Nelson pub wins Best Pub in New Zealand Award
Nelson pub The Free House has been named the Overall Best Beer Venue in New Zealand, as voted for by readers of
Australia’s Beer and Brewer magazine and website.
The Free House owned by Eelco Boswijk and Mic Dover was named best large bar for more than 150 patrons, and also scooped
up Overall Best Beer Venue in New Zealand. MarchFest, Nelson’s annual craft beer and music festival, also won Best Beer
Event in the People’s Choice Category.
Co-owners of The Free House and Marchfest, Boswijk and Dover, said it was a "an ernormous fillip” to know they were
doing the right thing, especially with MarchFest coming up on April 6.
The Free House, launched in 2009 in a small converted wooden church in Nelson, was one of the first pubs in New Zealand
to be created from the philosophical standpoint of increasing, rather than restricting, the choices available to beer
drinkers. A free house is a pub untied to a single brewery. Most pubs today are still “tied houses” where brews from one
brewery or brewing conglomerate are the only drinks available to customers.
Since opening in April 2009, the pub has served on tap 440 different craft beers from 58 different Kiwi craft
breweries..
Marchfest, now in its sixth year, is the only beer festival in the southern hemisphere where all the beers served have
been specially brewed for the event.
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