Dan Hagenaar - Retail

Dan was customer number 37 after we opened the shop. He combines a passion for all things fermented with great customer service.

With a background as a trained chef, Dan has been all-grain brewing for the last 10 years and likes to dabble in mead and distilling too.

Dan's first attempt at home-brewing was back when he was 16. His parents were opposed to him even drinking alcohol and didn't know that he had stashed bottles of homebrew inside the wall cavities of his sleep out. 

Not knowing what he knows now, sooner or later the inevitable happened and low and behold the exploding bottle bombs meant he had a sleep out with leaky walls. His parents were not impressed!

Dan's worked at League of Brewers since 2016 and has pretty much had every question you can have about home-brewing by now. 

Martin Collins - Retail

Martin was customer number 192 after we opened the shop. He joined the team in May 2020, to help Dan keep up with packing down products and packing up orders.

Martin has been brewing beer and spirits since the 1990s, and all-grain brewing since 2016. He likes to brew mainly English style beers - which makes sense, because his partner Leonie says he's "a grumpy old pom to me but a ‘great guy’ to others."

Martin is a keen member of Hash House Harriers which - as far as we can make out - is a drinking club with a running problem. He has travelled to many parts of the world over the years through this club and loves to get away in his camper with a hand-pull Real Ale set up ready to go.

Martin regularly starts his work shift at 6am, to make sure that all orders can be packed ready for the courier and that we don't run out of hops. 

Michael Rhodes - Brewery

Michael was customer number 89 after we opened the shop. Michael's level of passion for brewing, his technical and scientific approach and his eagerness to help us succeed on our journey made it inevitable that sooner or later he would become part of the team. He has been brewing since 1975, nearly before Mike was born!

Michael has a specific passion for brewing water chemistry, and as well as developing our "Brewing with Local Water" document and the "Home Brewer Water Analysis Report" he has consulted to local commercial craft breweries helping them with their water modification calculations. When we launched The League Brewery, he was a dead cert for the job of head brewer and brewery manager.

Michael has managed to keep himself fairly busy over the years, including being a radio host/disk jockey in Northern California in the late 70s, decommissioning nuclear power facilities for the Canadian government, and even managing to pick up a Vietnam service medal along the way.. Be sure to get the chance to hear his stories if you can! 

Matt Rhodes - Brewery

After getting a regular supply of tastings from Michael's home brewery, Matt had been badgering his old man about teaching him the finer points of brewing for some time. So when the opportunity came up for someone to help Michael out in the brewery, Matt was very keen to put his hand up. 

Matt has quickly got to grips with The League Brewery's kit, and you will find him happily at work covering all tasks from brewing beer, washing kegs, filling riggers, cleaning fermenters - all the things that us brewers love so much! He also is a regular behind the bar when we take the Beer Hive out on the road for events and parties.

When he is not working at The League Brewery, Matt likes to unwind with some historical fencing. If you want to take him on you can choose between longsword, or sword and buckler.

Meredith Rimmer - Finance Manager

Every team needs someone to make sure the bills get paid and we have Meredith! Meredith covers Accounts, HR and Payroll.

Not much of a beer drinker, Meredith is much more interested in the fermenting and cheese making supplies stocked on our shelves. Kimchi and Camembert anyone? 

In her spare time Meredith loves ballroom dancing, trout fishing and making the most of her (sometimes) abundant vegetable garden.

Mike Stringer - Owner

Since getting hooked with the home-brewing bug in 2006, Mike has been on a mission to change the perception that home-brewed beer has to mean bad beer. This idea has led to partnering with Ed to launch League of Brewers in 2014, and partnering with Ed and Karl Summerfield to run the New Zealand Home-brewers' Conference in 2016, 2017 and 2018, running the Brew Zone at Nelson's popular MarchFest festival since 2010, organising the Homebrew Hub and homebrew competition at Beervana in Wellington since 2016 and being a judge at the SOBA National Homebrew Competition since 2017.

These days Mike is making more wine and spirits than brewing beer, but he has no ambitions to pretend he is any good at that yet.

Mike is very fond of looking at his "Honoured Member" certificate from Society of Beer Advocates whilst wondering what he should write about himself on his "Meet the Team" description.

Mike was customer number 1 after we opened the shop, but only because he needed to test if the shop system worked.

Ed Briem - Owner

Ed started his brewing career eagerly making up batches of wines and spirits, but refused to bother making beer until he tried a homebrew he liked. A bottle or two of Mike's partial extract Munich Dunkel back in 2008 rapidly changed that, and in the years since it's been rare that he has had an empty fermenter for more than a few days. Ed follows most of the major brewing podcasts and is always keen to try new techniques and ingredients. 

As a German it took him years to get his head around hoppy pilsners, but now it's his favorite style - Kiwi pilsner rocks!

Ed is an IT geek, so if you love our website, buy him a beer! If there are things you don't like about the website let him know, suggestions are very welcome!

Ed was customer number 2 after we opened the shop, but only because Mike jumped in there first.

Jamie McQuillan – Brewing Consultant

Jamie is an award winning home brewer and the owner/operator of his tiny, part-time Dunedin brewery, Cell Division. His day job sees him working as a molecular biologist and neuroscientist at the University of Otago.

After taking up home brewing in 2012, Jamie went on to win both champion beer and champion brewer at the 2016 SOBA National Home Brew Competition, followed by taking out our very own Brewmania competition at the National Home Brew Conference in 2017. He then decided to take the plunge and started brewing commercially as Cell Division Brewery, specialising in farmhouse, sour, wild, funky and fruited beers. He brings with him the experience he has gained as both a home brewer and in the professional arena. As a long-time friend of the League of Brewers, he joined our team while taking a break from science in Nelson, and simultaneously running his family’s orchard, brewing beer and collaborating with the late great Alex Peckham of Peckham’s Cider.

You will find Jamie writing beer geek articles for us which will no doubt feature his love of farmhouse and sour beers as well as providing useful advice on things such as yeast, fruiting, and other brewing techniques. We also have him working tirelessly on new recipes, diving into styles not previously featured in our catalogue and we may even convince him to dust off one or two of his award winning recipes for us.