Current owner Martin Jakicevich and two mates, Mark Young and Peter Thorpe, bought Sunshine in 2013 and set about modernising it and creating a popular taproom.<\/p>\n
Jakicevich had mixed feelings about letting it go.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s been a lot of joy in getting the brand re-established and back on the map and talked about, so it\u2019s sort of bittersweet to see it go, but at the same time I\u2019m really pleased to see it go to a brewer and out there making some good beers and with a vision, so yeah, it is a bittersweet type thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jakicevich said he would miss the great staff at the brewery and those eureka moments only brewing could provide.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ll certainly miss the smell of the brew in the morning there\u2019s no doubt about that. Walking into that place when there\u2019s a brew going on is fantastic.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt always comes down to this … when I try a new beer and the beer is fantastic that\u2019s always been the best moments and we\u2019ve had a few of them. That\u2019s what I\u2019ll miss, those moments of saying \u2018we nailed it\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n
Three Sisters\u2019 founder Joe Emans was a huge fan of Sunshine Brewing.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got a lot of respect for Sunshine and what they\u2019ve been doing. They\u2019ve been going a long time \u2013 I think they are the oldest independent craft brewery in the country, particularly with Gisborne Gold, which is a really well distributed beer \u2013 and I think a lot of people have affection for that beer and we do, and I do particularly, so we want to keep that legacy going independently.\u201d<\/p>\n
Emans said Sunshine would be a good fit for Three Sisters which recently crowdfunded about $400,000 to expand its brewing capacity.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can immediately make use of that additional capacity that they\u2019ve got, so that relieves our production constraints here in New Plymouth.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve been exporting to China and that\u2019s partly why we\u2019ve reached our production constraint and I\u2019ve reached out to our distributor there and they\u2019ve said they\u2019d be keen to distribute Sunshine in China as well so there should be an immediate uptick from that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Emans said it was likely higher volume production for both brands would take place in Gisborne while New Plymouth would focus on small-batch seasonal beers.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur plan is simple: Sunshine stays Sunshine \u2013 a Gisborne brewery with its own identity \u2013 while Three Sisters provides the operational backbone and production capacity to support stability and growth.<\/p>\n
Sunshine\u2019s core brands and taproom would remain and Emans was hopeful of retaining key staff.<\/p>\n
\u2018Bold move\u2019 expansions show a brewery on the up: Beer writer<\/p>\n
Michael Donaldson, publisher of craft beer magazine Pursuit of Hoppiness, said Sunshine Brewing\u2019s owners had been looking for a sale and it was great that another craft brewer had come in for it.<\/p>\n
\u201cLook, Gisborne Gold is a hugely popular beer in the East Cape region, and Sunshine Brewery are an incredible local brewery, and they are New Zealand\u2019s longest running independently owned craft brewery, so it\u2019s a really vital part of the landscape.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said it was a significant step for Three Sisters.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can understand why someone would want to pick up Sunshine because their local strength is amazing plus they still have a presence in Wellington. You\u2019ll find it on tap in a number of bars there, Gizzy Gold.<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, so it\u2019s a bold move by Three Sisters and it sort of follows on from their expansion into Wellington recently where they opened a taproom. They\u2019re a brewery on the up.\u201d<\/p>\n
Donaldson said Three Sisters\u2019 innovative crowdfunding approach and exports to China \u2013 which made up about 30% of sales by volume \u2013 underpinned its success.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s massive. China is a huge country but it\u2019s also got a strong appetite for beer and so they\u2019re getting unique products. New Zealand beers, a lot of them made with New Zealand hops and that New Zealand Inc story.<\/p>\n
\u201cEach one of these small breweries that is delivering export orders to China, it\u2019s a drop in their beer ocean, but at this end it\u2019s hugely significant.\u201d<\/p>\n
Drinkers in New Plymouth were excited about the move.<\/p>\n
Wellington visitor Vincent gave it the thumbs up.<\/p>\n
\u201cI hope it saves Gizzy Gold because my friends and I drink it quite a bit, so if it could keep going that would be really good.\u201d<\/p>\n
He was familiar with Three Sisters also.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been travelling for a bit, but one of my friends posted about Three Sisters opening up down there and we really like them at Beervarna so we\u2019re quite excited about that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Andrew had dipped into the crowdfunding offer.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s really amazing and Joe and the team have been very progressive in the way they\u2019ve grown the business here and I think it\u2019s going to be a great thing overall. They\u2019re going to take care of the Sunshine legacy and do great things with it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Allan was not totally convinced.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not a great lager fan, but I\u2019ve got a small shareholding from the last funding round, so yeah, it\u2019s all good as far as that goes, but as far as the lager goes, I\u2019m more of a hazy guy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Beer fans on both sides of the North Island should have easy access to both Sunshine Brewing and Three Sisters brands in a couple of months.<\/p>\n
-RNZ<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Current owner Martin Jakicevich and two mates, Mark Young and Peter Thorpe, bought Sunshine in 2013 and set…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":339295,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[4463,26861,138,3391,12506,4241,16569,5133,117,111,139,69,49267,33229],"class_list":["post-339294","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-brand","tag-brewery","tag-business","tag-buys","tag-gisborne","tag-gold","tag-iconic","tag-martin","tag-new","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-plymouth","tag-robin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339294","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=339294"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339294\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/339295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=339294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=339294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=339294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}