Why did the Brewery on Britomart close

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Permalink Reply by Peter Smith on March 14, 2013 at 12:22am

This is truly sad, I think they made good beer, obviously not enough people willing to part with $$$ agreed.    

Maybe they didn't have the cashflow to support there initial fit-out investment....

There are a lot of struggling bars in AKL,   bar prices vs supermarket prices have grown too far apart IMHO...  I never found brew on brit to be massively expensive but then i cant spend $9 on pints that often....

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Permalink Reply by Chad Keven on March 14, 2013 at 9:29pm

it is a sad loss;  i went a couple times and liked their beers, I talked to the owner/brewer and he was a real nice guy (Lawrence) He opened up to me and said that it hadn't been plain sailing with compliance costs etc, He had to retrofit alot of stuff in the building as well.

It must be very difficult to get right; location/premises, food, choice of beer/food, entertainment etc then you have the normal business stuff, staff, admin etc, etc, etc...

I maybe way out of line here but the one criticism I have is that their beer was a bit on the strong side ie; I would rather have 4-5 tasty session beers 4-5%ABV @$8 each than 3 strong buggers 6-7+%ABV @$9 each.

so I would rather spend $40 on weaker beer, stay longer than say $27 and feel all pissy eyed, (I am a bit of a light weight) I went once and had 3 beers all over 6.5%. Therefore they would maximise sales not profit.

Also what Peter said is bang on, the cost of on license, good craft beer is prohibitive and the culture of "grabbing a box" is very engrained in alot of people, they probably know the beer in the brewpub is 100x better but are not prepared to risk being caught by the porkers driving home after a couple of dubbels.

Dunno, could be wrong, Britomart will be missed

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Permalink Reply by Peter Smith on March 15, 2013 at 11:14am

I had 4 pints of the 69 ipa, and rolled home,  seriously I swear it was way over 6.9% that day.

So why in Wellington can a place like taphaus survive?   or is it too not as rosey as appears,  I have walked past on a sat night at 930 and it was empty ...

young guys goto where the girls are drinking and girls dont really gush on hoppy 6.9% beer.

unless you home brew, craft beer is a treat not a staple

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Permalink Reply by G S on March 16, 2013 at 7:51pm

Yeah, it's a real shame, they were great guys. Not all the beers were that strong, the element 5 was session able, but you wouldn't be driving home. I'm a frequent bus user home from town, so ok there.

Personally the 'gastropub' thing didn't really do it for me. The chrome and sit down tables distracted from it being a great place to enjoy some nice beers, and the food was good pub grub, but not really that super flash. Perhaps trying to be too many things for too many people? It's must be a hard yard making ends meet in the Auckland bar/ restaurant industry though.

Heard the folks who own everybodies are taking over, green bottle bar, but could be worse. Don't know what's happening to all the shiny bling, there's a lot of good beer can be made from there still.

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