There's a lot of love for Kiwi beer in Australia. And with good reason too. Where once you were lucky to find a bottle or three of Emerson's in the better bars and bottleshops, now Aussies can select from a wide array of the finest brews from across the Tasman. Liberty, Garage Project, Yeastie Boys, Tuatara, Epic, 8 Wired, Panhead and more now regular find tap points and shelf space across the country.
This can come with a downside, however. In some cases, once the costs of brewing the beer, selling to an importer, transportation, taxes, distribution and a venue's margin have been totalled up the beer can reach a drinker's hand at a high price. When the beer is a particularly limited release or one that would warrant a high price in its home country no one is going to complain. But when you see beers in the 5 to 6 percent range that are relatively regularly available going for $20 or more a pint, something we've seen on a few occasions at several venues, it's not a good look.
It's led one young Kiwi brewery to take steps to bring the cost of their draught beer down and, at the same time, get it to Aussie drinkers fresher too.
Wellington's ParrotDog had one of the more dramatic arrivals on the beer scene when their first beer, the IPA BitterBitch contract brewed at Mike's in Taranaki, won Best International Ale at the NZ Brewers Guild awards pretty much as soon as it had been released. Back then the three Matts were still two home brewing students and their accountant mate; today, they have a brewery in the centre of Wellington and have been sending their tight and flavoursome beers to Australia since last year.
"We were originally distributed through Better Beer Imports and in May [2014] switched to Phoenix but we got quite discouraged with our price point in the market," says one of the Matts, Kristofski, on a recent trip to Melbourne. "We brew beers that are middle of the road [and are] meant to be drinkable.
"Our originals are meant to be go to beers for people that are being introduced to our brand and for people that are getting into craft beer for the first time so [we don't want] to see them at a price that's unattainable.
"We were sending 30 litre disposable kegs so there was higher excise and they weren't [pouring in Australia] as fresh as they should be."
Since launching, the trio had become good friends with the Two Birds crew. They had brewed a collaboration with them and 3 Ravens (due to the avian connection) during a Good Beer Week, the rather delicious Fly By Night black IPA sold both sides of the Ditch, and last year joined forces with Two Birds again at their Wellington brewery for a "double stout" that's the biggest beer either brewery has created.
So, after brewing and partying together a bunch of times, the conversation turned to them brewing at Two Birds' spiffing Nest in Spotswood. And now they are, with the first batch of BitterBitch brewed last year and DeadCanary Pale following last month.
"We're good friends and have known them for three years," says Matt (pictured). "They launched around the same time as us and we get along really well.
"Matt Warner, our head brewer, came over for the first BitterBitch brew and the other two of us came over when it was kegged to build relationships with bars around town. We came back over to brew DeadCanary so we get the processes down the first time and Two Birds can replicate them [for future brews]."
They ship their own hops and malt over from NZ too to ensure as much consistency with the beers they brew back home.
"It's definitely still a Kiwi beer, just brewed in Australia," says Matt. "We want to build a bit of a range here so that people can start looking for our originals [the two mentioned before plus Bloodhound and FlaxenFeather]. There's been talk of maybe brewing [specials such as] Pitbull and ClippedWing as well, maybe even BloodyDingo."
As for the choice of Melbourne, he says it shares a similar vibe to Wellington and offers "a lot of opportunity". "The markets work well together," he says.
As do the two breweries, according to Jayne Lewis from Two Birds.
"It keeps our brewery nice and busy and we learn stuff from brewing with them and having them around," she says.
"They came to us, we crunched some numbers and it made sense. We started off with one batch of BitterBitch to see how it went and we're now about to brew the second batch next week."
On occasion, they've poured ParrotDog beers at the Two Birds Nest bar, finding them a good fit given the breweries share similar philosophies around the beers they make. Similar, if not exactly the same...
"Theirs tend to be a little higher in alcohol," says Jayne. "And they use a lot of hops. I can attest to that!"
With fellow Kiwis Panhead now brewing draught beer in Melbourne too, it will be interesting to see whether others follow suit. In the meantime, you can sample the latest fruits of ParrotDog's labour by hunting down DeadCanary on tap around Melbourne; the Waitangi Day themed events are probably a good place to start. And, if suitably inspired, you can go and sample the Kiwi originals at source at their cellar door at the brewery in Vivin Street, Wellington.
If you'd like to get your hands on some ParrotDog beer, hit up their man on the ground – paul@parrotdog.co.nz
