97 – The West Coast Beer Boycott

In our final addendum to the Speight’s episodes, we talk about the West Coast Beer Boycott which we had to skip over but is actually a really great story pitting the strong unions against an association of pubs. All over a one penny increase in the price of beer.

96 – The Six O’Clock Swill

Today we talk about what has probably had the biggest impact on Aotearoa’s drinking culture, the (sometimes) legally enforced six o’clock closing time for pubs that went from 1918-1967. However you may know it by its more colloquial name that came about due to the rush of drinking it encouraged for those who finished work at 5pm, the six o’clock swill.

95 – Temperance and Prohibition

As a sort of epilogue to our Speight’s episodes I am delving into the prohibition movement a little deeper to give you a fuller understanding of who these people were and what was going on!

94 – Speight’s: Good on ya mate

The final episode on our series on Speight’s where we see a manager rise to the challenge presented by the behemouth that is DB.

93 – Speight’s: Rivals

Things once again start looking up for Speight’s as they get their flashy new bottling house up and running but perhaps are too focussed looking inward as a rival decides to move in right on their doorstep.

92 – Speight’s: The Scientific Revolution

The last couple of decades for Speight’s had been rough. War, death and tragedy have been common themes. Now, Speight’s looked to the future to try and recover from these devestating setbacks and a lot of that was to do with some major developments in the science of brewing beer.

91 – Speight’s: The Dark Times

We see Speight’s start to go into a major decline as pressures from the war, death of major figures and a fire take their toll on Speight’s.

90 – Speight’s: Like a Zip

The story of Speight’s continues! The prohibitionists are still at it and their making some pretty good headway, causing the NZ brewing industry to panic, meaning Speight’s will need to make a decision on whether they band together with other brewers or go it alone.

89 – Speight’s: Rise of Prohibition

We continue our story of Speight’s brewery, seeing the rise of the prohibition movement. We talk about who these people were, why they hated alcohol so much and how they went about trying to get it banned, along with how Speight’s responded to it all.

88 – Speight’s: Three Men Walk into a Bar

After going some of the background, we are now ready to begin the story of Speight’s properly! We will cover the how the founding trio met and some of their early hardships and successes.