Keeping it real at the Workshop
Tucked away in an old industrial building in Nelson’s New St that used to be used as storage for a liquor store is the very cool innercity Workshop Cafe´ Bar Brewery. Owned by Nigel Jerard and Jackie Aislabie, it has been a work in progress for a few months but The Workshop is now a fully functional brewery and cafe´ .
When I caught up with Nigel and Jackie, we talked about the history of the property, and some very old and familiar names popped up.
Who remembers Tingy’s Hardware, which had a shop on Bridge St with a paint and hardware store at the back? Since then, a liquor store that occupied the site needed less storage space, and the owners of the building set about finding alternative uses for the site.
Nigel and Jackie took over part of the building in November 2017, and spent three months renovating the space and building a brewery before they opened to the public at the beginning of February this year.
At that stage, the brewery wasn’t operational, so their beers were being made under contract by a brewery in Christchurch. They kicked off their own brewery with English-style real ales in June.
The Workshop is now a fully functional cafe´ and bar with a brewery tucked in the corner. While it serves beers that are carbonated and cold, the brewing focus is on real ales. These are handpulled direct from the casks they are conditioned in – don’t expect a cold, fizzy mainstream beer from the majority of The Workshop’s offerings.
Nigel brings a lot of brewing experience to the Workshop; he set up his first brewery in Christchurch in 1993. The Milkshed Brewing Co was located behind the suburb of Lincoln and was a brewery with an off-licence that was at the forefront of the craft beer revolution.
‘‘I was a young lad in my 20s, so it was a huge amount of fun, as well as being hard work – setting up a small brewery in the face of the two big corporate brewers of the day,’’ Nigel recalls.
He opted for a change of career, and picked up an electrical trade as an adult, but the call of the hop was just too loud to ignore. While still working as an electrician, he and Jackie set up The Workshop.
‘‘He is a very creative person – he put the whole concept of The Workshop together in his head and built it himself, so it has been a work in progress for a few months,’’ Jackie says.
Jackie brings her own set of skills to the business, with a background in sales and marketing for an artisan bakery in Christchurch as well as in administration, so she has those skills to call on for running The Workshop.
‘‘Someone has to deal with the paperwork, and she also works in the cafe´ and pours the odd beer,’’ according to Nigel.
The couple met about 10 years ago in Christchurch but insist they aren’t earthquake refugees.
‘‘We still have a property there,’’ Jackie says. ‘‘We lost one and established in another area, so we still have a strong connection to the region, but we have adjusted our lifestyle.
‘‘Nelson is our home town now, and will be for some time.’’
When they set up the new premises, Nigel and Jackie decided to use a shipping container as the bar and service area – which is a little nod to Christchurch but also fits with the industrial feel of the venue.
In contrast, the brewery is packed with modern equipment and stainless steel tanks. Nigel says that while it uses modern equipment to ensure consistency across the range of beers, the focus is most definitely on making beer ‘‘the way it was made back in the day, using casks to condition them naturally and then served at about 12 degrees rather than ice cold’’.
‘‘We adhere to the traditional methods of making and serving them. No artificial carbonation, no filtering, served from a lie-down barrel called a firkin – the beer is conditioned in them and served from them.
‘‘We don’t use gas to force the beer
‘‘Nelsonians supported us over the winter, and they tell us they like our point of difference.’’
Nigel Jerard
through the lines; it is literally handpumped or ‘pulled’ from the barrel.
‘‘A very experienced brewer works with us. John Golics has been brewing real ales from a very early age and has a wealth of knowledge and experience from his time growing up in England. He has been immersed in real ales all his life.’’
The plan is ‘‘to create a quirky, cool, funky brewery-restaurant-cafe´ that people will enjoy visiting and talk about to other people’’.
Jackie says the business has been growing steadily pretty much on word of mouth so far.
‘‘Nelsonians supported us over the winter, and they tell us they like our point of difference – brewing our own beer in the city centre in an industrial building, the Workshop is the only venue like this.’’
Mike McQueen is the head chef, and while Marianna Granat runs front of house from the converted shipping container, Mike gets to work in a space with a stage on top.
‘‘We wanted to have live entertainment without losing too much floor space, and the high roofline meant we could build the stage above the kitchen,’’ Jackie says.
‘‘We want to foster more live music, and we have a nice indoor space for that. We don’t have entry fees for live entertainment at this stage; we just want to get people in the door and to give them a good time.’’
The Workshop Cafe´ Bar Brewery has an extensive range of craft beers, ciders and wines from other producers, too, but will only ever have craft beer.
Nigel says the business’s philosophy is ‘‘to support the small guys’’. We are small, and we were very small taking on the big guys in the early days in Christchurch, so we know how hard it is for small businesses to do well’’.
The Workshop is open from Wednesday to Sunday, serving food and a wide range of beverages. . Nigel and Jackie recently applied for consent for a wood-fired pizza oven, so hopefully, pizzas will be on the way soon – and I will be lining up to enjoy one with my next handpulled real ale.
theworkshopbrewery.co.nz