Stuff, July 2025.
Kiwi Michael Jones is a Catalonian-based craft beer brewer. Growing up in Auckland, Michael’s dad would buy craft beer from Pilot Bay Brewery whilst living in Tauranga. He runs DosKiwis with Catalan partner Judit Piñol.
After meeting in London where they both worked in the fashion industry, Michael and Judit travelled back to her Spanish hometown near Girona.
“We’d been drinking really good beer in the UK, and then we would come here and it was really difficult to find a decent craft beer,” he said. “It was basically just a big home brew back then, and people weren’t keeping the beer cold - a real challenge for craft beer in Spain.”
Many Spanish bars are without cellars. The keg is kept underneath the bar next to 40C heat emanating from the refrigerator, he explained, where the quality of beer deteriorates quickly.
After the success of an IPA they brewed in Judit’s mum’s kitchen for a friend's wedding in 2015, Michael said they had a “false sense of confidence that it was easy to brew”. A year later, Doskiwis produced itst first batch of contracted beer, made with NZ hops.
By February 2019, the couple had renovated an old barn into a home for their brewery and opened a taproom. With a limited budget, they completed the construction themselves. “I think this is quite typical in New Zealand. But it doesn’t seem to be so common here,” Michael said. “We really leaned into the spirit of Kiwi ingenuity and DIY, and thankfully, we had a few mates around who were kind enough to give us a hand.”
He says running the brewery is a satisfying labour of love. “The cool thing about craft beer is it’s not inspired by just one scene.” They’ve done collaborations with Three Sons in the US, Garage from Barcelona and Beak and Verdant in the UK. He hopes to do a Garage Project collaboration one day, his favourite Kiwi brewery.
Doskiwis sells its beers to local restaurants, across to the UK, and down the coast to the Kiwi House of Beer. They’re always on tap at the bar. Tony said the Doskiwis Hazy IPA is one of their most popular sellers. He had been googling ‘craft beer in Spain’ when the brand popped up. “It’s the closest thing we can get to a New Zealand beer,” he said. “Michael is a gifted brewer.”
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