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!