Putting them away with JK: We attend an Event at Tuatara’s new brewery

It’s 9:50am and the glit­ter­ati of Par­a­pa­raumu are itch­ing to get they drank on. Out­side the brand-new Tuatara Brrry (or Brew­ery, as it’s known on paper), they huddle under the awn­ing to escape a rain that nev­er falls, hug­ging the out­er wall of the benighted edi­fice – hop­ing, per­haps, to osmose their way to double-vis­ion. But not a drop’s to be drunk until the Prime Min­is­ter arrives for his sched­uled rib­bon-cut­ting. At this rate we’ll still be sober at 10. Sad­face.

After a year’s con­struc­tion, the new brrry looks set to inaug­ur­ate an excit­ing new dec­ade in the life of a Wel­ling­ton suc­cess story. Tuatara was foun­ded in 2001 (though as we’re reminded at every oppor­tun­ity, its true gen­es­is came some time earli­er with blokes in the pub and kiwi ingenu­ity round behind the cow­shed and so on). As any­one fond of “X is the new Y” con­struc­tions will tell you, beer is the new wine is the new mead is the new… whatever Aus­tralo­pithecus used to get rat-arsed on; but back when founder Carl Vasta began brew­ing craft beers in a moon­shine shack above Waik­an­ae (tin shed, oil-drums, #8 wire, etc, etc), no one could have known just how rap­idly the com­pany would grow. No one ever went broke, as they say.

The PM is close now. Hairy plaid-shirt hip­sters rub shoulders with shiny-browed bur­rhe­ads in busi­ness cas­u­al; through them stride the event’s over­lords, whose jeans/blazer com­bos bring a spark of Crockett/Tubbs Vice to a crowd­ful of Conchords and Appren­tices. Over­alls and slo­gan-shirts (“Don’t just open a beer, open your mind”), topped off with here-for-the-beer sneers, mark the ven­ue’s proles from the pun­dits. Watches are checked reg­u­larly; cell­phones bring by-the-minute updates on the PM’s pro­gress. (And, strictly speak­ing, render the watches redund­ant.) Pal­lets of vir­gin glass – “330 NZGM AMBER L/NECK” – fence off the court­yard like an FPS bar­ri­cade.

The brrry­’s loc­ated halfway down an indus­tri­al cul-de-sac whose oth­er res­id­ents include a glass­works and a met­al-form­ing out­fit. Behind a stiff-look­ing dude in pin­striped gray and Secret-Ser­vice ear­wear, a chain­link fence divides the Tuatara boutique from its closest neigh­bour, Youth Quest, which provides a safe space for troubled and trouble-prone young men. (“They’re good guys,” says the organ­iz­a­tion’s Jeremy Neeve of his new neigh­bors: “They’re not going to force our boys to drink.”) The boys are out on break, toss­ing a league ball around: a half-dozen young guys with uniron­ic rat-tails and sev­er­al orders of mag­nitude more melan­in between them than this whole crowd com­bined.

And then, down past Zion Motors and Shut Up! Stor­age, rolls the Prime Min­is­teri­al motor­cade. The Kapiti Brass Band warms up with droopy parp-parp moans that call to mind the con­clu­sion of a ‘Tara-fueled even­ing out on the pull. The atmo­sphere is elec­tric: We’re about to hit the turps! And also John Key’s here.

The PM asks one of the over­all-clad brrrrs what he does: “mod­el­ing” is the lac­on­ic reply. Key’s eye­balls are held in their sock­ets by force of squint alone. We’re ushered to the podi­um, where the Tuatara brass are wax­ing Carne­gi­an about drive, focus, atti­tude, and a little Kiwi Ingenu­ity so’s we know this is no place for woofters. Gen­er­al man­ager Sean Mur­rie touts Tuatar­a’s impress­ive growth – 40% even in a peri­od of inter­na­tion­al stag­na­tion – and praises his com­pany’s product for hav­ing broken out of the beer-geek niche. (“Judas!” a plaid-shirt tra­gic­ally fails to yell.) With an off-license cater­ing to the pub­lic, and an on-license for walk-ins immin­ent, Mur­rie says he looks for­ward to offer­ing pub­lic tours, “because a brrry­’s usu­ally a pretty sterile envir­on­ment.” Well, thanks, buddy.

Kapiti may­or Jenny Row­an thanks Tuatara for remain­ing in the region, even as this Wel­ling­ton favor­ite expands nation­wide and out into Aus­tralia and bey­ond: “In this eco­nom­ic cli­mate we’re always talk­ing about cre­at­ing employ­ment, spe­cially for our young ones.” Key fol­lows her lead, using the brrry open­ing as a lead-in for an exeges­is of his party’s policy re: The Grog.

“If we want to change the binge-drink­ing that’s hap­pen­ing in a small fac­tion of New Zea­l­and, we need to change the cul­ture,” Key tells his audi­ence: “It’s not about drink­ing until you get wasted. That’s the thing I tell young people all over the coun­try.” The vast major­ity of New Zeal­anders, says Key, like to reach into the fridge for a beer (sin­gu­lar) after a hard day’s work or on a hot Sat­urday – and it’s this impulse that craft-beers like Tuatara serve.

Inside (with the beer!), elbow-to-elbow crowds line up for a hit of the stuff that’s power­ing all this to-do. Roof-to-floor plac­ards offer insights into the Tuatara brew­ing pro­cess (tl;dr: use really expens­ive ingredi­ents and don’t fuck it up). Posters derid­ing the stu­pid-wank­er mean­ing­less­ness of awards are bolstered by shelves piled gen­er­ously with well-earned same. Tuatar­a’s 2012 lim­ited-edi­tion, the double-IPA Double Trouble, sits view­able with 3D glasses for the brew’s sig­na­ture label. (The Craft Beer Moment has appar­ently entered its “Mar­vel Com­ics circa 1996” or “Hol­ly­wood movies circa 2009” phase.) The Double Trouble’s not avail­able on tap as offered – piss-up in brew­ery threatened by organ­iz­a­tion­al over­sight! – but the com­pany’s oth­er offer­ings are quaffed lust­ily, mod­estly and sens­ibly. Mr. Key’s “small fac­tion” of prob­lem-drink­ers evid­ently mis­placed its invite.

And I think it’s import­ant to state, on the offchance that read­ers might be look­ing for some insight into the “beer” por­tion of this event, that while your cor­res­pond­ent is usu­ally a $15/doz Haa­gen man, the Tuatara APA is freak­ing deli­cious and I fancy I could drink a whole glass (if I wer­en’t driv­ing, which of course because the Pram, and if it did­n’t make me ill, which of course because beer; sorry, should have men­tioned that earli­er). If this is what it’s like to have a beer with John Key (stand­ing next to you), our PM just passed every­one’s favour­ite polit­ic­al yard­stick with fly­ing col­ors!