Popular New Zealand brewery Garage Project have announced via a Facebook post they are looking for a site in Australia to build a brewery or brewpub due to demand on this side of the ditch.
The Wellington-based brewery’s co-founders Pete Gillespie and Jos Ruffell (pictured above) said they were currently unable to meet Australia’s needs.
“We need to talk. You’re drinking too much of our beer,” Pete said in yesterday’s post.
With New Zealand production “stretched really thinly”, in terms of what they can dedicate to Australia, they said the long-term solution was setting up a brewery or brewpub here.
“That’s what we want to do, that’s what we plan to do,” Jos said.
Until Garage Project can get established in Australia they said they were now brewing beers with Hop Nation following the Footscray brewery’s acquisition of Tribe Breweries’ Mornington Peninsula brewery. They’ll also be supplementing their Australian distribution with Hop Nation beers.
“In the meantime we’re trying to bridge the little gap that we’ve found by brewing at Hop Nation… and they’re willing to allow us to brew a few beers in their tanks,” Pete said.
“We’re using Hop Nation to supplement the beers that we’re sending over. There will still be plenty of Garage Project beers going over but what we’re going to be doing is sprinkling some new releases from Hop Nation on top of that just to supplement it all.
“But this is of course just a stop gap. What we really want is to start our own brewery in Australia.”
The co-founders ended their Facebook post by calling on the public to send in their suggestions for potential site locations.