An idea came to the owner of Garston farm, a 140-year-old Southland farm handling mostly sheep and crops, while drinking a beer and reflecting about the plight for New Zealand craft brewers. In particular, many brewers were struggling to get New Zealand produced hops but happily the location of the farm corresponds to the latitude for hops production. With support from existing New Zealand hop farmers (a little North in Nelson Motueka), the business was up and running, with small scale first 800 plants on about three quarters of a hectare, with plans to ultimately increase to 5ha.
