Monteith's Brewery Company was originally a family-owned brewing company until it was bought by

DB Breweries DB Breweries is a New Zealand-based brewing company, owned by Heineken Asia Pacific. Founded in 1930 by Sir Henry Kelliher and W Joseph Coutts, the partners purchased Levers and Co. and the Waitemata Brewery Co. in Otahuhu. Asia Pacific Breweri ...

. It continued to brew its beers on the West Coast of New Zealand until DB decided that the cost of keeping production there was no longer viable. The

Greymouth Greymouth () (Māori: ''Māwhera'') is the largest town in the West Coast region in the South Island of New Zealand, and the seat of the Grey District Council. The population of the whole Grey District is , which accounts for % of the West Coas ...

brewery was closed on 22 March 2001, but reopened four days later following a public outcry. The beers are now produced in

Auckland Auckland (pronounced ) ( mi, Tāmaki Makaurau) is a large metropolitan city in the North Island of New Zealand. The most populous urban area in the country and the fifth largest city in Oceania, Auckland has an urban population of about ...

, and

Timaru Timaru (; mi, Te Tihi-o-Maru) is a port city in the southern Canterbury Region of New Zealand, located southwest of Christchurch and about northeast of Dunedin on the eastern Pacific coast of the South Island. The Timaru urban area is home to ...

as well as

. On 25 July 2012, the newly transformed Greymouth brewery was officially reopened after 18 months of refurbishment. The brand Monteith's has existed only since 1990 and the connection back to the original Stuart Monteith, who didn't even name his brewery after himself (it was called Phoenix), is tenuous at best. In 1927, Monteith's Phoenix Brewery was one of five – in Reefton, Hokitika and Kumara – that amalgamated to become Westland Breweries, a company headed by Stuart's son, William Monteith. The new organisation was based at Turumaha Street, Greymouth, but there was no brewery on site, just a bottling plant until 1949 when a centralised brewery started to take over the operations of the other breweries in the group. One by one, the breweries making up Westland Breweries were closed, with the original Monteith-owned Phoenix Brewery in Reefton pumping out its last beer in 1963, leaving the centralised Greymouth plant the only one servicing the area. In 1969, the expanding empire of Dominion Breweries took over and the brewery became known as DB Westland Breweries. Though run under the DB banner, Westland Breweries for a long time produced beers popular on the Coast and reflecting the history of the brewery as a group enterprise: Westbrew Golden Lager, Tira Pale Ale, Westland Extra Stout, Westbrew Bitter, Monteith's Pale Ale (the first sign of Monteith's as brand), Morley's Special Stout and Westland Golden Draught. In 1990, when DB was going through its rebranding exercise, it decided to drop the “DB” tag from the brewery name and “create” some history around one of the original driving forces behind West Coast brewing: the Monteith family. It gambled on renaming the brewery Monteith's and creating a range of products under that label.

Controversy

DB Breweries attracted controversy during a legal battle over the exclusive use of the name

Radler Shandy is beer or cider mixed with a lemon or a lemon-lime flavored beverage. The citrus beverage, often called lemonade, may or may not be carbonated. The proportions of the two ingredients are adjusted to taste but are usually half lemonade ...

. Radler is a style of beer, in the same way that

Pilsner Pilsner (also pilsener or simply pils) is a type of pale lager. It takes its name from the Bohemian city of Plzeň (german: Pilsen), where the world's first pale lager (now known as Pilsner Urquell) was produced in 1842 by Pilsner Urquell Bre ...

or Stout are. However, DB has trademarked the term "Radler" since 2001. The Society of Beer Advocates asked the Intellectual Property Office of New Zealand (IPoNZ) for the brewery's Radler trademark to be revoked. The issues of this trademark were brought to public attention when a small independent brewery ( Green Man Brewery) in

Dunedin Dunedin ( ; mi, Ōtepoti) is the second-largest city in the South Island of New Zealand (after Christchurch), and the principal city of the Otago region. Its name comes from , the Scottish Gaelic name for Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland. Th ...

, Otago released its own Radler (since renamed to Cyclist). IPoNZ handed down its decision on 14 July 2011. The trademark has been upheld, citing the fact that the term "Radler" was not well known in New Zealand at the time the trademark was taken out.

Products

In addition to the beer varieties listed in the box, Monteith's produces Crushed Apple Cider and Crushed Pear Cider.

References

External links

Monteith's Brewery Company

DB Breweries
{{Heineken International 1868 establishments in New Zealand Breweries of New Zealand

Controversy

Products

See also

References

Further reading

External links