For those beer lovers in the know, Craftwork Brewery’s inaugural Belgian beer festival, or Bruxelles Oamaru 2025, was a quiet success.

The festival, which took place on Harbour Street at the weekend (July 4-6), was a coming together of Belgian beer makers from across New Zealand, and 200 of their thirsty customers. Only about 20 of those customers were local.

Punters described it as “outstanding”, “unmissable”, “amazing” and even “majestic”.

“You should be so proud to have brought a festival of such a calibre to the beer fiends of Aotearoa,” one commented.

“Everyone involved in making this happen did an incredible job. By far the best beer event I have been to,” said another.

Craftwork brewer and co-owner Lee-Ann Scotti says the idea of the festival, featuring beer “on the sour and funky end of the curve”, had been brewing for a while.

“I've always wanted to do a small beer festival that brought in people who like this sort of beer, because it's very niche, but make it more of a weekend event, because I knew not many locals would be interested, but it would be very interesting for other people.”

She put a single post up on social media in January about it, and the 200 tickets “pretty much sold out”, she says.

“I kept a few tickets for locals who I knew would be interested . . . and there was a sign put up at Portsider in Port Chalmers, so a few people from Port Chalmers came up.”

Eight breweries took part including Craftwork; they were Garage Project (Wellington), Karamu Barrelworks (Waikato), Nine Barnyard Owls (Wairarapa), 8 Wired Brewing (Matakana), North End Brewery (Waikanae), Wilderness (Christchurch), Cell Division (Dunedin).

There was a Friday night brewers’ dinner for 30, catered for by the Portsider’s Pip Honeychurch and Hanz Dekker, which allowed all the brewers to gather before Saturday’s main event, and was “a lovely way to kick off”, Lee-Ann says.

The main event was on the Saturday.

“We had tastings that were curated by a chap called David Moynagh from Auckland, who frequently does beer tastings. And he provided three tastings that people booked for before the festival.”

Lee Ann also did a special tasting during the festival of a beer called Orval.

“People were able to drink a one-year-old and a five-year-old . . . A drop of Brettanomyces is put in during bottling and that changes the flavour. So the one-year-old's very fruity, and the five-year-old's very dry.

“So I was able to do 10 of those (tastings), I did little roving tastings, which was fun.”

It took her four hours to make it around everyone, and she convinced people to share, which brought people who didn’t know each other together, she says.

“I really enjoyed that.”

Pip Honeychurch and Hanz Dekker from the Portsider preparing Friday night's brewers' dinner. Photo: Supplied/Facebook

On Sunday, a bottle-share buffet breakfast was held, and people were encouraged to bring a bottle of their own to share, either from their collection or something they had brewed themselves. Breakfast was provided by Harbour Street Collective Cafe.

“So this festival was absolutely run in conjunction with Kat from Harbour Street Cafe,” Lee-Ann says.

The back doors of both businesses were open so people could wander between the two, and each festival ticket included a burger and fries from the cafe for dinner, and a charcuterie cup as people first walked in the door. 

“So we were then able to ensure people were eating. We just really wanted it to be a well-managed festival.”

Because the type of beer Lee-Ann and partner Michael O’Brien make isn’t widely brewed, those who do make it get to know each other well, and enjoy collaborating.

“So we actually made a beer with Wilderness and Cell Division in February,” Lee-Ann says.

“When we get together, we loosely call ourselves the Southern Farmhouse Collective, because farmhouses are just a descriptor for beers that aren't necessarily sour but are a bit funky.”

The three brewhouses have exhibited at the Dunedin Beer Festival together and also taken part in beer dinners. Lee Ann says the biggest positive of working together is the relationships that result.

“Friendship. Fellowship. Idea sharing. Oxygen.” 

She and Michael hope to run Bruxelle Oamaru annually - people are already asking them to do it again, she says. But they don’t want it to ger any bigger.

“Some people said they felt like they were at a wedding where they knew a lot of the guests, because some people might be living in Christchurch, Auckland, Wellington, but they see each other at festivals and events a lot. 

“So, I knew most of the people at this festival . . . 11 years we've been commercially brewing, and met a lot of people and most, a lot of them, were at the festival.”

Some beers were brewed specifically for the weekend as one-offs, while others were new releases, which made it extra special, Lee-Ann says.