Finest Craft Beers

We have a wide range of craft beers available all year round

plus seasonal beers that shouldn’t be missed!

Finest Craft Beers

We have a wide range of craft beers available all year round plus seasonal beers that shouldn’t be missed!

Our Story

Welcome To

Mata Brewery

Our Story began

all the way back in 2004 when I returned overseas & decided to give home brewing a go after discovering & being wowed by the diverse range of beer styles around the world.
After falling in love with home brewing & getting some pretty good feedback from friends, I had a strong desire to want to set up a brewery and somehow managed to convince my parents to give up their days jobs and join me on a new adventure. My Mum Gloria was a school secretary & became our sales person. My Dad Jouni, a shift supervisor at a paper mill & My Uncle Esko who both joined the brewing team.

Students

We had students create the Mata brand. Our vision was to create flavoursome beer styles that mostly focused on the wonderful locally grown NZ ingredients we had available to us. One of our first beers was our Mata Manuka, a golden ale with Manuka honey.

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First Bottle

We managed to find second hand brewing equipment for sale in Wellington & decided to purchase the equipment & set up our brewery in Kawerau, Eastern Bay of Plenty. We sold our first bottle of beer in December 2005 & Mata beer was born.

Growth

For 12 years we continued to grow our brewery as craft beer massively evolved in NZ. We began with 2 beer styles, and now have a vast range from easy drinking to full flavoured with lots of seasonal releases. Our brewing style is still focused mostly on experimenting with the special ingredients we have available to us here in NZ, but aside from that we have fun brewing other new creations & seasonal releases we love to enjoy ourselves.

Awards

We’re proud to have achieved a load of medals and accolades for our beer over the years

And Now!

After 3 years of looking for a new site to relocate our brewery, we began moving our brewery to Whakatane in December 2017. Our new home has a tasting room attached where visitors can experience the brewing in action, enjoy a beer, be amongst the first to try our new releases & meet the team behind Mata.