Day 5a-Port Chalmers and Dunedin

Arrival and docked at Port Chalmers approx 10:30 and we were off the boat early for the shuttle service into Dunedin. Welcome to New Zealand; I got frisked and searched at the terminal because the sniffer-dog didn't like my day bag!
At breakfast time I decided to book a brewery tour at the Speights Brewery, which wasn't until 14:00, so we spent the morning looking around Dunedin at the buildings and architecture, parks and shops. The buildings are really a mix of styles and period specific designs, from Victorian and Edwardian stylings to mid 20th centry retro, all of which has been kept and preserved in much of its natural styling.
We headed to Speights Ale house for lunch, a nice lamb pot pie and then I went on my tour of the brewery while the girls did their own thing for a couple of hours (log entry to come).
The brewery was a fascinating look at the history of one of the bigger brewing companies in New Zealand. The process though for brewing beer never changes, though they boasted using a Gravity Process where the process starts at the highest point in thr brewery and finishes at the bottom of the hill.
They also have claim to having tapped into an underground glacia-fed spring water source that they use in the beer, under a 100 year old agreement that the spring was also made available to the general public; there is a tap on the outside of the brewery on the street where you can fill up drink bottles and buckets. The boars and water filtration is the only part of the original brewery operating today; the rest has been upgraded. There was also a story where they were supposed to have 3 filtration vessels but at the last minute they only managed to get 2, but the infrastructure was in place for 3. There was no clear reason as to why the 3rd was never delivered from the manufacturer. It is thought the copper in it was put to better use elsewhere.
The brewery also had a huge investment of funds after the Christchurch Earthquake. The brewery in Christchurch fell down and it was questioned whether to rebuild or upgrade Dunedin to produce beer. So the government poured over 40million dollars into upgrading the brewery at Dunedin, so now much of it has been retained for tourist and historic value.
It was a fascinating tour overall and ended with a tasting of a variety of beers they have on offer.Læs mere