Tuatara goes California Cool at Monterey

At Tuatara, we take beer quality seriously and we like to think our stockists and venues do too. That certainly does not mean everything has to be boring though. One of our favourite venues is Monterey in Newtown, Wellington. As well as being a top bar and café, we love their funky, cheeky attitude. Here is how they describe themselves on their website:

“We have; burgers made with homemade sauces, quality produce and herbs and leaves from our garden, cocktails from last two centuries made with homemade syrups, fresh fruit and proper liquor, soft drinks that you can’t buy at the dairy next door for half the price, weekend brunch that isn’t just poached eggs six ways, tables you can sketch or write on, staff who aren’t just waiting to finish their bachelor of marketing and move to Auckland, music that isn’t downloaded but on vinyl, books that smell like your grandma and games that remind you of being a kid.”

Monterey serves a number of Tuatara beers on tap, pouring them into a 350ml glass, 500ml glass or 1000ml jug. We caught up with Joseph from Monterey to get a bit more information. He explained that the bar’s name was a reference to an area in California which hosted a lot of writers and authors in the 1960s because “we are kind of mid-century California themed here.”

In terms of picking Tuatara to headline their beer list, Joseph said “the main reason we went with Tuatara was because we wanted to work with an independent company making really good beer. Tuatara was a pretty perfect fit with our style and they were close by as well. Our customers are all very keen about Tuatara and it is selling very well. The APA is flying out of the door. It is a great match with our California/Americana theme.”

Monterey is also a finalist in two categories of the Fifth Annual Wellingtonista Awards – Best Suburban Destination and Best Service. Here is how the Wellingtonista crowd justified the Best Suburban Destination nomination:

“Who knew that drinking in Newtown didn’t have to involve sports? The good people of Kreuzberg Cafe opened up this joint in a small former Vietnamese restaurant, and it’s worth leaving the city for. The mac’n cheese is amaaaazing (although off the menu for summer, grrr), Tuatara beer is on tap, and they make fabulous cocktails and three kinds of pie every day.”

If you listen very carefully, you can almost hear the Tuatara brewery crew going “mmmmm… three kinds of pie…”

Voting closes on 1 December 2010 so be sure to make your vote count.

Cheers from the team at Tuatara

Tuatara X returns as Trade Me ad goes viral

To celebrate the tenth anniversary of Tuatara, we finally let Head Brewer Carl Vasta make the huge, crazy, strong Belgian beer he had wanted to make for years. The result was Tuatara X which we launched at Beervana 2010 and it promptly sold out. Now, X is back. We have bottled some X and it is currently available in bottles only at Malthouse, Hashigo Zake and Long Beach Café in Waikanae.

However, the brewery team ran out of the special big bottles before they ran out of the special beer. That means there are currently six kegs of Tuatara X up for sale to deserving hospitality venues (or even ambitious private residences). To order a rare keg of X, contact Will Cass (Tuatara Business Brewer/Sales Manager) as soon as possible. This is a blog-exclusive announcement – it is not appearing anywhere else.

Speaking of bottles, one of our beloved bottling crew left recently so the Tuatara creative team whipped up a short job ad to put up on Trade Me. It was a little irreverent and (we thought) quite funny. Here is a sample of the text:

“What’s better than doing nothing much? Doing nothing much in a brewery and being paid for it. We’re looking for a man who takes the beer and puts it in a box. Beer. Box. Beer. Box…

We don’t mind what you wear to work – the same shirt you wore to town last night or a batman cap and utility belt – just so long as the job gets done.”

It turns out we were not the only ones to be amused by the “Beer and boxes seek strong man for threesome” advert. In the first five days it got 41,000 views. Even though the vacancy has since been filled, people are still clicking on to view it with the hit counter currently sitting at over 45,000.

As well as providing some laughs, the ad actually worked. Tuatara received over 500 job applications – some very serious, some so funny they made the office staff snort beer out of their noses. We are currently checking the privacy implications involved in sharing some of the very best applications on this blog.

Cheers from the team at Tuatara

Tuatara Up Five in Fast 50

Last week we received the great news that not only had Tuatara Brewing Company retained our place in the annual Deloitte Fast 50 Index, we had actually improved our ranking five places from 39th to 34th. The Deloitte Fast 50 has measured the fastest growing Kiwi businesses for ten years. Tuatara was one of just fifteen companies to be listed both years and was the only brewery on either list.

At the risk of getting a little pointy-headed, Deloitte ranks businesses based on their annual revenue growth. In 2009, our revenue growth rate was 188.48% while for 2010 that figure leapt to 248.40%. To qualify, companies had to be New Zealand registered businesses operating for at least three years with operating revenue of at least $300,000 in 2007/2008.

In one of our rare press releases, Director Sean Murrie said he was delighted by the result:

“This is our tenth year in operation and it has been a big one for the company. We have worked hard to expand our brewery in Waikanae, bought on a logistics partner to improve our distribution, boosted our sales team and even started exporting. At the same time, the focus has been on keeping beer quality up as evidenced by our medal hauls at the 2010 BrewNZ Beer Awards and Australian International Beer Awards.”

Sean said it was great effort to improve on last year’s outstanding result. He gave credit to the entire Tuatara team – in the brewery, at the office and on the road – because the ranking was based on their hard work and dedication.

Our friends at the Brewer’s Guild of New Zealand chimed in writing:

“Tuatara Brewery has made it on to the Deloitte’s Fast 50 Index for the second year in a row. This is further evidence of the burgeoning craft beer sector in New Zealand.”

We’d like to thank the Guild and their indefatigable chairman David Cryer for all the work they do to build the craft beer industry every day. At the risk of beginning to sound like an Oscars speech, special thanks also go all the stockists and customers who got in touch by phone, Facebook, text or Twitter to send their congratulations. We literally couldn’t have done it without you guys.

Sales Manager Will Cass has recently launched the first ever Great New Zealand Tuatara Hunt (with prizes). Basically, he wants to know where people are finding Tuatara out there, especially in Auckland. He knows about most of the big supermarkets (now including Woolworths and Countdown) and liquor stores (now including Liquor King and Liquorland) but is interested in the smaller places.

Here is how the Tuatara Hunt works – post your hot tip to our Facebook Wall or email your inside knowledge to us. Will has promised that the most helpful finders will get some “yummo” Tuatara for their help.

Cheers from the team at Tuatara