The serial award-winning brewery Deep Creek from New Zealand has gone into liquidation after more than a decade of producing some of its country’s most-loved beers.
The Jarred Maclachlan, Scott Taylor and Paul Brown-founded brewing company said in a social media post that although they were able to battle through the Covid-19 period now was “a difficult time for the company due to market pressures in (New Zealand)” as well as in China which they said was a key market for them.
In the wake of fellow New Zealand breweries Epic going into liquidation and Brothers Beer entering voluntary administration earlier this year, insolvency, restructuring and forensic accounting firm Rodgers Reidy have been appointed as Deep Creek’s liquidators.
Their social media post announcing the liquidation went on to say: “In 2023 the Chinese market rebounded strongly but very recently we had a can seaming issue that required our beer to be recalled from the market.
“The cash flow impact of this recall was significant and proved to be a step too large for our team to overcome. We are deeply saddened by this.”
New Zealand media outlet Business Desk spoke with Derek Ah Sam from Rodgers Reidy who said: “(Deep Creek) had shipped containers to China. But when the containers arrived, the seals on the cans broke. They’ve broken just through the pressure in transit. And so basically, the Chinese rejected all that.”
Ah Sam also told Business Desk that Deep Creek was looking at upwards of $500,000 worth of product being rejected, and it couldn’t sustain the loss.
“They had tried to raise capital, but unfortunately, it’s fallen over.”
Deep Creek was launched when it opened a brewpub in 2011 in the north of Auckland coastal suburb of Browns Bay. Eight years later they sold the brewpub and moved to the nearby area of Silverdale to establish a much larger production facility to service the New Zealand and export markets.
With sustained success at beer awards in New Zealand throughout their tenure, the brewery first rose to prominence on this side of the Tasman Sea when it won the Champion Small International Brewery trophy at the 2017 Australian International Beer Awards (AIBA) before it would win Champion Medium International Brewery at the same awards in both 2019 and 2022.
In 2019 it also won the AIBA trophy for Best International Lager with their Undercurrent Pilsner while at the AIBA in 2021 their Sauvage barrel-aged Brett Saison claimed Champion International Beer as well as Best Wood And Barrel-Aged Beer.
Due to a clerical error at the 2021 AIBA, Deep Creek were initially announced as the winners of the Champion Large International Brewery award but once they became aware of the mistake they notified the organisers and Weihenstephan were installed as the award’s recipients.