Tuatara is a craft brewery from the Kapiti Coast that found success as one of a handful of beer companies that kicked off the Wellington craft beer movement in the early 2000s. The brewery was established in 2000 by Carl and Simone Vasta, Fraser McInnes and Sean Murrie. Carl Vasta, one of the original craft beer pioneers in New Zealand, continues to be an integral part of the fabric of the brand today.
Brewing originally from a shed on the Vasta’s farm in the back blocks of Kapiti, it quickly outgrew the ever expanding shed and moved to bigger premises in Paraparaumu in 2013.
Tuatara is the only brewery to be named Champion New Zealand Brewery twice, once in 2008 and again in 2016.
In 2015 Tuatara transformed the old printers at 30 Arthur St on the bypass in Wellington into the Tuatara Temple of Taste – The Third Eye. At the Third Eye there is an in-house microbrewery which acts as an incubator for our brewers’ experimentation. Bottle brews often emerge out of The Third Eye’s regular trial programme.