Bar mural a window on brewing process

WELL BREWED: Artist Warren Houston, with Brew manager Mel Rolfe, has added an artful touch to one of the walls at the bar. PHOTO/BEN FRASER

You could be forgiven for thinking you were looking right into the heart of Rotorua's Croucher brewery - and that's the point.

Rotorua airbrush artist Warren Houston of Customs Dept Airbrush Art has managed to bring to life the inside of a working brewery on a wall at Brew Craft Beer Pub on Eat Streat, with a little bit of help from his friends.

The popular jazz and blues drummer is well known for his air brush work on New Zealand's last America's Cup catamaran, but can't be blamed for its tragic demise.

Brew co-owner Paul Croucher said Rotorua had artistic talent to burn.

"We've loved the way that over recent times Rotorua has increasingly embraced public sculpture with great pieces at the major gateways to the city and in town.

"We were looking for a way of creating more interest in the pub and we loved the idea of embracing local art into our offering.

"A good friend suggested we talk with Glen McLeary from Redspot Design and Warren about putting a stylised brewery mural up.

"We gave Glen the briefest of briefs in order to use his talent to come up with a fantasy brewery design to evoke the feeling of being in the brewery and engaged Warren to create the illusion that the brewery is behind a window from where you are sipping on your pint.

"We think it looks amazing," Mr Croucher said.

Mr Houston is a bit of a regular at Brew as he also plays gigs at the bar and is pleased he's able to see his work on display.

He worked on the panels over a period of about two months and Brew is now one of five restaurants on Eat Streat displaying some of his work.

The mural is 7.5m wide and 1.5m high and is painted with automotive paint with a polyurethane top coat to give it the impression of looking through glass.

"We also painted the concrete around it to look like a wood grain with girders becoming copper pipes," he said.

He said his work had been really well received.

And, while he loves air-brushing cars and hot rods, he really enjoys being more "arty" doing portraits and murals.

He's also been contracted to paint two Chorus phone and internet boxes in Fenton Park and has a job lined up painting super-heroes on Taupo's movie theatre.