Pete Gilespie - Co-Founder of Garage Project - with a can of the new Ghost Light beerWel­ling­ton based inde­pend­ent brew­ery Gar­age Pro­ject has released a new beer to sup­port NZ theatres and live per­form­ing arts. Work­ing in con­junc­tion with Wellington’s BATS Theatre, Auckland’s Base­ment Theatre, Christchurch’s Little Andromeda and oth­er inde­pend­ent theatres around the coun­try, the Ghost Light beer has been designed to ref­er­ence a tra­di­tion in the arts, and be the per­fect beer for enjoy­ing dur­ing a live per­form­ance.
It’s tra­di­tion in the theatre that when theatres close their doors, an elec­tric light is left illu­min­ated on stage to keep the res­id­ent ghosts happy. Dur­ing lock­down, these Ghost Lights have been burn­ing bright on stages around the globe. Good for the ghosts, not so for those in the Arts. Brewed with extra light malt, oats, and a blend of Citra and Nel­son Sau­vin hops, Ghost Light is a bril­liant white gold brew with a dis­tinctly spec­tral haze.
Pro­ceeds of the Ghost Light beer go dir­ectly to sup­port­ing theatres around New Zea­l­and. They’ve have been hit hard with Cov­id-19 clos­ures, can­cel­ling sea­sons, pivot­ing to stream­ing shows online and being forced to dra­mat­ic­ally rethink how they are going to oper­ate and sur­vive mov­ing for­ward. With NZ going back into level 2 and 3, the future is still very uncer­tain. An already stretched industry that relies on ‘live bod­ies in space’ is ser­i­ously strug­gling.
Gar­age Pro­ject wants to encour­age beer lov­ers and theatre lov­ers alike to sup­port loc­al inde­pend­ent theatre, either by being in the room togeth­er (if they can) or by buy­ing a brew that keeps a light on in the dark.

With label art by Julia Mur­ray