Cassels Brewing Co. is a proudly family-owned Cantabrian brewery, based at the historic Tannery complex in Woolston. Now world-famous, having won “Best in the World” trophies at the World Beer Awards in three successive years for our Milk Stout ( 2019 & 2020) and American Pale Ale ( 2021).

In the summer of 2008/09 we began to dream about building a bigger craft brewery – perhaps even a “wood-fired” one.  This little wood-fired brewery took a few months to complete and we began brewing by September 2009. Our first batch of Pilsner was ready by November.

By February 2010 we had planned to build a craft brewbar on the site of Christchurch’s original tannery. We hired Nigel Mahoney as Head Brewer winning a bronze at the 2010 BREWNZ awards on his second brew.

Then Christchurch got hit by the February 22 earthquake in 2011. Our brewery really got hammered in the earthquake. The building our craft brewery had always occupied was in good shape structurally, and so we got to work on it. A short and extremely intense one hundred days later and we were ready to launch.