A little building that was formerly a church in Collingwood Street became a pub in 2009 and has very quickly gained a reputation as one of the very best in the country. It had its genesis in quarterly beer fetes…
March is beer month, well Nelson has got a beer week, Marchfest and the New Zealand Beer Awards coming up, so I will spend some time this month finding out about, and writing about, some of the businesses and people…
Writing this column often has me pondering about just how much our food and beverage choices have changed over the years. When I think back 30 years we used to spend a day ‘doing the wine trail’, that meant we…
Last week I reflected on the history of McCashin’s Brewery and the wonderful products being produced by the next generation of the McCashin family under the Stoke brand. While the brewery in Stoke is an industrial brewing operation an important…
The McCashin brewing story started way back in about 1980, a time beer making and selling was totally dominated by two corporate brewers, Lion and DB, and the concept of boutique craft beers hadn’t even begun to ferment. When we…
For more than 30 years I was involved in a business that supplied equipment to hotels so I have seen the beer-selling industry change, moving from the big beer barns operated by two corporate brewers to much smaller community pubs,…
An Irishman and Englishman walked into a pub, they sat down and had a few beers together, what happens next? They decide to start brewing their own beer of course. Phil McArdle & Chris Brown actually met at the climbing…