CHAPTER 14

THE AFTERMATH

Emerson’s Taieri George is released every year on George Emerson’s birthday: 6 March.

Back before the sale went through, I was a little nervous about the concept of selling out. What would the punters think? Would they continue to buy our product? Would my shareholders be happy? All those thoughts ran through my mind. But the shareholders were more than happy to see a healthy return on their investment, and concerns from the public that Emerson’s would become a ‘watered-down mass-produced product’ were quickly allayed. The small amount of negative feedback proved to be just knee-jerk reactions and they were quickly forgotten.

There were just too many positive vibes going around. I was also worried about what people in the industry would think of me. One brewer came up to me and said, ‘Richard, you have given us hope.’ What I did and what I went through opened the door for others.

‘I cried,’ said Emerson’s brewing team leader Jim Falconer when he heard the sale news at a staff meeting on Monday, 5 November 2012. Like the rest of the staff, he had no idea about the sale until he heard the announcement from Richard that morning.

The business had just hired a young brewer, Sam White, and when everyone was called to the Monday-morning meeting, Falconer figured they’d be welcoming Sam to Emerson’s. ‘Instead, it was, “We’ve sold to Lion.” I was horrified. I felt betrayed.’

For Falconer, and others, it felt like the end of something important. ‘The dream was over. At that stage we felt we were on a crusade — and when you’re on a crusade it helps if you have something you’re the opposite of. We thought we were part of the craft crusade against blandness and mindlessness. It was probably a bad mindset to be in, but that’s how we felt. Lion were the people we’d been fighting against — they were the opposite of what we were about — and now we’d been absorbed by them. Ideologically, it felt like it couldn’t work.’

While the reaction from within Emerson’s stayed contained within 14 Wickliffe Street — when the sale became public knowledge the next day, the howls of outrage made themselves heard over the other news of the day — the Melbourne Cup and the US presidential election. Scheduling a controversial announcement for a busy news day is a great corporate strategy, yet the Emerson’s sale cut through all that noise.

On the day after the public announcement of the sale, I was in Central Otago because the plan was that I had to carry on as if nothing had happened. I’ll never forget driving back to Dunedin from Queenstown that morning. At one stage I had to pull over to the side of the road to answer a text and I saw a copy of the Otago Daily Times sticking out of a letter box and I could see a part of the headline which read: ‘Lion buys …’ I thought, ‘Wow, I’ve made the headlines.’

Bob King said the ‘vitriol’ aimed at Richard and the brewery started that day and kept going for weeks. Three well-known independent bars — Wellington’s Hashigo Zake, The Free House in Nelson and Christchurch’s Cassels Brewery — all announced boycotts of Emerson’s. Punters took to Facebook vowing never to drink the beer again.

MUCH OF THE ANGER WAS AROUND EMERSON’S SELLING AS MUCH AS IT WAS ABOUT LION PUTTING ITS LARGE PAWPRINT ON WHAT HAD BEEN AN ICONIC INDEPENDENT BREWERY — THE FEAR WAS THAT THE BEER WOULD BE DUMBED DOWN, ACCOUNTANTS WOULD CALL THE SHOTS, AND THE BREWERY WOULD LOSE ITS SOUL. OUTRAGED PUNTERS ACCUSED RICHARD OF BEING A SELL OUT — OF ABANDONING THEM AND HIS PRINCIPLES.

Much of the anger was around Emerson’s selling as much as it was about Lion putting its large pawprint on what had been an iconic independent brewery — the fear was that the beer would be dumbed down, accountants would call the shots, and the brewery would lose its soul. Outraged punters accused Richard of being a sell-out — of abandoning them and his principles.

To understand the reaction, you have to understand the journey beer had taken from ‘micro’ — kind of cute and different, but not necessarily substantial — to ‘craft’ which, as Falconer noted, felt like a crusade. From roughly 2007 through to 2012, what had been an alternative — cottage — industry became a movement.

It’s not entirely helpful to use broad-brush stereotypes — but the beer scene stopped being the domain of roman sandal-wearing beardy blokes who home-brewed. It became a bit more cool, urban, underground — and political. It became counter-revolutionary, a subculture with roots in flavour, but with aspirations for change. It pitted small and independent against big and corporate, put handcrafted up against industrial.

Craft brewers stood for the opposite of corporate breweries — faces versus faceless. A beer lover could go to a festival and meet the person who made the beer, have a conversation about it. Personal connection mattered. It was us (who drank flavoursome beer made by a person we could see) and them (the invisible, foreign-owned corporates who made mass swill). Craft pitted small-scale against factory. Craft played an honesty card — devoid of marketing and spin. Craft gave fans a sense of ownership — a stake in the revolution. Every pint or 500ml bottle of craft beer chipped another brick from the crumbling wall of corporate beer. Admittedly, this period of true revolution was relatively short-lived because it didn’t take long for craft to jump from anti-establishment to conventional. A bandwagon came around the corner and filled up fast.

Emerson’s sale was a signal that the craft-beer train had switched tracks. It flagged a change in the fight — the big guys had lobbed a grenade, disrupting the disrupters. Here was a bubble-bursting eye-opener that making great beer was not just a noble calling — it was also a business, a big-money business. And people who had been part of the revolution, who’d helped create that us-and-them mentality, felt one of the strongest fighters had crossed over to become one of them. It felt like treason.

‘The vitriol aimed at Richard after the sale was horrific,’ Bob King recalled. ‘For many he was suddenly the Antichrist. Because of their personal association, they felt betrayed. We had people come to the shop to tell us they’d never buy the brand again. That stuff hurt Richard, he felt it because it was his brewery. But the fans felt they also had an ownership of it — their reaction was, “How dare you sell this brewery that I feel I own?” Nothing changed with the beer but the brand connect was broken.’

Richard Emerson’s relentlessly positive, go-forward attitude is the kind of trait possessed by so many successful business people. Yes, he had moments early when he wanted to chuck it all away but after decompressing he picked himself up and went to work the next morning at 6am to plough through another 12-hour day, putting yesterday’s drama behind him and starting afresh with a new batch of beer.

Yes, he butted heads with his father for 10 years over spending money on what Richard saw as necessities and what George regarded as nice-to-haves. And after each ‘no’ Richard went out and found another way to make things work. From childhood he’s had an unrelenting positivity and an explorer’s attitude of looking ahead rather than behind.

That’s not to say he wouldn’t get angry, frustrated or tearful — but moving on has been the default setting. It was an attitude that allowed him to give Rob Smillie a black eye for taunting him and yet they ended up being best friends. He bought one disastrous Mini and when he wrote it off he bought another one — having learned what to look out for. If things broke, like bike axles or grain mills — he didn’t wallow in misfortune but found a way to fix the problem.

IT’S NOT IN RICHARD’S NATURE TO PITCH A TENT AT CAMP NEGATIVITY — HE’LL JUMP ON HIS BIKE AND RIDE ON, LITERALLY DEAF TO THE CRITICS AND NAYSAYERS.

It’s not in Richard’s nature to pitch a tent at Camp Negativity — he’ll jump on his bike and ride on, literally deaf to the critics and naysayers.

He treated those searing criticisms the same way, brushing them aside and focusing on the future. His antidote to the venom was his innate positivity. ‘The small amount of negative feedback proved to be just knee-jerk reactions and they were quickly forgotten. There were just too many positive vibes going around.’

Richard weathered the storm of disapproval in a fashion matched only by Lion’s faith in their newly acquired business. The purchase could have backfired given a strong enough mutiny, but Lion had faith in Richard’s personality. They’d done their research and believed in him.

Lion chose to buy Emerson’s instead of other contenders for a bunch of reasons. The place mattered — rooted in Dunedin — both in the sense of a physical home and a local tribe of devoted consumers. The brewery had its own recipes and creative processes ensuring unique and novel beers. The brewery could run independently of head office, as a quantum package it could chug along under its own steam with Lion providing external support when needed. And finally, Lion bought the brewery because of Richard. Plenty of other breweries had similar qualities to Emerson’s — connected to a place, with their own recipes and independent — but none of them had the depth of connection between brewer and brand that Emerson’s possessed. A deep connection between Richard and his brand created an X factor that was impossible to ignore.

Chris O’Leary has thoroughly embraced Dunedin’s Scottish heritage.

The marketing team at Lion like to use the 12 personality archetypes developed by psychologist Carl Jung — if a brand can be captured by one or two of Jung’s archetypes then it’s a strong brand easily articulated in-house.

A few years after buying Emerson’s, for instance, Lion made a stunning decision to buy Panhead Custom Ales out of Upper Hutt. The blue-collar, petrol-head, irreverent brand was only three years old when Lion swooped — and the overriding reason was brand power. The brand captured precisely, by Jung’s archetype, the rebel, a personality with outrageously big ideas who inspires others to join them.

Lion’s consumer research prior to buying Emerson’s revealed a primary and secondary archetype that nailed down Richard and his brewery — the sage and the jester. They come together as the sage jester.

The sage is about truth, wisdom and sharing knowledge — the sage is a master in his or her field, but open, approachable and generous. As an industry leader, renowned for brewing to style and delivering quality, the sage archetype fitted Emerson’s like a beloved tee-shirt. Richard too, as the master, respected far and wide for his skill, knowledge, impeccable palate and willingness to share, is a sage in his own right. The jester is Richard’s wry humour, which in turn permeates the brand. He’s cheeky, irreverent, effervescent and not afraid to make fun of himself or take a joke which makes him easy to relate to.

As Lion’s marketing head Danny Phillips noted: ‘The brand could have been earnest and classical, closed-off and a bit wankerish, but Richard’s approachability, the way he was able to talk to anyone, to create instant rapport through making a joke or his self-deprecating humour allows people to approach him without worrying about his deafness, and that allows them to approach the brand as well. He literally grew his brand by talking to people at beer events — it’s his passion.’

Capturing the brand so easily speaks to its authenticity — the soul of Emerson’s since day one. ‘Richard’s heart is what shone through,’ Phillips said. ‘People wanted to talk about him because he’s so special.’

The connection people made with Richard in turn made Emerson’s the front-runner for Lion. ‘We started with three breweries we were looking at, but it soon became obvious Emerson’s were the clear winner. The brand was just so deep.’

Lion’s takeover was the first bold move under new managing director Rory Glass, who emphasised his belief in Emerson’s as ‘highly credible, authentic and with some passionate guys behind it’.

The authenticity would become a façade, however, if Richard, Chris O’Leary and other key personnel such as Bob King, didn’t stay on. As part of the sale process, Lion guaranteed that trio a retention bonus split between them if they were to stay on for three years post-sale.

Despite his concerns, even brewing team-leader Jim Falconer stayed on. ‘It seems to have worked and I’ve got a bit more faith now, it’s taken a long time to see that their intentions were good. And they also have faith in what we’re doing — that we’re profitable and can make good beer. They’re quite hands off, which is different to what I’d thought it would be.’

That hands-off approach helped punters believe that Emerson’s, if not independently owned, at least operated that way. It’s no secret that Lion has invested heavily in the brewery — but it’s been an investment in things that make better beer: equipment and people — not marketing.

Richard Emerson is so well-loved, so universally respected, that no one within the tight-knit beer community begrudged him his financial windfall. The sale made him an overnight millionaire — just — but many believed that undervalued what Richard has done for the brewing industry as a whole.

‘Richard completely and wholeheartedly has a passion and soul for flavour, taste and beer — he’s built that business organically and it’s all come from within,’ said Chris O’Leary. ‘He was never driven by a dollar. Yes, he got $1 million out of the deal but he probably deserved more. He doesn’t have to work now, doesn’t have to be at the brewery, but he loves being around people, loves the beer, loves the food, loves the energy around it, loves what he’s created.’

Pete Gillespie, brewer and founder at Garage Project, one of New Zealand’s most admired breweries, so adored Emerson’s beer he once applied for a job there. ‘Richard’s such a fucking legend, such an icon. Way back before I had ever worked in a brewery anywhere — back when I was home-brewing — I wrote a letter to Emerson’s asking for a job there. I just loved what they were doing with beer. They were immensely inspirational. When they sold they copped a lot of shit, but it was time for investors to get something out because anyone who owns a brewery knows very little ever comes out.’

RICHARD EMERSON IS SO WELL-LOVED, SO UNIVERSALLY RESPECTED, THAT NO ONE WITHIN THE TIGHT-KNIT BEER COMMUNITY BEGRUDGED HIM HIS FINANCIAL WINDFALL.

As Emerson’s negotiated with Lion, Garage Project started out on their own journey. Gillespie, his brother, Ian, and co-founder Jos Ruffell set up shop in an old garage in Wellington’s Aro Valley. They had a 50-litre brewery — nothing more than a home-brew-sized operation smaller than what Richard had brewed in his garage at Ravensbourne. Garage Project’s nanobrewery sat on the freshly painted floor of the large garage with the only other object in the room being a huge couch Ruffell had bought so they had somewhere to sit.

‘The garage, from outside, looked totally derelict. We’d tidied up the inside a little bit, painted the floor … We were there doing our thing one day when Richard suddenly popped in. He’d snooped around and found us and came to visit. He was so supportive, so lovely, but he was almost pissing himself with laughter at the fact our couch was bigger than our brewery.

Richard with Lion’s managing director Rory Glass at the opening of the Emerson’s brewery and restaurant in 2016. Photo by Michael Donaldson.

That captured the real enthusiasm he has for life — an almost childlike, unrestrained enthusiasm.’

A few years later, Gillespie went to a beer festival in Christchurch and stayed at the famous Pomeroy’s Pub. ‘I was lying in bed, but couldn’t get to sleep because there was a really noisy bathroom fan going in the next room. It might have had a loose bearing or something because the sound was awful. I was thinking, “Who can sleep with this bathroom fan going like that? They’re going to have to switch it off soon, surely.” But it went all night and I had the worst sleep. In the morning, I was in the hall when Richard walked out of the room next door — and I thought, “There we go, that explains it!”

‘The thing is he hasn’t let his deafness become a disability in the slightest — his passion for brewing has just totally overwhelmed any disability. It sounds patronising to say it’s brave, but he’s just so public, he’s just out there. He’s a delight in large groups of people. He has my deepest respect on all levels.’

Stu McKinlay of Yeastie Boys voiced a pro-Lion, pro-Richard argument at the time of the sale. He regarded Richard as a mentor, friend and inspiration, and shared Richard’s delight at the brewery sale. ‘Richard didn’t set out to become a millionaire — he set out to make beautiful beers that changed people’s lives. And he changed my life. I can still remember the moment I discovered this beer with a weird name, Bookbinder, which came out before any other beers had word names. The funny name drew my attention and it blew my mind with the New Zealand hop flavour. I had been trying beer from New Zealand microbreweries for years so I wasn’t new to this, but that was well ahead of its time.

‘Richard was just next level. Without a doubt he was the inspiration for everyone in the next wave of brewing — 8 Wired, Panhead, Liberty — they were all heavily inspired by what Emerson’s did on the beer front. He inspired me — we’ve received so much help from him, and that’s influenced me in terms of how much I like to help others.

‘I always call him The Godfather — he wasn’t the first but he was the most important. I would definitely put him ahead of the others regarded as leaders in the industry … people fall in love with his enthusiasm for beer and flavour. He’s a friend and hero.’

Kelly Ryan, a food science student under JP Dufour at Otago and now one of the most admired brewers in the country for the work he does at Wellington’s Fork & Brewer, had his beer journey shunted onto a different track by Bookbinder. ‘That was a revelation with its mystical, soft, gentle, low carbonation. Richard always understood balance — there are not many of his beers that you drink where one’s enough.’

Ryan, who has collaborated on a version of Emerson’s JP, believed Richard’s obstinate determination allowed him to survive the 25-year journey from scrabbling start-up to multi-million-dollar business, and that determination has dragged the entire New Zealand industry with it.

‘Stubbornness and sheer bloody-mindedness have got him and the New Zealand brewing industry to where we are now — that’s where revolutions begin, with bloody-mindedness.’

And Richard’s obstinate fighting qualities are critical to thriving in the Lion’s den. ‘The cool thing is that they are now part of a global brewery, but they haven’t changed a bit — that’s a lot to do with the stubbornness of Richard and Chris. To get bought out and become more experimental is the opposite of every other buyout in the world.’

Ryan admires Richard’s ability to find a way to share his passion with the world despite his deafness. ‘He’s such a great communicator, I don’t notice at all that he’s deaf any more because he’s so good at getting his point across — like his early beers, he has no filter. He is inspirational for me. As someone who learned the trade overseas, it still blows my mind what he achieved here. He is a craft pioneer and there are many things we wouldn’t have here if it wasn’t for Richard.’

Lion’s investment in Emerson’s has allowed the brewery to continue growing to meet an ever-increasing demand.

Hello Grandma …

I still want to run a brewpub one day as a family enterprise with a restaurant. But I’ll have to look into it very carefully. I want to keep it small and manageable as well as being within financial grasp.

That postcard Richard sent to his grandmother from Perth in 1990 now sits framed on the wall of the entrance to the fourth and final Emerson’s Brewery at 70 Anzac Avenue, Dunedin. The brewery sits alongside the same railway line that carries tourists on the Taieri Gorge Railway. Just behind the brewery stands a railway overbridge where George Emerson frequently photographed trains.

For the first time in his business life, Richard didn’t have to fret over the move, with Lion handling all the logistics.

Moving a brewery, with sales still climbing, is never an easy task. Looking back, the move from 4 to 9 Grange Street was the easiest one of them all. The 9 Grange Street to 14 Wickliffe Street was the hardest one, months of sleepless nights thinking about the move, the three months of seven-days-a-week brewing to fill the tanks at Wickliffe Street, one brew per day onto the beer truck with the 1200-litre tank strapped down.

I’m proud to say the first three fermenters from 4 Grange Street are still with us on the new site and still being used to produce special brews. Some new gear and hand-me-downs from Lion really ramped up the potential of the brewery.

While the building was constructed almost two years after planning, the market had changed quite significantly. We could not have predicted the market shift to 330ml bottles as a result of the new lowered blood-alcohol limit. The good thing was that our new bottle-filling line was capable of filling different bottle sizes.

Spirits were high when the new brewery was finally launched, 21 June 2016 – complete with Richard’s mobile festival bar, aka the ‘mini-bar’.

The building of Emerson’s new brewery on Anzac Avenue fulfilled Richard’s dream of having a brewpub with his name on it.

Not long after settling into the new site, the keg cleaner and filler from Wickliffe Street was starting to show strain from being maxed out every working day. Lion gracefully stepped in with a second-hand semi-automatic keg-cleaning and filler line. This has helped us immensely and the old keg filler has gone to Panhead Custom Ales — another hand-me-down or as the accountants say ‘a transfer of assets’.

The best thing that’s happened recently is the commission of the new Palmer canning line from the USA. The staff are amazed how much quieter it is in operation compared to the bottling line. Most of the output is going to Air New Zealand for their domestic and international flights. I love the sound of a can opening, since I can’t really hear a bottle opening but a can I can! ‘Paarffft …’ it’s like canned music for the deaf!

The new brewery officially opened on 21 June 2016 with a piping in of the haggis, a Robbie Burns poem and a frenetic performance by The Chills. It was very much a Dunedin experience, something The Chills’ Martin Phillipps was proud to be part of. ‘I think Richard’s one of the most inspirational people in this town. He put his foot down and said this was going to be Dunedin’s night. It wasn’t going to be taken over by corporates from Auckland and I love that side of him.’

The multi-million-dollar brewery is everything Richard wished for when he penned that postcard a lifetime earlier — he describes it as ‘a proper spiritual home for the Emerson’s brand’ — replete with a small experimental brewery, about the size of his first brew kit from 4 Grange Street, which he plays around with from time to time. The boardroom table carries memories of his earlier ventures — made from recycled rimu timber salvaged from 9 Grange Street.

The plaque on the wall at the entrance is typically Richard: ‘This establishment was formally declared open on 21st June 2016 by the Hon. Richard’s mum, also known as Ingrid Emerson. In keeping with Dunedin tradition, Richard insisted on bagpipes. Fine for him; he didn’t have to listen to them.’

Inside there’s a painting of Richard dressed as a masked bandit. It comes with something of an in-joke at the brewery — that Richard’s favourite phrase these days is, ‘It’s not my money.’

Richard’s humour comes through in the plaque on the wall of the new brewery.

Richard’s love of trains is evoked in the brewery. The floor of the restaurant has a set of symbolic train tracks running across it. The men’s toilet plays the sound of a steam train when the toilet’s flushed. Outside, there’s a steam locomotive whistle that Richard happily toots, not having to put up with the high-pitched squeal it emits. The booths along one wall of the restaurant look like railway carriages, with windows showing a view of the brewery’s landscape.

For a brewer who slaved away for little recompense for 20 years, the benefit of Lion’s monetary might is a godsend and Richard enjoys the stress-free bliss of not worrying about where the next dollar will come from. That said, he still campaigns for things he believes the brewery needs: his latest being for Lion to build a railway platform next to the brewery so railcars can pick up passengers. The dream is for the Silver Fern railcar to pick up Emerson’s punters and serve them a few beers on the glorious seaside trip up the coast to Waitati and back.

‘We’ve built him a giant beer palace, but he still wants more!’ said Danny Phillips, laughing. ‘He’ll probably get it one day because he’s so persistent. He’s so entrepreneurial and he’s always asking, “What next?” He’s full of ideas.’

Another in-joke at Emerson’s — although Richard is deadly serious — is Richard’s oft-stated dream that Lion will ditch their association with Guinness and replace the famous Dublin drop with his London Porter in all the Irish bars up and down the country.

It’s so thrilling to have been involved in building the new brewery — it’s the icing on the cake to have something I’m proud of to give to Dunedin, courtesy of Lion. The location is great and closer to my other pleasure — trains. And I have the joy of having an authentic steam locomotive whistle to toot on special occasions. The land was a real eyesore and now it’s a great showcase for Dunedin, especially in the cruise ship season with trains and buses going past. If we hadn’t sold the brewery to Lion, Dunedin wouldn’t have got the wonderful brewery that’s there.

Richard’s relief at shedding the burden of the brewery is palpable. McKinlay calls him the ‘happiest man in beer’ while Norma Emerson can see the weight lifted from her husband. ‘It’s better for him now — previously everything that went wrong was his personal problem. When I first met Richard and heard him talking about his brewery, I thought it was a little garage operation, but when I came to Dunedin and discovered it was actually a big business I was blown away. I couldn’t believe how many people were working there and that this deaf person was running it. But what struck me was the sense of family.

‘The new brewery went beyond the dream he had for himself. The dream was a brewpub. When I met Richard it was never on the cards that his brewery would become so big or be for sale — we thought Wickliffe Street was the biggest it could get.’

Despite the new brewery’s size — it is a Dunedin landmark — the sense of family remains for those connected to it. David Stedman, whose own home-brewing disaster inadvertently sparked the epic Emerson’s adventure, is in awe of Richard’s achievement. ‘I think he’s a genius. Even though he repeated sixth form, he did better than many of his peers — it was obvious there was a level of intense brain activity going on in a creative way, but also in a very methodical deductive way. He was always precisely focused. He was very clear about what he wanted to do and there was always that decent intellect at work.

‘Sometimes you think, “If he wasn’t deaf, how amazingly successful could he have been?” Or would he have squandered everything — like the rest of us — because he wouldn’t have had to work so hard? Maybe his deafness gave him an edge. He always had to find another way of doing things — to overcome — but he just shone anyway. Richard always had his own thing going on. He had the added bonus of two very bright and supportive parents who were able to see beyond the circumstances of his deafness and chose the pathway for his education based on the result they wanted.’

Rob Smillie, Richard’s long-time friend — he of the black eye from their first meeting — believes Dunedin owes the Emersons a lot for the family’s contribution to the city through George’s vision and determination with the Taieri Gorge Railway and the brewery. ‘I always worried that if the brewery got sold, it would be closed or moved. The fact Lion have invested in the city with infrastructure is fantastic; people can see there’s value in it for locals.

‘I have a friend in Germany and the first time he came here, he said, “I’ll meet you at this great beer place in your city — it’s called Emerson’s … Have you heard of it?” I laughed.

‘I’m privileged and honoured to be part of the process. Richard’s success demonstrated to people that you can overcome anything — any disability — if you have energy, and he always had energy. He was always optimistic, future-looking, imaginative … He didn’t dwell on the negative, he had a positive adventurous outlook for what was around the corner.’

From the other side of the world, Helen Emerson revels in the fact that her city features a monument to her brother — her family. ‘We always had Alison Holst as our famous relative, and recently I saw my cousin Simon Holst post a picture of himself on Facebook drinking a can of Emerson’s on an Air New Zealand flight and I thought, “Wow, we’ve got our Alison!”

‘It was Richard’s dream to have a brewpub. He had this vision for it and he got it, dammit. He has worked his butt off for years, doing long physical hours when he was the only person running the entire brewery except for Dad coming in at lunchtime to answer a few calls and Mum labelling bottles. He’s done it and it’s based on the clarity of his vision combined with hard work. It hasn’t come easy, but he’s had that focus and perseverance that you don’t see in many people — but you see it in people who achieve greatness whether they be athletes or musicians or whatever. That diligence that he’s applied is why he was successful.

‘When I come home and see that brewery at the end of Frederick Street — holy crap — I wish Dad could see that. I’m so proud!

‘Dad and Richard did discuss a strategy for selling from the early days. The brewery was always going to be Richard’s retirement plan. I’m not sure what would have happened had Dad lived longer — if he had stayed alive and been involved would that have been the best thing for the brewery’s growth? He was so conservative. In many ways, it had to be sold to get the expansion it needed. I’m not sure whether Dad could have walked away and left it to other people with a different approach to risk and different business acumen.’

Helen pauses for a moment to reflect on Richard’s story and George’s unwavering commitment — not to the brewery as such — but to Richard, to his son. To ensure Richard would have what he needed to get through life with the security he needed but was never guaranteed because of his deafness.

‘I wonder if George’s support was driven in part by feeling guilty that all the family trips were about his interests — including the fateful trip to Christchurch over Labour Weekend in 1963.’

Perhaps. But unlikely. Yes, that trip changed the lives of Ingrid and George Emerson, but for Ingrid it’s not a case of whether it changed things for better or worse — and she could happily make an argument for the former. After all, Richard’s success is her success. It’s a vindication of the hours upon long hours she dedicated to teaching him to lip-read when others questioned why she put so much effort into her son. And it’s not the money, nor the fame that came with her son’s rock-star status in the brewing industry. Her reward is in his resilience, the undiminished spirit, the very fact of his success against all conceivable odds.

‘He had an attitude of mind that he wasn’t going to give up,’ Ingrid said, though she could well have been talking about herself. ‘Richard probably didn’t seem normal when he went to primary school, but he blossomed. Nobody knows what Richard and I did in those early years. I’ve learned a lot from this life. And seeing him succeed has meant it was so worth it.

‘What a wonderful life it’s been.’