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Home / Hawkes Bay Today

Roosters Brew House owners looking to sell

By Patrick O'Sullivan
Business editor·Hawkes Bay Today·
15 Nov, 2016 09:30 PM3 mins to read

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Jill and Chris Harrison are selling Roosters Brew House so they can concentrate on their winery. Photo / Duncan Brown

Jill and Chris Harrison are selling Roosters Brew House so they can concentrate on their winery. Photo / Duncan Brown

The grape has won the battle with the grain for Chris and Jill Harrison.

They are selling Roosters Brew House so they can concentrate on Beach House Wines.

"We have been winning so many medals for our wine and we have to focus more on that," he said.

"I'm running both the brewery and the winery - I can't do both."

They established Roosters 22 years ago on Hastings' Omahu Rd, making it one of New Zealand's first craft beer brew houses with both on- and off-premise licences. It has a bar/restaurant and patrons can take home flagons of beer.

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It is for sale lock, stock and barrel: the land, buildings and business.

The 399sq m Roosters Brew House sits on a 1236sq m corner property with parking for 10 vehicles, with street parking also available on two frontages.

Licensed to serve 100 patrons seven days a week, the internal bar and kitchen are 86sq m, the rustic-themed outdoor garden bar is 220sq m and there is 52sq m of covered walkway.

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Beer-making facilities include 32 conditioning and storage tanks in a refrigerated cool room, with more than 100 kegs on rotation.

Roosters currently produces six beers - a dark, a lager, a strong lager, a draught, a wheat beer, and an Indian pale ale. A specialty style is produced every three months and a non-alcoholic ginger beer is also on offer.

It has capacity to produce 6000 litres of beer a week but sales were only tracking at little more than half that level.

Mr Harrison said if it was brewing at full capacity he would be able to install a manager but he has been distracted by his winery.

Wine is his first love and Roosters the vehicle that has enabled his winery.

"It is a great opportunity for somebody to pick it up and run with it. If it was a lot bigger or if I was a lot younger I could keep doing it, but no."

It is being marketed for sale by Bayleys Napier, with the sale period closing on November 25.

Agent Rollo Vavasour said with craft beer increasing in popularity there was a substantial opportunity for Roosters to launch its own brand into the retail market, following the lead of local craft breweries such as Zeelandt and Hawkes Bay Independent Brewery.

"Conveniently, there is a contract winery bottling plant immediately across the road which has the ability and capacity to take on bottling for a brewery."

A neighbouring winery supplies the Wineworks bottling with a pipe running under the road.

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He said there was potential to raise food sales, which relied on custom from the surrounding industrial estate during the day plus passing trade in the early evening.

"Under its current management structure, Roosters' owners have very much focused on beverage sales due to the brand's deserved reputation as a craft beer outlet, with food as an adjunct to that. With a different approach to food under the guise of say, a modern gastro pub, the percentage of food sales could quite easily be grown," he said.

"With the right marketing, Roosters could easily become a destination gastro-bar venue for that night trade. The scale of Roosters' business - still very much at the boutique end of the market - would ideally suit a skilled home-brewer ready to take the next step up their beer production ladder."

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