Outlier Cartel is a New Zealand craft beer project that I am proud to be part of. It was founded by myself and Carlos de la Barra, friends and former neighbours in Auckland. Carlos and I met at his house warming party in 2012, and my wife and I were the only neighbours (out of 20 doors knocked on) to show up – and the last ones to leave.

The love of quality food and drink was a passion of ours. We had several late night conversations about launching a brewery, and after a few missteps, we finally launched our beer in December 2015.  In 2016, we took on a new partner, a foodie and financial director, Alvin Soh to round up our team.

What makes us Outliers? Here are a few things that make us different:

• We are gypsy brewers – we believe great beer can be brewed anywhere (by anyone).  We don’t have our own brewery, so we contract brew our beer. This has saved us a lot on overhead, so we can concentrate on making our beer!
• We believe in collaboration – we believe in sharing ideas and working together. We love to work with other brewers, we don’t care if you’ve been brewing for 50 years or 50 minutes, there is always something to learn. We don’t guard our recipes, if you are keen to know how we make beer, drop us a line! Not only that we love to collaborate with designers and artists, and integrate them with our bottle designs.
• We believe in seasonal ingredients. While this may prevent our beers from being mass produced, we more than believe that the taste will more than make up for that – quality over quantity!
• We are all New Zealanders – but originally from somewhere else! Carlos, Alvin and myself were all born overseas but have made New Zealand our home. We carry a bit of the old world with us, but infuse that with a Kiwi can-do spirit!