There’s something about garages. It’s a place where the broken is repaired and made whole again. When it’s no longer vehicles getting the once-over behind the roller doors, they seem to become a magnet for other businesses offering some form of repair or remedy. The legendary Joe’s Garage began its life in a former mechanic’s workshop in Queenstown, a secret spot for locals to get their morning coffee fix. Yoga studios proliferate in spaces where the oils were another kind of essential and the belts were more timing or alternator and less pilates.
On Gordon Road, in what was then a far flung part of Wānaka, was the long-standing Wānaka Tyres and Auto, a one-stop shop for vehicle needs. As Wānaka grew and evolved, so too did the identity of 17 Gordon Road. Since 2017, it has been home to microbrewery and burgeoning arts hub, Rhyme x Reason.
The vision of brewer Jess Wolfgang and her partner, Simon Ross, Rhyme x Reason was a project that fermented slowly until the right opportunity arose. Upon leaving the Hunter Beer Company in New South Wales, Jess and Simon returned to Aotearoa to help establish a brewery in Oamaru. Simon, an engineer, noticed a gap in the market for small scale bottling machines and set up his own business, Micro Brewtech, operating first out of a friend’s surf shop in Oamaru before upgrading to his parents’ garage in Wānaka.
Spending a summer in the southern alps for the first time was what gave them the impetus to start looking for a location. “With two peak seasons instead of just the one six week summer rush in Australia,” says Simon, “everything seemed a lot more viable.” Then Simon’s Mum saw the lease on the former garage become available. The landlord was supportive of the new vision. “He knew,” says Simon, “that a brewery and bar on site meant that we’d have to keep his property clean!” Thus Rhyme x Reason was born, a micro brewery, taproom, and venue, with an adjacent space for Simon’s bottling machine workshop.
Jess had always wanted to own a venue “ever since I was a young teenager frothing on live music. My first live gig was Hole in 1999 and from then I was forever hooked.” Eight years later when she learned to brew, a brewery was added to the wish list and, with Rhyme x Reason, she has been able to realise both dreams.
At a time when an increasing number of spaces are shying away from live music and when the costs of touring can prove too great for many musicians to visit smaller towns and venues, Rhyme x Reason has stepped up. During the post-lockdown period of social distancing requirements, the malt storage room which had previously served as Simon’s workshop (by then, he’d moved next door) became an additional space for customers. Simon saw how “people loved sitting in amongst the malt storage” and, at a time when “Wānaka was crying out for a live music venue”, it was clear that they could fill that gap.
The Malt Room opened in 2022 and was kitted out almost entirely thanks to Facebook trading pages and local op-shop, Wastebusters. The community immediately embraced this space and all that it had to offer, so much so, says Jess, that people would start bringing in items to add to the decor. She points to boats sitting above the Malt Room door. “No one knows where it came from – someone brought it in and took ownership.”
There was no problem in filling the events calendar, with local school bands and open mic evenings listed alongside Ladi6, poetry evenings, comedy nights, cabaret and even the legendary Chali 2na from Jurassic 5. How did this giant of LA hip hop discover a brewery in the back roads of Wānaka? “Chali was in Aotearoa for a tour and was with his family, looking to have a few days’ holiday in Wānaka. He got in touch on the back of our social media and the events we’d put on and it all happened from there,” says Simon.
Since their earliest events, there’s been, Jess says, “a wee bit of a snowball effect. There’s a real vacuum here in the live venues space”.
Unlike most venues around the country, and indeed the world, there are no venue fees. Instead 100% of ticket sales go directly to the artist. “We just try to make it easy,” adds Simon. It helps that a world class sound technician, James Walters aka Jimmy Joyrider, takes care of the sound for the love of it. “He just wants to see live music in Wānaka,” says Simon, who credits much of the venue’s reputation to James’ skills and connections. “His input has been massive”.
Comedians love the space, harking back to the tradition of pubs as a proving ground for new acts trying their luck. It’s not just the comedians who want to test their new material here, either. Jess says that Rhyme x Reason has become a great place for up-and-coming DJs to get some experience of playing to a crowd. “We’ve got a transient population here and you get people who are getting used to DJing at house parties but who have a fear of playing in public. We’ve had DJs ask to come and play here as a stepping stone from a living room to a larger venue.”
Big Idea contributor Nathan Joe brought his Dirty Passports series to Rhyme x Reason during the Wānaka Festival of Colour’s Aspiring Conversations. Aotearoa’s leading BIPOC poets performed to a packed out venue with a vastly diverse audience, many of whom you might not expect to see in a brewery on a Tuesday night. But diversity is key at Rhyme x Reason when it comes to the clientele. From judges and lawyers to tradies and tourists, you’ll see them all side by side on any given evening as a local musician tunes up their guitar. “We wanted to call it “The People’s Brewery”,” says Simon, “but that was a bit too communist”. Regardless of its name, it is undoubtedly a space for the people – performers, punters and audiences alike.
At the monthly open mic evening, Creative Juices, anyone is welcome to have a turn on the stage to perform something original, be it song, spoken word or melody. It started as a lowkey grassroots event and has grown into one of the busiest dates in the calendar. Stalwart contributor, Roger North, sums it up. “Creative Juices is my favourite night of the month with a super supportive crowd, full of folks wondering what they might be able to do next time. I use it as a target to create a song and in doing so, share a story or an idea, improve musically, improve as a creator, and above all absorb other thoughts and ideas as inspiration for next time. It’s a wonderful community; on many occasions I have thought to myself, ‘this is what the world needs’. There's never a dull moment.”
In a space where circulation and flow used to refer to oil and air, these are now words of connection and creativity. “We wanted to create a space for conversation,” says Jess. “My proudest moments are when the taproom and garden are full and no one is on their phone.”
So what’s next for Rhyme x Reason? Who’s on the must-host list? Jess doesn’t hesitate for a moment in her response. “I will retire, drop the mic and walk out the day we have Peaches play here.” In the meantime though, she’s happy to keep rolling out fun, creative nights at the coolest arts hub in the region. “We’re not trying to take over the world, we’re not even trying to take over Wānaka; we’re just trying to have fun.”
