Brewing hub gets a Boneface boost
Boneface Brewing, a new player in the craft beer industry, will soon be joining Upper Hutt’s beer hub.
With a five-year lease of a 1000 sqm space at the South Pacific Industrial Park, Boneface will be a near neighbour of the wellestablished Panhead and Kereru operations and next door to Te Aro Brewing which is relocating from Wellington.
Owner-operator Matt Dainty and backers are spending more than $500,000 on a business projected to produce 100,000 litres of bottled and kegged beer a year. Boneface will employ five people initially.
An experienced brewer, Dainty was at Blenheim’s Renaissance Brewery for several years before moving to Trentham with the plan to go out on his own.
‘‘It will be quite hard work because the [craft beer] market is quite saturated . But I have been in the industry for a long time and a lot of people have tried beers made with my own recipes,’’ he said.
Boneface will open on March 23 and offer bar and food areas seven days a week from 11am to 9pm.
‘‘I looked at a several different locations but always wanted to be in Upper Hutt. It’s near to Wellington and it offers plenty of affordable space.’’
Both Boneface and Te Aro are in the former Dunlop tyre factory building, handy to the Upper Hutt CBD. Landlord, Malcolm Gillies is developing the brewing hub to be marketed as Brewtown.co.nz.
‘‘That will be good for the people of Upper Hutt to come on down to something fresh and exciting,’’ Dainty said. ‘‘It will be a very good destination for the whole industry.’’
Gillies has plans with the city council for an outside seating promenade and communal garden areas at the front of the former tyre-making building.
Boneface and Te Aro, and other brewers Gillies hopes to attract, will have their public entrances here.
The Upper Hutt City Council has long marketed the area as an ideal location for the craft beer industry.
‘‘We know this is a growing industry and the interest is certainly there, the Brewday at Trentham showed that,’’ mayor Wayne Guppy said.
‘‘There is affordable space in Upper Hutt for new businesses. It’s a strength, and it is exciting that people are confident enough to make this kind of investment.’’