Down a long driveway in the middle of nowhere I find a rustic shed fronted by some barrels. Inside is the northern-most brewery in the country, Kainui Brew Co, not too far from Kerikeri, I’m greeted somewhat apologetically by brewer Paul Keating.
“It’s not too glamorous. A farmhouse brewery.”
The barrels hold some of the farmhouse-style beers that Paul loves to produce. Many are made with grapes from Kainui’s sister company, Kainui Rd Vineyard, including Paul’s favourite, the Rosé Saison which includes Gewürztraminer and Syrah grapes. It won a trophy at the 2022 Brewers Guild Awards.
We test some other beers, a chardonnay saison, an imperial stout, a blueberry Berliner weisse; all excellent. It takes more time to get them right but he enjoys the challenge. Most of the time though he is trying to keep up with the demand for their lagers. “Unfortunately you just gotta make beer that people are drinking.”
Brewing for Kainui is Paul’s first commercial brewing job. An ex-mechanic and an avid home brewer, Paul was offered the job after returning to New Zealand after many years overseas working on super yachts and snowboarding in Canada.
Today, he is cleaning after finishing three brews at 7pm the night before.
“The worst part of the job is just the endless cleaning. Never ending.”
Echoes of his previous life as a mechanic are abundant. Vice grip pliers and spanners hold the lid on the kettle while it is being cleaned. Tool drawers tidily contain the assortment of valves and clamps. Everything has its place. I comment on the precision organisation. “It works for me. When you’re in a hurry you can find everything.”
Paul works alone, so brew days are generally hectic, “a lot of me running backwards and forwards”.
The brewery setup is one of the more idiosyncratic I have seen. Two 500 litre mash tuns and two 500 litre kettles, and fermenters of various sizes. Paul will often do two or three brews in a day, either the same recipe, or two or three different ones.
“When I first started brewing and they were doing three beers I was thinking what have I gotten myself into? It’s amazing how I’ve kind of gotten used to it.”
Although there is always something that can go wrong. Power cuts are relatively frequent, stuck mashes are a nightmare, especially if it’s the first beer — it pushes the schedule out for a long day. One day the kettle stopped working and Paul had to rewire the element.
Then of course there was the time he accidentally disconnected the wrong end of a valve on a pressurised bright tank. Beer was spraying everywhere as he tried to hold it in with his hand. As the floor got wet his knees slowly started slipping back before he managed to get a good grip on the tank. After five minutes struggling to hold the beer in, he managed to reach around to release enough pressure — “lucky it wasn’t one of the big tanks!” — to clamp the valve back on. Worried that it looked like half the beer was on the floor he’d only lost 30 litres in the end.
He was mostly disappointed that they didn’t have security cameras so they could watch and laugh about it later.
After I finish photographing, I head to the Plough & Feather on the Kerikeri waterfront, one of two places you can buy Kainui beers. Paul recommended the Hell Hole of the Pacific, named after a description applied to Russel/Kororareka when it was a rough whalers’ port in the early 19th century. It’s manuka-smoked red IPA with sea salt, balsamic, and a touch of oak. That and the Rosé Saison go extremely well with my fish and chip lunch. This ain’t no hellhole.