Josh Scott brewed his first beer in an old shed out the back of his father’s Marlborough vineyard in 1987. It wasn’t very good. Technically, because he was only 13 at the time it also wasn’t very legal. But that single event set the course for the next 20 years of Josh’s life.
Beer making 101
The very next day (officially, five years later when Josh was of legal drinking age which in New Zealand is 18) Josh and some mates from school (who were officially also all 18 years of age even though they were still in Third Form) set about finding out everything they could about the biology and chemistry of brewing. No small feat in 1987 as the Internet hadn’t been invented, school libraries didn’t really cater to their needs and none of them could drive to a library that possibly could.
Current beer work
What followed was 15 years of trial and error, where Josh learnt the trade of Master Brewing at the feet of some of the world’s most well regarded traditional brewers. Until finally in 2003 he felt comfortable enough to produce a beer that people wouldn’t actually mind paying for and he established the Moa Brewery.
Since then Moa have become staples at festivals worldwide, won the respect and loyalty of connoisseurs from Europe to the Americas and are currently one of the largest New Zealand beer exporters to the United States.
Not bad for a 13 year old boy and a shed
