“این هم بگذرد

in npam begzard

And this too shall pass.”

Persian proverb.

In early 2025 the partners of North End Brewing Co are diverting paths and founding brewer Kieran Haslett-Moore is leaving the company amid a restructure. A new brewer is being sought.

Twelve years ago, the first commercial batch of the beer now known as North End Super Alpha was brewed at Townshend Brewery in the Moutere Valley. Back then North End didn’t even have a brewery name, was this the world’s first brewery flagship to predate its brewer’s brand? Perhaps. 

We went on to build a brewery and brew our flagship ourselves, it would go on to become 50% of North End’s production. 

The beer Martin Townshend brewed for us back in 2013 was at the time called Hoppy Wheat. It was what I then thought of as the ultimate beach beer, despite everything I still think that. You should drink it, even when I don’t make it. It is good, frequently great. 

Back in 2009 I was sat at the judging table next to Derek Walsh the genius, pedantic beer judge who was responsible for writing the NZ Pilsner style for competition ending years of anguish about where to enter our pilsners in competition. He waxed lyrical about how he had stayed with our mutual friend Brad Rogers on his way out to NZ and that Brad had created this new type of beer called Pacific Ale for his new Stone and Wood Brewery. According to Derek it was a New World answer to Belgian wit bier. He said it used wheat crispness, light refreshing body and new world hops to create a deeply refreshing beer that was a perfect poolside elixir before jumping into the deep blue. I soon tasted the beer, and it was everything Derek had promised. 

When I met my business partners, I was tasked with formulating a beer for a small seaside community which would satisfy locals and holidayers alike. Beer for the beach, beer for the summer, beer for the sun, beer for the sweaty. Derek’s words resonated in my head. 

Why isn’t it still called Hoppy Wheat? Because my idealism found it’s real-world resistance and we renamed it after the old name of the key hop variety involved in the recipe. I had wanted to teach people that wheat beer could be more than they thought, in reality I just put them off buying our beer by telling them it was a wheat beer. When we renamed it and changed the stated style to ‘pacific pale ale’ there was no stopping it. 

In 2012 I set about trialling various recipe variations on my home brewery. The comments about creating a modern wit bier kept bouncing around my head. I added coriander seed to the unusual NZ hop charge. North End might be one of a handful of brewers with contracts for Dr Rudi hops. Dr Rudi were once known as Super Alpha. When the variety was renamed Dr Rudi I named our beer after the old name of the variety as I had so much affection for it. For some reason It conjured up images of the old Hilman Super Minx car I grew up in. It was also a typically difficult act from me in the face of the wishes of the marketers. Old habits die hard. 

Despite, or perhaps because of my anti marketing the beer grew to over 50% of what our wee brewing company sold, what it still sells. People around the country might know North End for Become the Ocean or Bitter Sea or Iron Sands or Baby Grand, but the local market paid our bills with keg after keg after keg of Super Alpha, and that is a beautiful thing. And it hasn’t stopped. But the founding partners have decided on differing paths, and so I am leaving the story.

Now as I step away from the brewery I founded all those years ago I find cause to stop and consider how this beer more than any other has changed my life. Over the 12 years of brewing Super Alpha I have lost a romantic partner (she still lives) lost a father (he doesn’t) moved away from my home city, and seen my body turn from that of a relatively young 33 year old into the creaking aching reality of a 45 year old. I entered this game as a relatively young man, I exit it a middle-aged grey beard. I am trying to limit how much I shake my fist at the sky I promise. 

The prices were not just physical. I missed last Black Sabbath tours, I missed family birthdays, I missed trips away with old mates, I found myself on a coastal island hosting a beer dinner as my father died in Wellington and learnt of it by text message when my heart already knew it to be true. That is how the world works. Be careful what you wish for, you might just get it. Likewise, my boy-like enthusiasm has moved to, if not outright cynicism, at least healthy suspicion of how the world will treat and reward the intents of the idealistic. 

But don’t cry for me, I lived my dream. You do that, you pay the price one way or another, but you get to say, “I lived my dream, some days it was a nightmare”. Millions never get to say that. Billions never get to say that. I can say that. 

And so, I step away from my baby and like any parent hovering on the side of the yard glass at the 21st, I hope it walks the right way without my hand leading it. It will of course find its own way, with my blessing or not. 

Cheers

Kieran Haslett-Moore

Formerly Head Brewer North End Brewing Co.