Speight’s is 150 years old and I’ll definitely drink to that

On Saturday I drank a toast to Speight’s. 

Not an unusual event, to be sure, but Saturday was special.

It marked exactly 150 years since the first Speight’s was produced at the City Brewery in Rattray St.

Was I alone in celebrating this glorious anniversary? I suspect Kirin Holdings Company, the Japanese outfit which owns Speight’s are actually unaware of the brand, let alone its history, but I have followed the fortunes of Speight’s since I first arrived in Dunedin as a student in 1966.

In that year I took English 1, French 1, History 1 and Speight’s 1 — gaining my highest marks in the last named subject.

Strangely, History 1, focusing on the doings of William the Conqueror, completely ignored the history of brewing in Dunedin but I was intrigued by the story of a beer which had welcomed me to Dunedin. 

The wellbeing of Speight’s became a theme for my studies over the next 60 years and mirrored my concerns about Dunedin’s future now that the city had become my favourite place in New Zealand.

Speight’s had become an intriguing part of our social history and had entered our language as much more than a brand name. 

In fact, for many years it was a generic term for “beer”.

I never reached the rarified atmosphere of having to write a thesis but I imagine it would have been, “Speight’s: It’s place in New Zealand English and influence on society”.

As early as 1884 Speight’s beer was making its mark in the north and in Thames a publican had filled Speight’s casks with his own beer and palmed it off as Speight’s. 

The prosecutor pressed for the heaviest penalty, as frauds of the kind had been common in Auckland.

I would quote from a 1917 Auckland court case in which a young defendant told the court, “I’d heard a lot about this Speight’s beer and thought I’d give it a go. I drank half of it and felt a bit better’’.

‘‘Then I drank the other half, and it took charge of me and I don’t know what happened till I woke up in the cells. I ain’t goin’ to have beer any more.”

There are letters to the editor during the great temperance debate of the 1890s where you would find drinkers complaining of “the hogwash from doctors trying to make us believe that a good glass of Speight’s beer is bad for us”. 

During the 1890 shearers’ strike one Hawke's Bay farmer wondered if any new agreement would demand “the shearers’ dinner shall consist of not less than four courses and an unlimited supply of Speight’s beer is expected to be on the table.” 

That Speight’s had become nationally renowned is shown in the advertising by pubs from Northland to Bluff which boasted “Speight’s Always On Tap”.

The seamen’s strike of 1912 threatened this nationwide coverage and Speight’s bought land in Wanganui with the idea of building a branch brewery there. 

When coastal shipping by the Union Steamship Company proved inadequate in 1921 Speight’s and the Holm Shipping Company put the Holmdale on a weekly run to Wanganui from where North Island hotels were supplied with Speight’s products.

The Holmdale earned the nickname “the Mercy Ship”.

When New Zealand Breweries was formed in the 1920s Speight’s was by far the biggest brewery in the consortium but as time went by the power base shifted north and with that came some fancy and foolish footwork with local brands. 

The low point was the great “Lucky fiasco” of 1960.

North Island-based whizz kids at New Zealand Breweries decided that their regionally labelled brands would be marketed under one name, “Lucky”. 

There was nothing wrong with the beer but the label lasted only a few months, Speight’s being one of the first branches to ditch Lucky and reinstate Speight’s.

Recognising the loyalty to an established brand, a new generation of marketing gurus decided that Speight’s was a winner and a pretty impressive campaign incorporating the “Southern man” image saw a national demand for Speight’s which by then was also being brewed in Auckland and Christchurch. 

But in 2001 the Commerce Commission slammed New Zealand breweries for using labels on cans and bottles which stated, “Traditionally brewed at Speight’s Brewery Dunedin since 1876” were liable to mislead consumers into believing that the beer was brewed in Dunedin when the beer was in fact also brewed in Christchurch or Auckland.

Perhaps only the “Southern man” image prevented the Dunedin brewery’s closure.

It may even be the Christchurch earthquake destroying the brewery there was the reason Speight’s Dunedin brewery was redeveloped in 2014.

The 150th anniversary may yet be acknowledged by Kirin Holdings but if not, I’ll drink a draught Speight’s (cans and bottles come from Auckland) and wish the Dunedin brewery well.

• Jim Sullivan is a Patearoa writer.