What a Liberty

Ask any aspiring craft beer brewer wanting to make the leap from homebrew to production brewing and chances are that they’ll cite Helensville based Liberty Brewing as the business they would most like to model. Commercially savvy, entrepreneurial, effortlessly creative, proudly independent and successful.

Liberty was founded in 2006 and produces an eclectic range of distinctively branded beers.  

Owned and managed by Joseph and Christina Wood, who have known each since Kaipara College days, the brief backstory is that Liberty started in New Plymouth before coming ‘home’ to Helensville where it has significantly scaled up production.

Joseph was formerly head brewer at Hallertau and co-owner of the brewing side of Hallertau’s business, which is where Liberty beers were produced prior to the Helensville move.  Just like Hallertau founder Stephen Plowman, local acceptance is important, “We get heaps of support from our community who are proud of their local brewery, which is awesome,” Joseph says.

“We made Uprising for West Auckland Trusts, it’s our biggest growth beer.”

Liberty are famous for producing big, hoppy IPAs (India Pale Ale) and APAs (American Pale Ales). Knife Party, Yakima Monster, Yakima Scarlett and Citra are hugely popular among the craft beer cognoscenti but these hop monsters are increasingly accompanied by a range of supermarket friendly 6-packs of pilsners, pale ales and a new lager named Divine Wind which I had a glass of, with Joseph at the brewery recently. It’s pleasingly reminiscent of a traditional German lager - lots of flavour, a foamy head and not too gassy - a real lager. So far Divine Wind is only available in keg but Liberty are launching 6-pack cans at Taste of Auckland (16^th – 19^th November at Western Springs).  

Liberty is home to West Auckland’s own, ‘Uprising’ West Auckland Pale Ale (WAPA), brewed for Westies by Westies, “We made Uprising for West Auckland Trusts outlets and they’ve done a great job promoting it and helping make Uprising our biggest growth beer,” says Joseph.

The craft beer category however is getting crowded. According to ANZ’s 2017 Craft Beer Report there are now 194 craft beer breweries in New Zealand accounting for 10 per cent of national beer consumption and 6 per cent of overall sales. The report predicts some consolidation and even closures, and on cue, popular Renaissance Brewing has recently entered into voluntary liquidation.

Liberty competes well in the craft market and is on sale in supermarkets where competition for shelf space is fierce. A key battleground is the 6-pack segment, and with the Liberty range growing, their popular 500ml bottled beers like Yakima Monster are being launched in 6-pack can form, along with Oh Brother and Uprising.

The fight for consumer attention is waged across both quality and brand lines and in the craft beer industry, funky branding is the price of admission. A quick read of Liberty’s label notes or a watch of the Divine Wind promo video hints at their marketing irreverence.   

“we’re not in the business of keeping grocery store managers happy”

Each Liberty beer is distinctly labelled; the labels are a bit of a thing in themselves and fly in the face of a currently in-vogue craft beer marketing convention that seemingly dictates ‘brand-typing’. This is where a uniform look, colour and/or numerals are used to differentiate product lines. Joseph explains “The trend is towards a more generic looking product that grocery stores like because it’s easier to group and display, but we’re not especially in the business of keeping grocery store managers happy.”

Despite each labels’ dissimilarity there is a rationale says Christina, “We’ve worked with the same designer from the start and the typical process involves us giving him an idea and sometimes a story and he has developed a theme.” A common design language is apparent and if the aim was to stand out on supermarket shelves like a baboon’s arse, it works.   

Brewing craft beer can be fun but it’s cash intensive and it helps to have a business head on your shoulders explains Joseph, “Before becoming a professional brewer I was a manager with a shipping company which is a heavily regulated industry.” Brewing is also highly regulated but way more fun than a Bill of Lading explains Joseph, “We decide what we are going to do but this business is all about sales, distribution, marketing and branding. Producing quality beer is a head start, but it’s just a foot in the door really. It’s everything else that drives business growth”.

Some craft brewers have been bought by big brewers such as Upper Hutt based Panhead, acquired in 2016 by Lion Group and Tuatara, bought by Heineken-owned DB. Is Liberty expecting a call from one of the big brewing giants?

Joseph feels that rather than the big corporates calling, some craft breweries have set themselves up in a way to chart strong growth which makes their business look an attractive package to a prospective buyer, “What has happened in some cases is that the smaller brewers then approach the bigger breweries themselves”.

His own experience with big brewers has been positive, “We’ve found that they try and work with smaller brewers. Last year Lion approached us to collaborate on a special Lion Red, because part of our story is that we’re West Aucklanders, and Westies like Lion Red so we produced a special ‘Double’ Lion Red for them”.

Liberty is one of the bigger players in the ‘independent’ category, so surely the supermarkets are queuing to stock Liberty beer? No says Joseph, “Essentially you apply to sell your beer to them. Our 500-ml product usually gets in but in the hotly contested 6-pack segment, brewers with big marketing budgets tend to dominate”.

Christina is keen for Liberty to be seen widely in supermarkets, “We push for it but it’s expensive and there are hoops to jump through”. It’s volume versus profit margin says Joseph and supermarkets will act quickly with slow moving products, “Supermarkets offer volume sales but you need high turnover and if it underperforms, it’s dropped and it’s hard to get back in”.

“If Prohibition retailed it at regular retail it would be $25 a bottle not $10.”

Over the years Liberty has received many awards, recent highlights include the 2017 Brewers Guild of New Zealand Awards where they won silvers for Yakima Monster, Knife Party, Divine Wind and Halo Pilsner, while collecting bronzes for Citra, Yakima Scarlett, Elixir, Uprising and Oh Brother. Liberty won the overall trophy and gold medal in the ‘Specialty, Experimental, Aged, Barrel & Wood-Aged’ category, for Prohibition (a barrel-aged, 10.5% ABV Imperial Porter).

Prohibition is a labour of love born of a desire to bring great beer to a wider audience, “If Prohibition retailed it at regular retail price it would be $25 a bottle beer not the $10 it sells for”.  

“I knew it would be a great beer and didn’t want to compromise, so we bought about forty 400-litre bourbon barrels, stored it for a year and sold it at cost. We gave distributors a 15 per cent margin and retailers 25 percent – 40 per cent in total, so people can enjoy Prohibition for just $10 a bottle and taste a genuinely lifechanging beer,” says Joseph.

What advice would Joseph and Christina give to any would be home brewers wanting to go into business?

“It’s not a big cash cow” warns Christina, “There is a lot of tax involved and you need volume sales. Joseph thinks aspiring brewers need to be creative, “Think outside of the box - don’t follow the same path as your mate or us even. There are still plenty of options out there”.

Liberty will soon be opening a brand new ‘tasting room’, focussing on tastings and take-home sales in Helensville so customers can drop in, taste the range and buy what they fancy.   

‘Passion’ is an overused word these days but Joseph and Christina love what they do and working with their team, creating ideas and mashing them up, and Joseph is far from finished, “The sky’s the limit - I’d love to build a massive brewery here.”

Good on yer mate.