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