La De Da - Tuatara Gets its Groove on

By nature, Tuatara drinkers tend to be a socialable lot. At the brewery, we often hear justifiable complaints from them about the quality of beer available at major sporting events and big concerts. We are frequently asked "why can't I get a Tuatara at the stadium or the events centre?" and it's a very valid question. The bottom line is that generally only the big breweries can afford to get involved in these really large events.

That has all changed however. Tuatara is delighted to announce that it will be supplying the beer for the country's best New Year's Eve party – La De Da. New Zealand's newest music festival will be held at the scenic Alana Estate in Martinborough on December 31 2010. We are telling you now because the tickets are already almost gone…

The artists performing are described as a "Kiwi lineup second to none, with the huge live presence of roots/dub/rock act Kora, the chilled out reggae vibe of Katchafire, the rich and soulful tones of songstress Hollie Smith, NZ’s most loved roots/dub act Salmonella Dub, hot new roots/dub/drum and bass act SIX60, the country’s premiere electronic act Minuit, the big sounds of drum and bass act The Upbeats (live), drum and bass/dubstep production powerhouse Mt Eden Dubstep, Northland reggae act 1814, blues, rock, country and roots champions The Thomas Oliver Band, and renowned DJs Nick D and Clarke Gayford."

We reckon that if Tuatara’s had iPods, those mellow nocturnal lizards would probably love a little drum and bass. While the team at Tuatara tend to be more classic rock kind of guys – the head brewer’s love of 1980s power ballads is legendary – we do like to get our dub on and relax to some soulful beats. This year, we will be able to do so with a selection of Tuatara beers.

All of this happened because the concert organisers were willing to look past the dollars when selecting an appropriate beer partner. In fact, they actually let the fans pick the beer. La De Da’s Facebook page, which has a staggering 8,101 fans, posted this message:

"What sort of beer do you want us to serve at La De Da? Remember, we are a boutique festival being held in a winery so we want to serve a boutique beer that is cool, tasty, refreshing… and hopefully a local brand to support the region. Let us know what you think beer drinkers!"

They certainly did. At last count there were over 200 comments on this post and several more suggestions on the wall, including a surprising amount of love for Double Brown. In the end, the people wanted Tuatara and thanks to the wisdom of the organisers they will get it. Most of our team will be up there on New Year's Eve to make sure the beer still tastes good while we dance away 2010. We hope you will join us at La De Da.

Cheers from the team at Tuatara

The Little Dragon That Could

As reported recently in the Dominion Post article "Little local dragon sent to quench China's thirst", Tuatara is sending a pallet of beer to China as samples. We are confident they will lead to big orders as we continue to develop the export side of our business. The beer will be distributed by Tradepoint in Xiamen, a coastal city in southeast China. Appropriately, Xiamen has been a sister city for Wellington since 1987. Tuatara beer already goes to Australia and America in relatively small quantities but the virtually unlimited potential of the Chinese market makes this a very exciting development.

With little fanfare in 2002, China overtook the United States as the largest producer and consumer of beer. This achievement is based mainly on China’s massive population (estimated at over 1.3 billion) as their per capita beer consumption is still very low at around 30 litres per person. That is considerably less than half New Zealand’s consumption figure. The end result is that there is tremendous potential for growth in the Chinese beer market, particularly as sustained economic growth over the last decade has created a growing middle class with higher disposable incomes.

That said, there should be no doubt that China can be a tough place to sell beer. The market is extremely fragmented and the country is basically a collection of distinct regional economies which often require quite different approaches. It is difficult for even the biggest breweries to operate at a national level there. Several large breweries (including Lion) have struggled in China though currently many of the world’s biggest drinks companies (such as Anheuser-Busch InBev and SAB Miller) are highly active in China.

Of course, Tuatara has no intention of trying to dominate even a regional market. Xiamen city alone has a population of 2.5 million. The surrounding Fujian province is home to 36 million people. Instead, we are setting up the relationship with Tradepoint, going about exporting systematically and selecting our targets carefully.

The favoured beer style in China, like many other countries, is golden lager. Tuatara Helles and Tuatara Pilsner would be more flavoursome than most mainstream Chinese beers or global imports but there is a growing thirst for premium products. Tuatara Porter and Tuatara Ardennes would be something quite different to the average Chinese beer palate but again there is potential. Both those beers could match well with Fujian cuisine which is light but flavoursome.

In the Dominion Post article, reporter Hamish Rutherford called Tuatara the "little local dragon" and we think that is a pretty nice description. The mighty Chinese dragon is a benevolent creature symbolic of power, culture and good luck. It sounds like it could well be a mythical relative of the humble Tuatara – there is a certain family resemblance after all.

Ganbei from the team at Tuatara

Ten Years of Tuatara

For most of us, the year 2000 was the start of a new century and we marked it with a huge party just in case the Y2K Bug really did destroy everything on the stroke of midnight. Of course, if you want to be completely accurate, the 21st Century didn’t actually start until 2001 but we didn’t allow that to dampen the mood.

Helen Clark was Prime Minister of New Zealand. George W Bush would (eventually) become President of the United States. Mission Impossible II was number one at the global box office while Britney Spears arrived with “Oops, I did it again.”

The Summer Olympics were successfully held in Sydney while the All Blacks won all ten tests they played that year. The International Space Station became continuously manned but the Russian submarine Kursk tragically sank.

Proving that some things do stay the same, anti-globalisation protests turned violent, peace efforts in the Middle East were unsuccessful and Microsoft was ruled to have violated antitrust laws by keeping “an oppressive thumb” on its competitors.

In 2000, Tuatara beer was brand new and only really available from The Malthouse (then on Willis Street) and Bar Bodega (then also on Willis Street but much further up). Supermarkets had just been given the right to start selling beer and it would take them a while to start stocking the good stuff. As it happened, it took a few years for Tuatara to start bottling and a few more years for Tuatara beers to start appearing on store shelves regularly.

This is all a slightly roundabout way of saying that Tuatara is almost ten years old. In some ways, the years have simply flown by. In other ways, it seems like our journey started a long time ago. A decade is a long time in this industry. What we do know is that we still have a long way to go but we intend to celebrate this milestone just a little bit. Craft brewing can be a tough business but we are going to keep doing our thing, our way.

The plan at the moment is to brew a special commemorative beer to mark Tuatara’s tenth anniversary. Because of the recent expansions to the brewery and the arrival of new equipment and tanks (even if the forklift got a puncture carrying one of them up the drive in the pouring rain – poor Carl), production capacity has basically doubled. With a few more conditioning tanks, it may even triple.

That has given us the ability to now produce a few more special brews and seasonal releases. Tuatara APA was really just the beginning in this area. If there is any particular style or type of beer you would like to see us make, leave a comment below or contact us on Facebook or Twitter. We will keep you updated here.

Cheers from the team at Tuatara