Kapiti)

Central Wellington (11)

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 (13)

Acoustic (NEW)

Aliment (NEW)

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 (4)

Boom Town

DNA

Emporium

Moa

Canterbury (23)

Beers by Bacon Bros

Beer Baroness / Pomeroys

Bodgie (formerly Twisted Hop)

Brew Moon

Cassels

Chinchiller

Concept

Derelict

Eruption

Five Peaks

Gambit (NEW)

Ghost

Kaiser Bros

Laboratory

Lighthouse

Moon Unit

Renaissance / Funk Estate / Level Up (relocated from Blenheim)

Renegade (NEW)

Southpaw

Test Lab

Thief (NEW)

Three Boys

Two Thumb

Volstead

Wigram

Wilderness

West Coast (2)

Short Jaw

Woodstock

Central South Island (7)

Bonnie Day (NEW)

Burkes

Craftwork

DB Timaru

House of Hop (for sale)

Scotts

Ship Hop

Dunedin (9)

Arc

Cell Division

Dog Star

Emersons

Green Man

Noisy

Saddle Hill

Speight’s

Steamer Basin

Toitu

Lower South Island (16)

4 Mates

Altitude

Alpine Ale Works

Arrowtown

B Effect

Bannockburn

Canyon

Cargo

Catlins

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