After a three-year hiatus, Wellington’s favourite little beer festival is back!
Winter Ales Festival began in 2009, run by the Society of Beer Advocates (SOBA), as a celebration of the darker, warmer, stronger, and all-around wintry beer styles.
It started as the Matariki beer festival at the Boatshed on Wellington’s waterfront but soon morphed into something much bigger. The festival got a name change and a new venue at the Victoria University’s Hunter Lounge — eventually growing to occupy the entire floor space, balconies and all.
The festival called “last drinks” in 2021 — between lockdowns — and when SOBA folded in 2023, Wellington beer lover (and Pursuit of Hoppiness contributor) Denise Garland couldn’t let such an iconic beer festival end with it.
“Winter Ales was always such a cool beer festival and you didn’t have to be a beer geek to enjoy it — so many people would just go with their mates and have a great afternoon chatting away. When I heard that SOBA might be winding up, I got in touch with some of the most recent members to pitch taking on the festival myself.”
The outgoing committee gifted the festival and its assets to Garland, who in turn roped in her boyfriend, and former SOBA president and Winter Ales organiser, David Wood, to help her bring it back to life.
“I’d had a blast running the Winter Ales Festival back in the SOBA days, it filled a winter gap in the Wellington beer calendar between summer and Beervana.” Wood says. “With over a decade of history, it seemed a waste to let the festival go extinct.”
The much-loved festival will make a comeback in late June — with a few small changes.
For the first time, it will be run over two sessions; a Friday after-work session on June 27 from 5-10pm, and a relaxed Saturday afternoon on June 28, from 1-6pm.
It will also be a pared back version of the event that used to see hundreds of people through the doors on a wintry Saturday afternoon; rather than 400 people at one large event, Garland and Wood are hosting it at the Whisky & Wood venue in Wellington’s central city, with 100 tickets available each day.
“We want to create a more intimate, cosy festival, to give it that warm feel, but also to keep it affordable, considering the cost of living struggles people are experiencing at the moment.”
“We’ve also hired an Irish folk band to play acoustic folk music to help set the mood. I’m hoping it’ll be like a big pub,” Wood adds.
And as for what will be on tap? “There’s going to be 16-20 beers — many of them brand new — so it’s actually possible to taste all of them,” says Wood.
Garland says the focus has been on securing smaller and/or lesser seen breweries. Attendees can look forward to drinking beer from brands such as Isthmus, Wild and Woolly and Field Below. There will also be offerings from festival favourites such as Peckham’s, Beer Baroness, Shining Peak and the 2021 People’s Choice Champion, Brewaucracy.
While the theme is, of course, winter, there will also be some wild, unusual, and smashable beers among the dark, sweet, roasty and strong offerings.
Tickets went on sale just a couple of weeks ago and have already sold out, which Wood says is humbling, considering the incredibly limited promotion of the event. “It’s amazing to have sold out in less than two weeks! It means we now have over two months to focus on making Winter Ales Fest amazing, without having to spend time and money on promoting tickets.”
Confirmed breweries
Beer Baroness
Brood
Cell Division
Craftwork
Field Below
Isthmus
Karamu
Mata
Mean Doses
Nine Barnyard Owls
Peckham’s Cider
The Beer Engine
Shining Peak
Wild and Woolly
There’s opportunities to volunteer at one of the sessions (and you do get free entry to the other session): https://forms.gle/QFXEZs5nQ94e6uEHA.
