We also have the biggest solar power system of any brewery in New Zealand. We harvest our own water and deal with all our own waste water on site (which is less waste every week than the average household). “We therefore have control over the whole process. We brew all our beer on site ourselves, which isn’t that common in New Zealand,” Kirsty explains. As with their beer, place was paramount, from the stools made by kids in a trust in Northland, local light fittings and cushions that were dyed by a friend before being sewn up by Mike’s mum, to the quality, local and seasonal produce used in the Smoko Room’s food. Kirsty goes on to tell us that when they expanded in July 2016, it was important for her and her husband/business partner, Mike, to be rural and not be pushed into an industrial site. Reclaimed, untreated timber slats made from storm-felled native beech covers the walls of the public areas, giving the venue a rustic yet modern feel that continues in the suntrap beer garden. Long fluorescent strip lights angle along the roof, making the tanks glisten and illuminating all the way to the back of the building. This is noisy and busy, but you’re here – you’re really in it.”
I didn’t want to close it away behind a glass partition like in a lot of wineries do. I always wanted people to see the plastic buckets and the ordinary stuff, along with hearing the occasional bit of swearing and things getting dropped. “We wanted the brewery to be really transparent. Behind it resides the working brewery with its towering tanks, large hoses and busy staff members. A long burnished brass bar lined with no fewer than 14 beer taps spans the length of the first space.
However, as we enter, we realise that it is so much more. From the outside, it doesn’t appear to be much more than a large shed-like structure guarded by an artistic, rusted green fermenter embellished with the unassuming Sawmill logo. Perched just outside of the small town of Matakana, neighboured by hectares of sprawling wine country, sits The Sawmill Brewery & Smoko Room. We drop in on the rural taproom to meet co-owner Kirsty McKay and find out a little about their journey. With those figures, it’s pretty safe to say, that Kiwis like their beer! Whilst only around 10% of beer consumed in the country is “craft”, this still leaves an incredible range of phenomenal breweries doing crazy, sustainable and delicious things with hops. That works out at 4.56 breweries per 100,000 residents, more than the UK, Australia and the USA. Despite its diminutive stature and population of roughly 4.8 million, New Zealand boasts more than 220 craft breweries, with this figure growing at an average rate of 16% per year since 2008.
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