I mentioned in a previous blog that Wellington is known for coffee and beer – it has some of the best micro-brews I’ve ever tried and a variety that is astonishing. The first Wellington brewery I ever went to was the Garage Project, courtesy of my step-daughter and step-son who were attending Victoria University and showed us around.
The Garage Project is not only good beer, the founders seem to have taken it upon themselves to show the world what good Kiwi facial hair is all about:
They started the brewery 2011 in an old gas (petrol) station and auto garage that used to be run by a female race car driver and mechanic. It was small to start with what they call ‘nano brews’ which allowed them to experiment and try new things. When I first visited them in 2015, they hadn’t yet opened their new bar called the Tap Room – all that existed was the Cellar Door which is in the gas station where the brewery is. It’s a pretty simple affair with just a counter, a few chairs, and a small shop but offered free tastings from 8 different taps. We laughed at the names of the beers which included Texas Tea (I’m from Texas and this is NZ!), Pernicious Weed, Aro Noir (Aro is the neighborhood), Hapi Daze, Extraordinary Ordinary, Garagista, Golden Brown and Tournesol.
Welcome to the Garage Project.
To start with we’ll be tiny. This won’t even be micro brewing… it’ll be a truly nano brewery. What we lack in size we will more than make up for in agility and the ability to experiment.
When you’re brewing on such a small scale you can afford to take risks. You can try things on a 50 litre brew kit that you wouldn’t dream of attempting on a 50 or even 5 hectolitre brew kit. That suits us.
We’re here to try something new. We’re starting small. Want to see where we end up?
Since then, they have expanded and now have a bar called the Tap Room in Wellington. You can also find Garage Project beer in a lot of the pubs in Wellington now which is nice to see.
If you like my posts and want to be updated when new ones come out, follow me on WordPress or like my page on Facebook — www.facebook.com/LifeInNZ365/.
Wendy's Gone Walkabout 