The Year of the Tuatara (hopefully)

2010 just sped by and it is hard to believe that we are almost through the first month of 2011 already. The Tuatara team managed to have a bit of a break, indulging in some of our favoured pastimes including kite sailing (Carl), messing around in boats (Sean) and firing off a cannon to bring in the New Year (Will). It’s a family tradition apparently…

Tuatara could not take too much time off though because there is a huge demand for our beer over summer, particularly seeing the sun has actually come out a few times this year. There is nothing more embarrassing than a brewery running out of beer. Not saying that hasn’t happened to us once or twice, just that it is embarrassing when it does.

The big news, as revealed first on our Twitter feed, is that another 8,000 litres of Tuatara APA is ready. That is about 666 cases heading out shortly. Demand for this hoppy beast has been phenomenal but we did assure everyone that, just like Arnie, it would "be back!"

One Tuatara tradition that will not be back anytime soon is staff Christmas drinks where the crew polish off the low-filled bottles which cannot be sold. There were a fair number of these sitting around because the old bottling plant was, to be honest, old, only Carl really knew how it the thing worked and it seemed to break down every time he left the farm.

As a consequence, Tuatara has wisely invested in a new and much larger bottling plant. Carl went over to China to select the machine and it should be arriving around April-ish. We will give you all the geeky processing stats then and maybe even a few pictures too. The new bottler should make a huge difference to production and consistency.

Another innovation making a difference is the new Tuatara four-pack design. Four-packs are proving extremely popular at a number of supermarkets in the Progressives chain. The design of the four-packs will be tweaked and refreshed shortly as we consider rolling them out to more suppliers and outlets. There has been quite a debate in brewing circles about whether Kiwi drinkers would accept four-packs but in our experience at least the answer has been a resounding “yes!”

I know we have said it before but regular blogging should now resume for the rest of year. There is a lot of news coming and you can catch it here and on TuataraNZ Twitter. Here’s to a superb 2011.

Cheers
The Team at Tuatara