Winston Churchill famously said, "We shape our buildings, and afterwards our buildings shape us."

He was speaking about re-building the House of Commons, destroyed in 1941 by "one of the last bombs of the last serious raid," but his words still ring true today.

In Dunedin we're lucky to enjoy our country's finest built heritage. And in The Bond laneway, we're moving into the quarter that was centre of New Zealand's maritime trade (and the third busiest port in southern hemisphere) when built.

This legacy of gold-rush prosperity and slum (Devil's Half Acre was just across Princes Street) is why we can't wait to get started.

It invites you to explore both past and present, making connections between old and new.

Our new building is bringing this to life in a spectacular way. It's inspiring to see such care and attention to detail, preserving as much as modern codes permit.

These codes aren't shaped for old buildings. With further delays in finalising the structural and fire safety plans, the fitout of our brewery and taproom will now run into next year.

See you in 2020.

Paul & Karen

They say you should plan for a new brewery to take twice as long and cost three times as much.

We approached our plan with this in mind but having anticipated it would take twice as long, we now expect it will take twice as long again. And that's both frustrating and exciting.

Frustrating because we can’t wait to get started and share with everyone the beer we’ve worked so hard on.

Exciting because we consider ourselves very lucky to be going where we are.

The work on the building is turning out even better than we hoped, and is already giving the laneway a real lift.

Roll on spring!

Paul & Karen

Five years ago we were freezing in a shed behind Spelt Bakery when we decided to go for it.

Looking back, we barely knew what it was, but we knew what it wasn't — making beer in a shed without electricity, without hot water, and with louvered windows stuck open.

Moving to Wharf Street we picked 'Steamer Basin' because we loved the link to Dunedin's heritage but also, we'd come from 'steam brewing' in the shed. (When it was 4° outside it was 4° inside, and during the boil it was like being in a sauna, with condensation dripping off the ceiling.)

We've now moved out of our room in Wharf Street to make way for the expansion of Blue Water's shop. This means we'll be taking an enforced break until we start manufacturing in our new premise.

It gives us a chance to catch up and do some backyard brewing on our Farra brewkit.

It took us nearly a year to launch Steamer Basin after making that decision, so it feels like we've come full circle.

We'll come back bigger and better, and we hope you join us for the next five years.

Enjoy!

Paul & Karen

The biggest change in moving to a bigger brew system is we’ll actually be manufacturing beer.

(In New Zealand brewing any amount of commercial beer outside your home — even 50L batches — is classed as ‘manufacturing’ for both zoning and excise, limiting where you can brew and what you can earn.)

When brewing at ‘nano’ scale, you do everything by hand, and at each stage you’re touching, smelling, and tasting the beer you’re making.

With our new system we’ll be using dials and pumps to produce the beer. We’ll sample and test, of course, but our handiwork won't be as hands on.

That’s ok, because while making beer is hugely satisfying, it takes a huge amount of work to keep running.

Even if we just make enough to get by, manufacturing beer will be far more rewarding.

Enjoy!

Paul & Karen

Of all the reasons we’re looking forward to our new brewing system the biggest is temperature control.

That’s because until now, we’ve had none. We’ve done everything after the boil — fermenting and re-fermenting in the bottle — at room temperature.

This has made it hard to ‘rinse and repeat’ each batch, and turned carbonating our beer into art vs. science.

We’ll now be able to dial in the temperature for fermenting and drop the temperature for carbonating.

So will our beer still be variable? In a word, yes!

We’ll have much more control of over every step in the process but we won’t be aiming to make our beer consistently identical, like Coke / Pepsi.

Photo: Gladfield Malt

Instead, we’ll be aiming to make it consistently good, like you enjoy from one vintage to another in a wine.

Enjoy!

Paul & Karen

Compared to deciding how big, choosing our brewing system was easy. We wanted equipment made locally, and we needed a custom-fit design.

Fortunately we already knew of the setup at Victoria Store Brewery in Clyde. The 1200L brew system, which sits on a 2-level platform in the middle of Olivers restaurant, is a mini marvel of brewery design and fabrication.

Our system will be similar in design and has the same focus on functionality. We’re looking for a Toyota, not Ferrari, and we love that most of the equipment is from upcycled beer or recyled dairy tanks.

New Zealand is lucky to have fantastic welders — you only need to drive past a Fonterra plant to see just how lucky — and here in the South, a still thriving tradition of can-do and make-do ingenuity.

And we think beer made in Dunedin, brewed on equipment made in Invercargill, is a fantastic way to celebrate our place.

Enjoy!

Paul & Karen

We started Steamer Basin with the idea of being a neighbourhood brewer. With a 50L brewkit, we imagined we could ‘make and sell’ enough beer to get by.

We were wrong.

That’s partly because New Zealand doesn’t give tax breaks to small brewers — unlike Australia, Canada, UK and US — but mostly because of all the non-brewing costs of getting it going.

Even selling beer directly, you simply can’t make enough to justify the time and effort it takes to keep a ‘nano’ brewery running. So in planning our expansion, we spent a lot of time asking “How big?”

In the end we’ve gone as big as our budget and premise allow.

We’re getting a 1500L system that can make 7500L at capacity. We feel it’s the best size for a small brewery like ours, making seasonal beer using local ingredients.

It’s big enough we’ll now be able to say “Yes!” when people ask if:

• they can sell our beer in their bar or restaurant
• we have a taproom at our brewery

We’re really excited about the taproom, for we saw in Oregon how it provides a true brewery experience. You sit in the middle of the working brewery and sample beer fresh from the tap.

We’re looking forward to opening our doors in the coming months.

Enjoy!

Paul & Karen

They say that if you grow slowly you put down strong roots. We hope so, because after 4 years, we’re going to get a whole lot bigger.

So big we can call ourselves a brewery!

We’ve signed up for a lease in Dunedin’s historic Warehouse Precinct, just over the tracks from Steamer Basin wharf.

Picking a location is one of the toughest challenges in starting a brewery, but we had a clear idea of what we wanted:

• a brewery with taproom for people to enjoy our beer
• a meeting place that is family friendly
• a neighbourhood that is walk and bike friendly
• a destination with character that celebrates our place

We’re lucky to’ve found a heritage building that is a great fit for us. And it’s tucked down a laneway, waiting for discovery.

The building needs a lot of work before we can move in, but we’re excited about really becoming a neighbourhood brewer.

We look forward to sharing our progress over the coming months.

Enjoy!

Paul & Karen

There’s a saying that if you want beer to be any good, make it in small batches. Not because smaller is better, but because you brew more often.

We started Steamer Basin only knowing we didn’t know much. But with a 50L brewkit, we figured we could learn fast, brewing 2-3 times a week. We soon learnt that we barely knew anything, ending our first year where we started, with just 2 beers.

We found our path when we visited Oregon and got into our farmers market, inspiring us to make seasonal beer using local ingredients.

We’ve since continued to experiment quietly, striving to make well-balanced beer that’s enjoyable to share. Our ideas are not always great (Kimchi Pils) and don’t always work (Yumberry Wheat), but we always end up knowing more.

We’ve now reached the point where we’re focused on getting better. We’ll still be brewing new beers — we have 2 for the upcoming Dunedin beerfest and a backlog of other ideas — but we’re parking (Little Spelt) or re-purposing (Rye Saison into Sour Rye) any beers that can be better.

Because we’ve learnt that while brewing something new is fun, making good beer takes fine tuning and feedback. That’s why we’re really grateful for your support, sampling our beer and encouraging our efforts (“not bad”).

We’re planning to expand this coming year but even making bigger batches, we’ll work hard to stay small.

Enjoy!

Paul & Karen

All the beer we make started as a local beer somewhere else. We use yeast collected from those places — a Belgian monastery or British brewery — to make our own local beer, using local ingredients.

We brew local because we want to make beer that celebrates our place. But also, we want to support our local economy and environment.

In Hong Kong and Sydney we didn’t give much thought to ‘spending local,’ each city large enough to have its own internal economy. But here in Dunedin we can see the benefit of the multiplier effect.

We see it in the sustained growth of Gladfield Malt and NZ Hops. We see it in the seasonal variety at the farmers market. And we see it in our bank account, having sold our beer to a domestic or international tourist on Saturday.

And then, buying local is good for the environment, too. While we sometimes wish for the variety of a European malt or US hop, we’re lucky to have great products, made by great people, right on our doorstep.

In many ways, brewing with local ingredients is a return to the past. It’s how the classic beer styles we know today developed. But we also see it as the future. It’s how we see Dunedin beer becoming distinctive to our region.

Enjoy!

Paul & Karen