Brewery's end sparks call for a beer boycott

By JAMES GARDINER

DB Breweries has infuriated West Coasters with its decision to close Monteiths Brewing in Greymouth, prompting a call for loyal drinkers to boycott the beer range, which will now be made in Auckland.

DB managing director Brian Blake said less than three months ago that he did not expect any of the small breweries at Mangatainoka in the North Island and Greymouth and Timaru in the South to be closed.

Mr Blake was speaking after DB's parent, Asia Pacific in Singapore, said it was considering whether it needed three breweries in New Zealand. Asia Pacific is controlled by Heineken.

He said at the time that operations were constantly under review and that did not mean any of the breweries were under threat of closure.

But yesterday he took a different tack: "No, no, no, I didn't say that. You've misreported me if that's what you've said.

"What I said was that we were re-evaluating ... and that right there they weren't facing a threat but we would be re-doing the manufacturing options exercise early in the New Year and that's exactly what we've done."

West Coast-Tasman MP Damien O'Connor said people should stop buying Monteiths to show their opposition to "multinational consumption of minor players."

DB were "Dumb Bastards" for failing to recognise that the new approach to economic development in New Zealand meant consumers liked smaller enterprises and their innovation in food, wine or technology, he said.

"We're honest, we're blunt, we're upfront here on the Coast and we don't want some company bastardising a West Coast brand that we've promoted so proudly."

Fourteen staff have been made redundant, with severance cheques averaging $36,000.

The Monteiths range, 330ml bottles and kegs, will be made in Auckland as the West Coast plant is decommissioned over the next four weeks, possibly preventing any other brewer setting up on the premises DB bought in 1986.

"The whole West Coast is unhappy," said Grey District mayor Kevin Brown. Monteiths sales were up 250 per cent since 1995 while overall beer sales were down 27 per cent.

"Monteiths is a West Coast name. When it's made in Auckland it's not a West Coast product - and everyone will know that," he said.

Mr Blake was confident the Waitemata Brewery in Auckland, which had already begun making the keg beer, could reproduce the same taste.

The backlash was expected, he said, but DB would not change its mind, even if sales dropped. Prices would remain the same, although production costs would be lower in Auckland.

Tui, another DB product, is also largely produced in Auckland despite the Mangatainoka Brewery in the Wairarapa being the focus of marketing. Twenty-five staff are employed there, 38 at Timaru and 160 at Waitemata.