I first became aware of Black Sands Brewery a few years ago when a friend who lives out at Cornwallis raved about their beer.
I first became aware of Black Sands Brewery a few years ago when a friend who lives out at Cornwallis raved about their beer. I had just really started my adventure with New Zealand beer and Black Sands India Pale Ale was one of the first craft beers I consumed. Black Sands make lovely beer – fulsome, complex and robust; they package them well and their marketing is uncomplicated and effective. The connection between place and product is obvious – these are West Auckland brewers who are passionate about what they make and where they make it.
It made sense to profile Black Sands seeing the part it had played on setting me on the path to a different way of drinking – where taste is more important than effect. A call to owner Ian Hebblethwaite was met with enthusiasm and an invitation to spend some time with him and head brewer Mark Jackman to discuss Black Sands’ business.
For those who haven’t spent time in West Auckland – it’s not quite Auckland. It has a sensibility and an ethos that is different from the rest of the city. It’s famous for the gum diggers and the winemakers who came from Europe and it has an irreverence to it that is refreshing and original.
Even though Hebblethwaite and Jackson are immigrants to New Zealand, they are Westies and the whole philosophy of their company is about where they live and work – the tagline on their website sums it up best – ‘where yeast meets west’.
For both men starting a brewery came almost by accident.
“I was home brewing and as you do I was looking for bigger equipment, better equipment, and I heard of a local brewery (I live in Titirangi), so I came to have a look at it just out of interest’s sake and the guy said he wanted to sell it. It seemed like a hell of a good idea to me so I bought it. I started Black Sands and was running it on my own, which was quite difficult and then I met Jackson who was starting up his brewery, which was Weezledog. I had some spare capacity, I was looking for someone to do the brewing and it all worked – suited both of us. Mark does all the brewing – for Black Sands and for Weezledog. We started brewing in October 2013.”
Hebblethwaite says that the move from home brewing to industrial brewing was relatively seamless.
“It hasn’t been difficult really. It’s been quite challenging in that it’s a very competitive market. Neither of us has professional brewing backgrounds – so that makes it interesting though we’ve obviously both done a lot of home brewing. Most people in craft brewing come from a home brewing rather than professional brewing. We are just scaling it up really. The processes are all identical – and in our case our equipment is fairly basic – so even the equipment is fairly similar.”
Starting off with two types of beer, Black Sand’s portfolio now stands at five with another to be launched soon.
“We do five at the moment. We started with the India Pale Ale and the Pilsener – those two really because I like drinking India Pale Ale. Pilsener was the more easy-going drink. It’s not that far conceptually from a commercial lager but it has a lot more flavour. Then we came out with a Pacific Red, an amber ale, and subsequently we’ve launched a New Zealand Pale Ale and we’ve launched a Black Ale – a Black RPA – a hoppy dark ale.
“We’re looking to launch an American Pale Ale, we’ve got a very nice recipe we’ve developed, and we’ve got our big boxes of American hops that have just arrived.
“Our New Zealand Pale Ale is doing very well. We won a Gold Medal at the Brewers Guild last year. That’s our biggest seller – having the Gold Medal on the label – that helps a lot,” Hebblethwaite says.
As a craft beer consumer I’ve been interested in how the craft beer renaissance has altered Kiwis’ attitudes toward drinking – how we drink, what we drink. As a child of the ‘70s, my first exposure to beer was the half G and the crate. I grew up in the ‘80s where drinking was about quantity, not quality and as everyone will know those prevailing attitudes toward drinking have led to massive social problems. But attitudes are changing and craft beer is leading the way.
“You don’t buy a big slab of beers – you buy three or four bottles and you savour them, taste them and I think that’s done a lot for [curbing]excessive drinking,” Hebblethwaite says. “I think there’s so much more substance to them [craft beer]– there’s more in them, not just the flavour, there’s more things inside a craft beer so it kind of fills you,” Hebblethwaite says.
“Consumption is dropping and a lot of that is about people’s tastes maturing,” Jackson says.
Hebblethwaite has lived in New Zealand for the past 12 years and he notes that his first exposure to craft beer came while visiting here.
“When I first came to New Zealand as a visitor in the ‘80s or something they’d just launched Macs – that was the big news – that was the first I knew of – a range of beers that actually tasted quite good. And we thought they were fantastic,” Hebblethwaite says.
Although the industry is growing there are still challenges ahead for new breweries.
“It’s a very competitive market and if you look, every week there’s another little brewery opening up. What is starting to happen now, that I’ve noticed is that some are closing down, not quite getting off the ground. There are way too many breweries, I think, for the size of the market at this point.
“You’ve got 150 odd breweries and you’ve got enough craft brew drinkers to keep 150 breweries going but, of course, the most successful guys are immediately investing their money in more equipment – bigger fermenters, bigger brew houses – making more and more beer, so the little guys are getting marginalised. It’s not good enough just to make a good beer. There’s small breweries opening up, making good beer but just can’t get it out to the customer. They go to the bottle stores who say ‘we’ve got limited shelves, sorry’. Then pubs with taps and you really battle to get on a tap.”
It’s clear after spending time with Hebblethwaite and Jackson that they have carefully worked out their turf and while they see opportunities to grow their business, the focus is essentially on West Auckland.
“Black Sands is pretty much Auckland focused and in particular West Auckland. All along it’s been our strategy to focus on West Auckland – hence the name. [Black Sands’ label carries a stylised image of Piha’s Lions Rock]. Black Sands was the connection to the West Coast beaches. We thought that said West Auckland without being too obvious. Westies got it but other people didn’t so now we have ‘proudly brewed in West Auckland’.
“Again, the priority for us is West Auckland – to try and do a better job, to really get into the bars out here and the long term goal – more restaurants. So we’ll keep focusing on West Auckland and of course, there’s a lot of opportunities in Auckland itself – in the city – to get into more bars, to get into more bottle stores,” Ian says.
I have to give credit to two men who have taken their love of beer and home brewing to a whole new level. Black Sands’ range of beer is outstanding and it’s clear that Mark and Ian love what they do.
“This isn’t really about the money for us,” Ian says. “It’s about the fun.” 
