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Nelson Breweries and Beer Map


Are you a beer tourist, too? We love to visit breweries and brewpubs when we travel, so we always search the web for local beers at our destination. Even day trips from home usually include a beer focused stop somewhere along the way.  Brewing in the Nelson region and across the top of the South Island has expanded quite a bit since we moved here, but the online information isn’t keeping up. Some great brewers and tap-houses are scarcely represented on the internet.

We have been frustrated to find that none of New Zealand’s best beer websites, including SOBA, RealBeer and the Brewers Guild have a complete list of our local producers. In some cases, it was a struggle to find an address or phone number at all. For maps, the best two we found were the Beer Mapping Project and the RealBeer map, but they also are incomplete. RealBeer hasn’t yet completed any of the South Island.

So, in the can-do Kiwi spirit, “if you can’t find it, make it.” Here is our attempt at a comprehensive list of brewers in the top of the south, with an updated map showing where you can visit them, or at least try their beers. We have included a number of quality beer focused pubs and cafes serving NZ craft beers.

Our list and map cover the Nelson/Tasman and Marlborough regions.


The Breweries
(no restaurant, just beer)
The Brewpubs
(restaurant with brewing on premises)
The Pubs
(no brewing, just food and beer)



Our Nelson NZ Beer Map includes:

Breweries (yellow building) Brewpubs (blue food and drink) Pubs (green building) and Points of Interest (green pin)


View Nelson NZ Beer Map in a larger map

We have done our best to provide current information in the map descriptions, but these are mostly small businesses with a lot of seasonal flexibility. Most brewers don’t bite, so don’t be afraid to phone ahead and confirm before showing up. When you do arrive, you will often find the brewer staffing the counter, ready to entertain all your pesky beer fanatic questions while trying to run the whole show alone.

This article was written on Saturday, June 20th, 2009 and is filed under Destination. For more articles about: , ,

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3 Comments so far

  1. Excellent work!

  2. Although we are not officially open to the public for tours …any friend of beer is a friend of ours. Good on you for this site and we will include a link to you in our new web site. Feel free to contact the brewery any time.

    Brian Thiel

    Director Renaissance Brewing Limited and Board of Executive member of the Brewers Guild of New Zealand.

    PS you should get this site to google search better…10 pages in. Like what you are doing.

  3. Great to hear you might be willing to show people around. Thanks for the encouragement. BTW – We have been enjoying the MPA over at the Free House. It tastes American – and that is a good thing, as it reminded us a bit of SN Celebration Ale.

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