It’s been a busy few weeks for the Brothers Beer Brewery in Auckland, making and packing as much beer as they can — to send to China.
“Our last China order is literally double in size,” manager Dylan Adams told 1News. “It’s gone from one 40ft container to two and, you know, we get those orders pretty regularly.”
New Zealand boutique beer brands are taking a glass half full approach and tapping into chances with China. (Source: 1News)
The US was a big export competitor for beer makers here, but the price of American products has skyrocketed because of the recent tariff stand-off.
Now, China — the world’s biggest beer market — wants more of our product.
“They love big, hoppy beer; they love really high alcohol beer; and they love craft beer,” Adams said.
Other local brewers were also bottling along, such as Three Sisters in Taranaki.
“The most recent order’s about 20,000 cans that we’ll be sending over next month, and also along with about 300 kegs as well,” said founder Joe Emans.
He knew of around a dozen other Kiwi craft breweries that also exported to China and he expected they’d be benefitting as well.
Although the US and China were rolling back their tariffs, for 90 days at least, brewers here were hoping orders remained strong.
“I actually had a discussion with the distributor yesterday”, Emans said. “They were saying the uncertainty means they’ve got to make a plan, right? So let’s back New Zealand beer.”
Adams said any long term impacts remain to be seen, but added the demand couldn’t have come at a better time, with many in the sector struggling with sales.
“Probably from about February, March last year, they took quite a nose dive for all craft beer producers.”