Cider house rules again

The Nelson Mail

IN THE BEGINNING: Chris Little, top, and Terry McCashin at the Stoke Mac's brewery in 1981.

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An old name in Nelson brewing is back and reviving an even older name in cider making. Tracy Neal reports.

The engine is rumbling again in a Stoke factory, waiting for the green light to revive a product that was first made there around 70 years ago.

The plant on Main Road Stoke was the home of the Rochdale Cider Factory, famous since the late 1930s for finding a way to squeeze every last drop from the region's apple crop and turn it into cider.

It was to become even more famous when the McCashin family took over the Rochdale mantle when they bought the site in 1980. They continued to brew cider, but really made their name when, in 1981, they brewed the first Mac's beer using locally grown hops.

In 1999 the Mac's brand was sold to giant brewery Lion and a year later Mac's HQ in Stoke was leased to the heavyweight, with the family moving out of the picture.

But in April this year the McCashins returned to the site, on a mission led by founder Terry McCashin's son Dean and his wife Emma, to revive a range of products under a new brand, focusing on cider under the Rochdale name.

"It's such a fantastic retro brand and the timing is perfect with the resurgence of interest in cider. It's the biggest selling drink in the UK right now, and we love the historic aspects of the product in Nelson," Mrs McCashin says.

Three or four varieties of cider are planned and the McCashin name will also feature on the product.

Beer volumes will be less. For political reasons, they aim to keep a low profile for now and stick to cider which is what they will be doing "sooner rather than later".

A vestige of the past exists in Chris Little of Nelson firm CLE Brew Systems, who was there when the McCashins installed and opened the brewery. He is back on site, tinkering away in preparation to hit the start button, in the hope that all the paperwork is confirmed.

It's an interesting direction for a man who confesses he doesn't drink beer, but is able to be swayed by the high-end specialised beers issuing forth from the boutique breweries. He was also smart enough to see where the business growth lay.

Mr Little has his own line of brewery equipment designed and manufactured in Nelson, and has installed micro breweries around the world, and lately the deluxe brewery system at Golden Bear Brewing in Mapua.

"There's more business than we can deal with. I've just taken on a fulltime sales and marketing staff member and engineering manager," Mr Little says.

Dean and Emma McCashin moved from Christchurch when Lion Breweries pulled out of Stoke, despite a promise in 2002 the New Zealand brewing giant was committed to the Nelson brewing operation.

"We have taken it back because Lion shifted out and didn't want to renew the lease. The building came back to the family in April, untenanted, so what else could we do? It seemed to be an opportunity too good to use just for storage," says Mrs McCashin, a young lawyer who has been handed the role of family spokeswoman.

They are now under way with a task more onerous than thought, to gain resource consent to resume production, and have already been inundated with people looking for work. The plant aims to employ up to 20 people.

''It has blown me away how many people are looking for work. We get two to three a day putting their name down, even to do the gardening, but there's nothing we can do until the resource consent is finalised. We're doing everything at the moment as we need to get the plant sorted and ready to go,'' Mrs McCashin says.

They are hoping to have cider and their new product, Palaeo water from their on-site bore, out by Christmas.

The Rochdale Cider Factory began operations at the Stoke site just before World War II. The modernist building which still stands was erected in 1951, and housed production of the cider, from the crushing of apples to the purifying of the finished product.

In 1980, Terry McCashin - a former All Black - and his wife Bev bought the Stoke factory, convincing Jim Pollit, head brewer for the Danish firm Carlsberg, and his wife Sheila to move to Nelson to run the brewery.

The McCashins left behind a life in hotels and farming - which were the catalysts for venturing into the brewery business - in the late 1970s. While on a rabbit farming course in the UK, Terry McCashin became intrigued with a small brewery in operation at Burton-on-Trent.

The couple's move to Nelson coincided with the Rochdale factory coming up for sale, and McCashin's Brewery & Malthouse was opened in 1981 by then prime minister Rob Muldoon.

The McCashins say that back then the large breweries used New Zealand hops but mostly brewed sweeter ales, with sugar added before and after fermentation.

The McCashin tenet, widely shared among the resurgent craft brewery movement, is that malt, yeast, hops and water should be the only ingredients used in the beer manufacturing process.

Politics over malt, and where the McCashins could source it, meant they simply went ahead and built a malt plant and employed a malter.

Besides their beer and cider, and the new Palaeo water, the company has expanded into vodka, buying the Nelson-made international award-winning 26000 Vodka brand. They aim to produce it at the distillery which is also springing back into life at the place which could be regarded as the spiritual home of beer and cider in the Nelson region.