Last Friday has been a black Friday for Pete Gillespie, co-founder and head brewer of New Zealand -based brewery Garage Project, when sales in Sweden of Aro Noir, the “pitch black and full flavoured stout” were stopped on its first day.
Systembolaget, a nationwide network of government-owned liquor stores in Sweden with more than 430 stores had asked customers to return the product after cans in two stores exploded. Affected were more than a dozen stores in cities like Stockholm, Gothenburg, Malmö, Linköping, Uppsala and Umeå.
Garage Project is a microbrewery housed in a former petrol station in Wellington, New Zealand. It was founded in 2012 by brothers Pete and Ian Gillespie and their friend Jos Ruffell. From the early beginning, the brewery has been an instant success and became soon one of the most iconic craft breweries in New Zealand.