Award-Winning Brewers Funk Estate Are Dropping Anchor in Grey Lynn

Come Saturday 12 March, beer aficionados citywide will be venturing to Grey Lynn, as Auckland's newest and perhaps most exciting brewery opens its doors for the first time. Yes indeed, Funk Estate has finally come over to the dark side and moved from the craft beer capital, Wellington, to the emerging beer market of Auckland.

Owning their own brewery has been a long-term dream for Welly lads and Funk Estate founders, Dylan Shearer, Shigeo Takagi, and Jordan Evison; up to this point the trio have outsourced production to established breweries in the wider Wellington region.

With their new unassuming warehouse space, previously occupied by Governor Beer, the team will no doubt be churning out some more experimental beers. Some that have already raised eyebrows and elicited grunts of approval from craft connoisseurs throughout New Zealand include their Super Afro-Disiac imperial stout, which hauled in a gold medal at the recent NZ Brewers Guild Awards. Brewed for Valentine's Day, the 8% brew utilises alluring aphrodisiacs such as chocolate, vanilla pods, honey, figs and maca root, and happens to be so pleasing that you may just wet yourself with joy upon the first sip; this is the Mona Lisa of beers.

With plans to establish an off-license and sell take-away beers, the arrival of these craft beer wizards in Auckland means their brews will be easier to find in local bottle shops, on tap at local pubs, and all-round easier for us JAFAs to get our hands on and ingest. The addition of such an exciting fledgling brewery will help strengthen Auckland's booming craft beer scene and bridge the sudsy gap between us and NZ's beer capital, which certainly calls for an ale to celebrate.

To mark the occasion, Funk Estate are turning their Grey Lynn brewery into a makeshift bar on Saturday 12 March, serving their delicious ales to the public. If you work up an appetite bending your elbow, local food truck Maidstone Burgers will be parked outside serving gourmet goodness, to facilitate the ultimate culinary combination, burgers and beer.

Funk Estate can be found at 3/402 Great North Road, Grey Lynn. For more information visit the brewery's website.