By Steve Best
Woolston in Christchurch is one of the city’s oldest industrial areas but it is now being transformed into an entertainment, dining and shopping hub by a family of entrepreneurs who refuse to sit back and wait while the city’s future direction is decided.
Cassels & Sons boutique brewery pub and deli-restaurant was opened last year and is the realisation of many years of hard work by Alasdair Cassels, his son Zak and his son-in-law Joe Shanks. It is the first step in the transformation of a former tannery site that Alasdair Cassels bought over 18 years ago and there are many stages to come.
Another bar has just opened in Madras street, selling Cassels & Sons beers brewed at the Woolston site, with plans to create a band bar and another bar upstairs. Next year the Cassels are looking to complete a new 2500 litre brewery designed and commissioned by Canadian company DME in Woolston, as well as another bar and a delicatessen with Richard Till as food director.
”We’re a family business,” Zak Cassels says.
“It was dad’s idea. He’s had the tannery for a while and he wanted to develop it, starting with a brew bar.”
“The first challenge was to design and build a 200 litre, wood fired brewery. We read books, scavenged around for second hand materials and opened an account with a stainless steel supplier. Joe Shanks was trained as an aircraft engineer – really handy skills. This little brewery took me and him a few months to complete, we were brewing by September 2009. Our first batch of Pilsner was ready by November – just in time for the opening of El Santo – a new bar in Lyttelton’s British Hotel. 
“Our brewing equipment was fairly primitive at this time, we used to cool our fermenting lagers with a garden hose spraying cold artesian water onto blankets wrapped around 200l blue plastic drums. We developed two beer styles – a hoppy pilsner and a more traditional malty pilsner. These were often good – but lacked consistency. We needed more gear, a bigger brewery and we needed a brewer.
“By February 2010 we had planned to open a craft brew bar in the old tannery site. We were well under way with our larger capacity kettle and mash tun. We hired Nigel Mahoney as our head brewer – the beer got noticeably better. Nigel brewed a Dunkel and it was an instant hit – it also won a bronze at the 2010 BREWNZ awards – his second brew in the wood fired kettle,” Zak says.
The brew bar is an open and inviting space dominated by the wood fired kettle and the attendant brewing equipment behind the bar. The wood fired kettle is one of only two in the world – the other one is in use in Belgium – and while a more demanding method of making beer, it enhances the malty notes of the range of beers the Cassels have on offer.
Cassels & Sons brew 13 different caskconditioned beers onsite – four real ales, six fizzy beers and two seasonal varieties – a winter medicinal beer and a summer medicinal beer both f lavoured with elderberries and honey.
Under the guidance and direction of executive brewer Simon Bretherton there is a beer for every palate and preference – with a number of guest beers also available.
Prior to the brew bar opening last year Cassels & Sons were brewing and bottling beer but it was a difficult process and labour intensive Zak says. The creation of a larger brewery next year will see the company bottling again with opportunities to ensure Cassels & Sons’ beers can be enjoyed further afield than the garden city.
But beer is only a part of the family’s plan and Alasdair is looking to utilise the full potential of the former 
tannery site and turn it into something dynamic and inviting.
“We want the delicatessen to be like theatre,” Alasdair says.
“With food coming in – it will be a working food store busy with chefs preparing food – an abundance – with people being able to see it all.”
But the delicatessen will only be one element of plans to turn part of the tannery into an arcade with over 30 retails spaces. The architectural details of the original tanneries, including the rafters and the old brick facade are to be kept and will be strengthened to current safety and earthquake standards. The Heathcote river which runs alongside the old tannery was one of the original transport routes in the 19th century and Alasdair is keen to keep as many heritage elements of the site intact.
Alasdair believes Christchurch is in sore need of locations where people can find entertainment and gather and not, obviously only because of the devastation caused by the earthquakes.
“Even before the earthquakes the CBD was dysfunctional,” he says.
“In the 1970s you had the university packed up and moved to Ilam with the loss of all those young people. The CBD lost all its intensification. Christchurch now is an opportunity. We want to be part of the new city, part of the action. I want it to start now and I want it to grow organically but quickly as we’re moving quickly.”
