Speight's Brewery

Speight's has brewed on Rattray Street since 1876, which makes it one of the oldest continuously operating breweries in the country, and it built an identity around being the beer of the South Island - the marketing line about the pride of the south is well enough known to be a joke in itself. The site is built into the hillside and still uses a gravity-fed system on some of the plant. The tour covers the history, the malt and brewing floors, and ends with a tasting of the range. Outside on the street is the Speight's Ale House tap: a public spout fed by the brewery's artesian spring, free, where Dunedin residents turn up with plastic containers to fill. It is one of the more genuinely local sights in the city. The brewery is now owned by Lion, part of a multinational, which regular drinkers will tell you about at length.

History

The brewery was founded on Rattray Street in 1876 by James Speight, Charles Greenslade and William Dawson, who had left the Wellpark Brewery, and its Gold Medal Ale is named after a gold medal won at the Melbourne International Exhibition in 1880. By 1887 it was the largest brewery in New Zealand, and in 1923 it joined nine others to form New Zealand Breweries (Wikipedia, Speight's).

Highlights

• The 1876 site - continuous brewing on the same Rattray Street hill.
• The gravity system - plant built into the slope.
• The public spring tap - free artesian water on the street outside.
• The tasting - the range, at the end of the tour.

When to go

Any season - indoors. Tours run at set times daily and book out in summer and on cruise-ship days. The outside tap is available any time.

Practical notes

Tours are ticketed and timed; walk-ins are often turned away in summer. It is a large commercial brewery owned by a multinational, not a craft operation. Minimum age applies to the tasting.

Nearby

The Octagon and Dunedin Railway Station are a short walk; the Otago Peninsula is east.