The film opens on the rugged and inhospitable West Coast of the South Island of New Zealand. It’s as impenetrable now as it was then.

Next we see explorers, pioneers, prospectors, and the like. In the 1860s the gold rush attracted 40 000 such people from all over the world, to make their fortune there. Stewart Monteith saw his chance too and began to brew them beer, establishing his brewery in 1868. The gold fields ran out, but his ‘liquid gold’ was a huge success, and is brewed there to this day by the pioneers at Monteith’s Brewery.

147 years ago Monteith’s was brewed on the West Coast of the South Island of New Zealand for gold miners, prospectors, and pioneers. A good strong beer for thirsty, hard-working men, (not forgetting the thirsty and hard ‘working girls’) in a rugged and inhospitable place.

When the gold fields ran out however, people’s attention turned to ‘liquid gold’. And Monteith’s have been pioneers in brewing ever since.

Back then there was no-one to follow. You made your own way, and carved your own path. And that spirit lives on as fiercely today as it did then.

The unique west coast landscape features heavily: Karamea, Bruce Bay, Hokitika Gorge, Franz Josef Glacier, the legendary and near infamous Blackball Hilton, and of course ‘mecca’ itself: the Monteith’s Brewing Co in Greymouth.

These locations were also clues for people who had to ‘mine the film’ in order to find the golden key-the key to the brewery-the holder of which would get to go to the brewery and brew their own brew.