B Studio, a contract wine maker from New Zealand, has announced to set up a contract brewery in Napier, the center of New Zealand’s oldest wine making region Hawke's Bay. Main customer will be Garage Project Brewery from Aro Valley in Wellington/New Zealand. Jos Ruffell and the brothers Pete and Ian Gillespie, the three founders of Garage Project, looked for a way to meet the increasing demand of their craft beer brewery and were happy to team up with Links Winery director and B Studio co-founder Simon Gilbertson, who wanted to set up a brewery and was looking for some advice.
“We came to Garage Project several years ago, initially asking advice what we should be doing, how we should be positioning ourselves, the kinds of technology that we should be choosing in order to make this happen and through the conversation [Garage Project] became a cornerstone customer which is a source of enormous pride for us,” said Simon Gilbertson, who had not been involved in the beer business before. His company B Studio is a joint venture between Gilbertson’s Links Riverlands Marlborough and Gisborne contract wine maker GisVin, which was established in 2001 by four growers.
Currently, brewing equipment in forty-six 40ft containers from German supplier Krones is being assembled in the historical National Tobacco Company Building in Ahuriri. "You have the highest quality equipment going into the B Studio facility, a quality that hasn't been seen before in the independent craft brewing industry in New Zealand. It is bringing us to a level seen in the top-level breweries in America and Europe. That is super-exciting to see," said Garage Project co-founder Jos Ruffell. His partner Pete Gillespie added that having a brewery built to Garage Project's specifications was a "dream scenario".
Quality problems, like the ones Garage Project faced in Sweden last year (inside.beer, 21.11.2016), will be most probably over, once the new brewery is running.
