Fortune Favours ‘forced to close’ due to cost of living crisis, owners say

The owner of Wellington brewery Fortune Favours says they are being forced to shut down just days after one of their beers took out a top honour at Wellington's Beervana beer festival.

Owners told staff this week they would be winding up the brand's central Wellington brewery bar by the end of the month.

Last weekend the brewery achieved an unprecedented clean sweep - being awarded the Top Praised Beer for their Wairarapa IPA in all four sessions at the annual Beervana festival.

Head brewer and co-owner Dale Cooper says they had stayed quiet about the impending closure to not put a damper on the festival vibe.

"[It's] quite bittersweet. I didn't want to tell [people] because they were having a good time but in the back of my mind I was like 'okay, it's not really going to help us'.

"So I guess it's a good way to go out - it's a bit of a mic drop - but it's very strange because that was the very last beer that we ever made at Fortune Favours," Cooper says.

Majority share owner Shannon Thorpe says the "cost of living crisis has proven too difficult" for Fortune Favours to navigate.

He says the business was down nearly 45 percent compared to two years earlier.

Thorpe says a younger crowd of patrons had disappeared from the city's hospitality scene in recent years and that - against a backdrop of rising costs - has put huge pressures on local brewers.

"The cost pressures on the industry have just been insane. I mean you get the annual excise rise every year which is pegged to inflation, we're paying more for our CO2, grain prices are through the roof. It's getting to a point now where people just don't have the money to pay for a on-premise environment."

He says the uncertain economic climate was wreaking havoc with the capital's night life and entertainment scene.

"I just think the role that redundancies in the public service has had - it hasn't just been a cut when National first came in - it's been continuous.

"When you think you're gonna lose your job, what's the first thing you do? You pull the handbrake on spend, and you just stop going out. So, I think that has really, really hurt Wellington," Thorpe says.

Wellington City Council candidate and brewery and venue owner, Tim Ward says the news is "devastating" for the city's brewing scene.

Ward says Wellington City was lagging behind the surrounding regions of Porirua and Hutt City in its support of local hospitality businesses.

"The culture in those cities on the compliance side and consenting is completely different to Wellington. They're interested, they're motivated in your business being out in those regions, and I think we really risk losing our restaurant and cafe and bar eatery scene to those centres, because they're starting to figure out how to make it easy for our entrepreneurs.

"We have some of the best restaurants and cafes and small eateries in New Zealand - we really need to look after them," Ward says.

Fortune Favours' award-winning Wairarapa IPA was brewed in conjunction with the soon to open Horseshoe Taproom in Masterton and harked back to beers previously brewed in that venue's Queen Street location.

Head of the group behind the new bar, Trust House's John Prendergast, says he is very sad to hear of the brand's closure but the news brought a new opportunity for Masterton's beer fans when the Taproom opened in a fortnight.

"Every cloud has a silver lining I guess and the good news for us is that we've been able to contract Dale Cooper - their head brewer - to continue doing work for us. So he'll be brewing beer for us in the new Horseshoe Taproom and Wairarapa IPA will be a core offering," Prendergast says.

Until then, Shannon Thorpe and Dale Cooper are inviting people to come celebrate Fortune Favours and their team as they poured their final beers this weekend.

"We'll have deals on our merch and beer, until we've run out."