When we looked forward to 2024 we'd figured our brewing process and that gave us cause for optimism.

But after a road bump with faulty equipment we've run into our economic recession, now worse than the GFC.

We've not just seen but felt that squeeze on consumer spend. Weekly regulars who only come every 3 or 4 weeks, or just have 1 instead of 2-3 drinks. True fans who explain their absence on household expense (food and fuel), debt (mortgage), or overheads ("two teenage boys").

This combined with rising costs of our own means we often question what we're doing, and why we continue. Worse, we forget that it makes a difference.

Because good food and drink, whether round the corner from home or halfway across the world, is best enjoyed with others.

Whether striking up conversation over a beer or sharing a slice of pizza with Tank, these connections are what makes it memorable.

So we take heart from Neil, who's run his car dealership for 30 years, when he tells us his motto is "Keep turning up."

To be a part of something, you must show up.

Paul & Karen

When asked "Are you the brewer?" the easy answer is "We both are."

Easy because it's true — we create and make beer together — and easy because it shuts down the casual sexism.

But we stumble to answer because we don't consider ourselves brewers. We make beer and we see ourselves as beer makers.

For like wine makers, we aim to bring out the best of our ingredients, from selecting the malt, hops, and yeast to carbonating and conditioning the fermented beer.

And yes, doing it well requires brewing knowhow but for us the process is merely a means to our end: good beer.

We think this is best found when locally grown and made, and is surely what makes beer so special.

Enjoy!

Paul & Karen

They say ripples are made by those reckless enough to jump into the ocean, and having never brewed before we came to Dunedin, we can relate to that.

But more and more, we've come to think ripples are made by those reckless enough to swim outside the flags.

We see it when people venture up the laneway and we hear it when they strike up conversation for the first time.

It's what we hoped for, a place you can chat without shouting and meet new people at just the friendly wag of a dog tail.

WB Yeats may've romanticised these moments of connection when he said "There are no strangers here, only friends you haven't met" but watching these ripples really is magic.

And it's really, really encouraging when our only advertising is word of mouth.

Enjoy!

Paul & Karen

When we looked forward to 2023 we didn't anticipate the spiralling cost of living, let alone brewing.

But if we ended 2022 much happier with our beer we enter 2024 happy — no, HAPPY! — with our brewing process.

It means we can now focus on our recipes and the fine tuning that, with your feedback, goes into making good beer.

And with the latest batch of our year-round recipes, Honey Pils and Blond IPA, we feel we've nailed it.

We can still, with money, make improvements to our equipment but after 2 hard years — covid rollercoaster + cost-of-living yo-yo — its cheering we're getting good.

Enjoy!

Paul & Karen

It's hard to believe we're coming up to 2 years of 'bigger and better.'

Hard because it's somehow gone incredibly quickly and incredibly slowly. And hard because after 2 years we're still scraping by.

But it's been personally rewarding, too.

When every step is a scramble, it drives you to draw on all of your capacity. And when you have no money, it forces you to be creative.

Karen's $0 planter, made from spare & salvaged parts

With just the 2 of us it's easier to figure a path and make decisions on the run, but also, to lean on each other when things don't go to plan.

We simply wouldn't have got this far without each other.

We've still got lots of ideas for improvement but for now, we're hoping you'll join us celebrating our milestone over Matariki Weekend.

Thanks!

Paul & Karen

We use local ingredients to make seasonal beer. Sometimes they are 'true' seasonals (eg. late summer Plum Brown) but sometimes we simply decide a season that suits (eg. Oatmeal Stout in winter).

That's because we want our beer to evoke a time and place.

We're not aiming for sameness. If you enjoyed our Petite Saison last year we want you enjoy the next one, even if the malted barley and hops from the next harvest are slightly different.

This variation is what makes our beer so fun to make (and hopefully to drink). And the risk it can go wrong — when making a beer for Wild Dunedin, for example — only adds to that enjoyment.

But it can be frustrating, too.

We've found it hard this past year to source yeast strains when we want them. That's meant shelving some beers and brewing others out of season.

We hope to get back on track as shipping availability and cost improves.

Until then, if you find a beer you enjoy drinking make the most of it!

Paul & Karen

Of all the 'bigger and better' things we looked forward to manufacturing topped our list.

But if there's a hard way to do things we'll find it, and even at bigger scale we can't stop making.

That's because we want our beer to celebrate our place. When we brew our Cherry Sour, for example, you'll enjoy a beer with lapin cherries from Sarita Orchard, Cromwell (thanks Matthew!).

And while it takes time and effort to, say, pit 25 kg of cherries or pick 4.5 kg of elder flowers, we find it hugely satisfying when it adds a subtle distinction to our beer.

It's a subtlety you don't get from off-the-shelf purees, syrups, or concentrates, and a distinction you can't get from imported ideas and ingredients.

It's beer made here with ingredients from here.

Fresh off the tap, it's really rewarding.

Enjoy!

Paul & Karen

When we signed up for 'bigger and better' we imagined becoming a third place for people to meet, gather, and linger. We didn't foresee an empty neighbourhood, hollowed out by isolation and WFH.

So we're glad to have 2022 behind us. It's been a hard year — harder than our lockdown disrupted launch in 2021 — but we're hopeful that 2023 will be better.

We're now much happier with our beer and if we look back, can see just how much we've improved these past 12 months.

We still face financial stress — material price rises, interest rate hikes, compliance cost increases — but it's hugely motivating to come closer to our goal of brewing consistently good beer.

And we've really enjoyed chatting with visitors from all around New Zealand, and increasingly, from all over the world.

It can't beat the happy buzz of a full taproom but the upside of our quieter moments has been getting to know many of you.

We're really, really thankful for your support.

Thanks!

Paul & Karen

We started Steamer Basin with a 50L brewkit, figuring we could learn fast brewing 2-3 times a week. We soon learnt that we barely knew anything, but with weekly feedback from the farmers market, built up a range of 40 beers.

Coming here, we figured we'd spend all our time 'scaling up' these beers before attempting anything new. Instead, we've so far brewed 4 new for every 6 old … and we're about to brew another 2 new.

Why so many? In a word, fun!

For starters, we can now make cold fermenting lagers. We've made 3 so far, using 3 different yeasts, and we've got another planned, with aim of selecting the best for spring-summer and fall-winter seasons.

Then there's festival beer. We love the challenge of using a wild ingredient to help celebrate Wild Dunedin, and with manuka and wakame, walking a tightrope to make balanced beer. Next year's theme is soil, so no safety net!

And not least, there's the fun of reimagining old beers like Dampfbier, a German steam beer once popular in rural Bavarian towns and villages. (With a name like that how could we resist?)

Of course, we've learnt over the years that while brewing something new is fun, making good beer takes fine tuning and feedback.

So we'll continue scaling up our old beers as we welcome your take on our new.

Enjoy!

Paul & Karen

Like Belgian brewers, we don't make beer to 'fit' any particular style. But like cooking, we look to the classics for inspiration.

Sometimes that starts with an ingredient, grown or gathered within 100 miles of here, but is often inspired by a description.

Like our Extra Stout, based on an 1883 Guinness recipe with just 3 malts, or our Old Medlar, using a fruit once popular in medieval banquets (and as wordplay for writers like Chaucer and Shakespeare, since medlars can only be jellied after ‘bletting,’ or rotting).

Brewing these beers is as fun as drinking them because they allow — or even encourage — you to re-interpret them.

(No one knows what a medieval ale or 1800s stout tasted like but they were surely made for simple refreshment, the foundation of a flavoursome beer.)

Better yet, they inspire you to remake them using local ingredients. Combined with pure Dunedin water, filtered straight from the tap, you're getting the best of both worlds, old and new.

Enjoy!

Paul & Karen