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One of Wellington’s most successful breweries, Fortune Favours, is ending operations and closing its brew bar only a day after winning first place at the country’s biggest beer festival.
After nearly a decade brewing in the capital, owners Shannon Thorpe and Dale Cooper announced the business was no longerfinancially sustainable.
“Unfortunately, the cost of living crisis has proven too difficult for us to navigate. We’re down 20% on last year, which was already 25% down on the year before,” a post on the company’s social media read.
Since starting in 2016, the company has brewed over 500 unique blends, including New Zealand’s strongest beer.
On Tuesday, its Wairarapa IPA was named the top-praised beer at Wellington’s Beervana event.
The inner-city brewpub on Leeds St will close its doors for the final time on August 31.
“We’ve loved our 8 years here [...] without your support Fortune Favours would not be the brand that it is,” the post said.
Fortune Favours craft beer bar featured on a Wellington craft beer tour. Photo / Nicola Edmonds
The brewery started when Thorpe quit his day job to move to the capital with his young family to start brewing craft beer. Award-winning brewer Cooper then joined and the business expanded, winning awards in New Zealand and Australia and being stocked around the country.
The pair also opened a bar in Wellington Airport in 2019.
In 2022, the brewery made a splash with its Hyper Fuel brew, the strongest beer in the country at 31% ABV.
Fortune Favours’ move is just the latest in a string of recent sector closures.
A number of popular hospitality venues have shut up shop in the capital over the past year, citing a range of factors including the public sector cuts, loss of car parks, and general economic conditions.
Craft breweries across the country from Brothers Beer to Deep Creek, Epic Brewing and Boneface Brewing have all faced financial trouble in recent years.
It also comes as new economic figures show 177 Wellington businesses closed down in the year to the end of the June quarter.
Business counts, meaning the number of business units in an area, is down -2.3% in the capital, a greater drop than the country’s average of 0.9%.
Infometrics principal economist Nick Brunsdon said the capital’s struggles “in large part stems from the cuts in the public sector”.
Ethan Manera is a New Zealand Herald journalist based in Wellington. He joined NZME in 2023 as a broadcast journalist with Newstalk ZB and is interested in local issues, politics, and property in the capital. He can be emailed at ethan.manera@nzme.co.nz.
