Brew | Craft Beer Pub
What makes your venue the Best Gastropub in New Zealand?
We don’t know if it’s the best. It’s just bloody good. We love it and our people love it. Its reason for being is to showcase and share the beer we have invested our lives in creating. We also reinvest in our community. We are proud supporters of the Rotorua Mountain Bike Club’s First Response Unit - a free rescue service for users of the Whakarewarewa forest, our local mountain biking Mecca.
Describe the experience your customers have at your establishment – what is your food and beverage offering and why do people come back for more?
Brew was created to showcase our beer: the local beer. Our beer selection is based on our own but supplemented with those from quality brewers we love. Our cornerstone wines and gins are locally produced by good friends. The rest of the offering is rounded out with quality products from producers we love and where possible share values.
Tell us how you showcase NZ produce / offerings? Does your menu change with the season and how is it locally influenced. How do you accommodate allergy and dietary requirements?
As discussed above, our drinks offering is “hometown” local first followed by friends of the brewery (also New Zealand) and other NZ beverage providers. Our food is fresh so by necessity is primarily New Zealand produce. Our chef is English and approaches this with fresh and enthusiastic eyes as something exotic and exhilarating which is apparent when you dig into his fare.
What are your key points of difference and how have you managed to deliver them?
Our fundamental point of difference is that we are the local brewer in a tourist hotspot. We do our best to make sure we have a balance of regular favourites and seasonal curiosities. Our food offering varies as we do not follow a formula or have a particular theme. We choose the best chef we can find and work with them to execute their flair and show off their skills.
Please describe your commitment to sustainability.
Our primary product is kegged beer produced by us in the immediate vicinity of our Pub. The ingredients we source are dry and or dehydrated so coupled with the short distance from the brewery to the pub our carbon footprint from source to glass is very low. Couple that with no secondary packaging (cans, bottles, cardboard boxes, pallet wrap etc etc) of this kegged product and we have a very sustainable, low carbon model.
Have you won any awards in the recent past? Tell us about them.
Rotorua Hospitality Awards, Outstanding Bar: 2023 (no awards run in 2022), 2021, (No awards run in 2020), 2018, 2017, 2014, 2013!
Please describe how you create ambience.
Outside we have been blessed with a geothermally heated covered hospitality precinct which creates atmosphere in a of itself. There’s nothing like the buzz of a busy Eat St. In our section, we have brought elements of a tropical Japanese bonsai and kokedama garden with obligatory hop vines winding their way through the superstructure and large banana palms grown in beer kegs completing the picture.
