Hāpi Festival and Symposium — Matt Tarpey of The Veil

Garage Project’s Hāpi Festival and Symposium was held earlier this year in the lead-up to New Zealand’s hop harvest.

The symposium and festival form the public-facing side of a hop-breeding initiative Garage Project has undertaken with New Zealand’s Freestyle Farms, and with backing from the country’s Ministry for Primary Industries. Over the course of a day in Wellington’s famous Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, speakers such as Alexandra Nowell from Three Weavers Brewing Company, Matt Brynildson from Firestone Walker Brewing Company, and Paul Jones from Cloudwater Brew Co. gave talks with a focus on hops. Good Beer Hunting was there to capture a slice of the discussion.  

Afterwards, the invited breweries poured for a small festival of 1,000 people. It was a surreal situation: seeing world-renowned breweries like Trillium, Other Half, Hill Farmstead. Tired Hands and Cellarmaker serving beer in New Zealand’s national museum. 

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“Crucial Taunt” is a great name for a fictional band, a beer, and a hacky-sack team—at least that’s what Matt Tarpey from The Veil and I decided when we caught up at the Hāpi Festival and Symposium. When I saw him pass me in the symposium hall, my immediate thought was, “Damn, that’s a nice Veil jacket.” Then I wondered why he looked familiar to me. It’s because The Veil was profiled in 2016 on Good Beer Hunting, complete with some incredible photography from Cory Smith. That story went live soon after the brewery launched; since then, Matt’s talents in the brewhouse have helped The Veil build a sterling reputation for hop-forward beers.

In this fourth and final episode from our Hāpi Festival and Symposium, Matt also shares the story of his first helicopter experience, and even gives us a scoop on some expansion plans for the brewery. Listen in.