Yeastie Boys: Movin’ on up
Ground-breaking New Zealand brewers – Yeastie Boys – today announced a new contract brewing relationship for their
award-winning craft beer in New Zealand. From September, Yeastie Boys’ deliciously irreverent core range of ales will
move north and be brewed in partnership with new Auckland brewery Urbanaut.
Kingsland-based Urbanaut are new to the New Zealand beer scene, only opening their doors in May, but have a long history
in craft beer. Founder and Brewing Director, Bruce Turner, worked for a decade at London’s Fuller’s and Meantime
breweries, where he forged a relationship with Yeastie Boys’ founder Stu McKinlay as the latter set up a UK brewing
operation.
“We’ve been thinking of brewing in the North Island for some time already, given it’s our main market in New Zealand and
the timing is perfect given our domestic sales grew by over 40% last year” said Yeastie Boys’ Creative Director Stu
McKinlay. “The Urbanaut team ticked all the boxes that we wanted in a partner: the perfect size, an astute bunch of
founders, a brewing team focused on the highest quality, and the ability to package in cans – a format that has been
hugely successful for us in the UK.”
Choosing Yeastie Boys as a partner was an easy decision for Urbanaut, who are concentrating on their local Auckland
market with a classic range of styles. Bruce Turner elaborates: “Yeastie Boys have an innovative and offcentre beer
offering, which adds a bit of fun for our brew team and in our cellar room. They’re an established brand with a solid
production plan, which works in nicely with our growth plans and allows us to get the most out of our team and gear.”
Yeastie Boys, who also brew in Australia and United Kingdom, have chosen to move their core range production closer to
their biggest New Zealand markets (Auckland and Wellington) as their brewing partner of 9 years – Invercargill Brewery –
scales back contract production services to concentrate on a new events and live entertainment offering.
“Invercargill have been an integral part of the Yeastie Boys story… they have brewed every one of our New Zealand
releases since day one and have been great friends since long before that” said Mr McKinlay. “Although it’s somewhat sad
to move on, we’re immensely excited about the future of both businesses, and we’re excited about continuing to work on
collaborative projects with Steve Nally and his Invercargill Brewery team in the future.”
ENDS
About Yeastie Boys:
Yeastie Boys is an award-winning New Zealand based brewing company, without their own commercial brewery, who brew in
New Zealand, United Kingdom and Australia. The brainchild of Stu McKinlay and Sam Possenniskie - two of New Zealand's
leading beer activists – the Yeastie Boys have been picking up trophies, poking their tongues out at convention, and
receiving critical acclaim since their launch in 2008.
The Yeastie Boys are leftfield enough to be one of the few breweries who regularly receive hate mail (for their infamous
Rex Attitude) but are pleased to report they occasionally receive love letters too! Their beers are available regularly
in New Zealand, Australia, USA, Singapore, Japan, China, Netherlands, Italy and United Kingdom.