8 Wired Brewing — New Zealand's Most Innovative Craft Brewery
Born during the infancy of the New Zealand craft beer revolution, 8 Wired Brewing has always stood for innovation, ingenuity, and an unapologetic refusal to play it safe. Founded by Danish-born brewer Søren Eriksen and his wife Monique, 8 Wired has grown from a humble homebrew kit into one of the most celebrated and internationally recognised craft breweries in the Southern Hemisphere — a brewery that has made the obscure enjoyable and the extraordinary accessible, one extraordinary beer at a time.
The Story of 8 Wired
The story begins on Christmas Day, 2005, when Monique gave Søren a classic Coopers homebrew kit. They were living in Perth at the time, and Søren brewed his first lagers in the blistering Western Australian summer — without cooling equipment or much knowledge. The beers were, by his own admission, awful. But he was hooked.
A couple of years later, the couple moved to New Zealand, and Søren began exploring specialty grains and hops with increasing obsession. Before long he was brewing all-grain beers, and the hobby had taken a firm hold on his life. Together, Søren and Monique made the bold decision to take the leap into professional brewing. To gain commercial experience, Søren took a job at Renaissance Brewing in Blenheim — planning to stay for three months. He stayed for a year, and when it became clear that starting their own brewery from scratch was beyond their means, Renaissance generously allowed them to rent equipment and tanks when available. Thus 8 Wired Brewing came to life as a contract brewery, brewing its first beer in October 2009.
Things moved quickly. In 2011, 8 Wired received the highest brewing honour in New Zealand, being crowned Champion Brewery at the Brewers Guild Awards. Over the following years, the brewery was featured on the prestigious RateBeer.com list of the 100 Best Brewers in the World — for four consecutive years, as the only Southern Hemisphere brewery to appear on the list.
After five years of contract brewing across four different breweries throughout New Zealand, 8 Wired finally established its own home — a purpose-built brewery in Warkworth, north of Auckland, where every beer is now brewed and packaged under one roof.
The Region: Warkworth, Northland, New Zealand
Warkworth sits in the Rodney District of Auckland's northern hinterland — a lush, green, and largely rural corner of the North Island, roughly an hour's drive north of Auckland city. The region's temperate climate, clean air, and proximity to both the Kaipara Harbour and the Pacific coast make it an evocative home for a brewery that draws so much of its identity from New Zealand's natural landscape and agricultural bounty.
New Zealand's craft beer scene has been shaped in no small part by the country's extraordinary indigenous hop varieties — Nelson Sauvin, Motueka, and Riwaka among them — grown primarily in the Nelson and Marlborough regions of the South Island. 8 Wired makes extensive use of these world-renowned hops, particularly in its Fresh Hopwired Green Hopped Hazy IPA, which is brewed with freshly harvested Nelson Sauvin and Motueka hops picked just outside of Nelson at the peak of the harvest season.
Brewing Philosophy
8 Wired's brewing style is focused on what Søren describes as ‘New World interpretations of Old World styles’. The permanent range spans multiple shades of hop-forward IPAs, Saisons, Porters, and Stouts, while the barrel ageing programme — which 8 Wired believes is the largest in the Southern Hemisphere — produces a glorious spectrum of sour and funky flavours that have become the brewery's most talked-about and sought-after releases.
The barrel programme currently encompasses approximately 200 individual 225-litre barrels, the vast majority sourced from New Zealand wineries, as well as seven large foudres ranging from 1,500 to 4,000 litres each. The beers that emerge from these vessels — aged for months or years in wine-soaked oak — are complex, funky, and deeply rewarding. They take a long time to make, but they are worth every moment of the commitment.
Awards & Recognition
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Champion Brewery — Brewers Guild of New Zealand Awards 2011 — the highest brewing honour in New Zealand
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RateBeer.com 100 Best Brewers in the World — featured for four consecutive years as the only Southern Hemisphere brewery on the list
- Consistently recognised by the international craft beer community as one of the most innovative and boundary-pushing breweries in the Asia-Pacific region
Our Range
Hop-Forward IPAs & Pale Ales — The backbone of the 8 Wired range. The HopWired IPA is the brewery's flagship — a bold, resinous, and intensely hoppy West Coast-style IPA that put 8 Wired on the map. The Super Conductor Double IPA takes things further still, brewed with 80% more hops than the already formidable HopWired. The Juice Juice Baby and Curious Juice Hazy IPAs deliver tropical, juicy, New England-style softness, while the Hop Salad (Nelson Sauvin, Mosaic, Citra, Galaxy) and Simpatico (Simcoe, Azacca, Cashmere, Mosaic) offer further hop variety. The Fresh Hopwired Green Hopped Hazy IPA is a seasonal highlight — brewed with freshly harvested Nelson Sauvin and Motueka hops for a dank, grassy, oily, and lightly fruity character that can only be captured at harvest time. West Coast IPA fans are well served by High Strangeness, Mos Eisley Cantina, Thunder Valley, and the double-strength Nexus West Coast DIPA. The Tall Poppy India Red Ale bridges the hop-forward and malt-driven worlds with its caramel-like malty structure and sharp, fruity hoppiness. The Sunshine Daydream Hazy Pale Ale offers a more sessionable entry point with its fresh, fruity blend of NZ and US hops.
Sour & Wild Ales — 8 Wired's sour programme is the brewery's most celebrated and distinctive achievement. The Gypsy Fruits Barrel Aged Sour Ale with Grapefruit is aged in wine barrels for up to two years, then a further six months on a metric tonne of local organic grapefruits before being heavily dry hopped — sour, fruity, funky, and zesty. The Palate Trip Sour IPA replaces bitterness with acidity for a wild, refreshing, and genuinely trippy experience. The Hippy series — including Mandarin Hippy, Tangelo & Lime Hippy, and Cucumber Hippy — are Berliner Weisse-IPA hybrids naturally soured with live cultures and loaded with fresh local fruit. The Stone Free Hoppy Sour Apricot Ale (originally brewed for GABS 2018) and the Lamponi Raspberry Sour (with oregano, basil, and thyme) round out a sour range of remarkable breadth and creativity. The Brett Brux Brut is a super dry, hoppy, and funky Brettanomyces-fermented Brut IPA for those who want their wild ale with a serious hop edge.
Stouts & Dark Ales — 8 Wired's stout range is as bold and inventive as everything else the brewery produces. The iStout Affogato Imperial Stout is brewed with lactose, coffee, and vanilla for a rich, indulgent, dessert-like experience. The iStout Whisky Barrel Aged Stout takes the same base beer and ages it in whisky barrels, adding roasted coffee, dark chocolate, dried fruit, and the warming depth of the cask. The Flat White Nitro Coffee Milk Stout — named after New Zealand's iconic barista coffee style — is brewed with coffee, vanilla beans, and lactose and served on nitro for a silky, creamy pour. The Double Scoop pastry stout series comes in two irresistible variants: Raspberry Chocolate Brownie (velvety chocolate with a tart raspberry lift) and Salted Caramel Cinnamon Swirl (chocolate, sticky salted caramel, warming cinnamon, and vanilla).
Barrel-Aged & Specialty Ales — The Sticky Barleywine is a richly indulgent ale brewed with plums, raisins, and dates, delivering concentrated layers of dried stone fruit and deep malt complexity. The Byg is Beautiful Oak Aged Barleywine (a collaboration with Melbourne's Moondog Brewing) is aged on oak for three months and brewed with generous additions of New Zealand hops. The Opium Cake Imperial Milk Stout (a collaboration with Poland's Browar Pinta) is based on the traditional Polish poppy seed roll Makowiec, brewed with poppy seeds, lactose, orange peel, raisins, and vanilla. The God Save the Lager Imperial Pilsner (with Bridge Road Brewers, Australia) uses NZ and Australian hops with NZ-grown malt for a bold Pacific colonial statement. The Jucifer Hazy IPA adds a devilish Belgian ale yeast twist to the hazy format, while the Juice Cannon Double IPA launches a double-calibre payload of malty, hoppy tropical character.
How to Enjoy 8 Wired Beers
8 Wired's hop-forward IPAs and pale ales are best served cold (4–6°C) in a tulip or IPA glass that concentrates the hop aromas. Sour ales are equally at home straight from the can or poured into a wide-mouthed glass to let the acidity breathe. The stouts and barrel-aged ales reward slightly warmer serving temperatures (8–10°C) — allow them a few minutes out of the fridge to open up their full complexity. The Barleywines and whisky barrel-aged expressions are best savoured slowly, like a fine spirit.
Explore the full 8 Wired range below and discover why this Warkworth brewery has been wowing taste buds the world over since 2009.
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