White Cliffs Organic Brewery

Like most people, at the age of 60, Mike Trigg retired from his over 20 year old engineering business and a life in South Africa, to enjoy life in New Zealand near one of his son's family and grandchildren. Five years later, Mike and his wife, Rene, share a business with their son, Ron and daughter in-law, Jill. Newely, proud owners of White Cliffs Organic Brewery, Mike and Rene gave up retirement for 70 hour weeks...and so far they love it. Not that they haven't had their share of new owner problems. Within the first month, half of their equipment broke down, including pipes that seemed to have no destination or beginning and a refrigerator and stove that called it quits in the middle of their first function.

Five months after the new purchase, Mike and Rene seem to really enjoy their new work. Additions, product increase and hopefully exports seem to be the future of New Zealand's smallest organic brewery.

Placed five kilometers from the nearest town of Urenui (I should pronounce this one in person) and 1.5 kilometers from the ocean, White Cliffs is set on four acres, mostly designated for avocado trees. A function center looks out over the farm with a small glimpse of the bright, light, blue-green water just over the hill. Young olive trees surround the actual brewery with lavender bushes aligning the car park. During the day, chickens roam the property while one lonely peacock looks for a mate.

Though a beautiful setting, brewing is definitely hard work. Sounds, temperatures, percentages, colors are all documented daily. Cleanliness is of the utmost importance. Just to handle empty bottles on bottling day requires meticulous attention to properly washing hands and spraying them with an alcohol mix. The antique machine used to bottle is at least 50 years old, according to the bottling veteran Gypsy. One-legged Gypsy has been around for the 15 years that the brewery has but is hoping to give it all up in December to teach little ones in Year Four.

Labeling and packing can only happen after the full bottles are stacked properly and have dried after being hosed down to remove the sticky beer. Packing is different depending on where the beer is going and which beer it is. Amazingly, there is a difference between 2 litre bottles and 330ml bottles. Stubbies are usually for individual consumption or restaurants, 4-packs are usually for stores and fridge packs are for in-house use. Don't follow my lead and pack 9 boxes of 4-packs as fridge packs and upon completion have to redo them all. OOOPS. Brewing day is a long one, but not really for WWOOFers. The wood fire has to be started about 5:30am! Luckily for Mike and Steve (the previous owner who has stayed on to help for six months), this provided them a break from doing small time projects around the property, like weeding. I think I aged 30 years in the few hours we weeded.

Here, they sell 2 kinds of beer: Mike's Ale and Mountain Lager. Both are absolutely fantastic! It takes about 6 days for the ale and 8-10 days for the lager to brew in primary fermentation before they are moved to secondary fermentation. The grain is imported from Germany and the hops is from the South Island. At around 20 days is when the beer may be moved to the cooler to await bottling. Brewing is probably one of the sciences that has the best reward-- a nice cold glass of beer at the end of the day. Though our stay was just a short 5 days, it was the best experience we could have asked for at White Cliffs Organic Brewery.