Eddyline Brewery: From the Top of the Mountain to the Bottom of the World

When you go down a rapid, the water slows down at the bottom, pooling in a calm space on the side of the river. It’s a safe place where kayakers can regroup, recount a potentially hard ride, and crack a beer if they feel like it—that’s the Eddyline.

“It’s that line where you cross from the fast-flowing water into the slow, calm water,” explains Eddyline Brewery Owner and Brewer Michiel Heynekamp, who used to drive from New Mexico to Colorado with his partner and Eddyline’s other owner, Molley Heynekamp, to go whitewater kayaking. “We’ve had a lot of beers in the eddies!”

As I walked into Eddyline’s second location in Nelson, New Zealand, slightly sweaty from a bike ride across Tasman’s Great Taste Trail, the calm hit me immediately. Fresh hop bines hung on the walls, recently picked, and lights shaped like hops hung from the ceiling. To one side, a chalkboard showed off Eddyline’s current taps—over twenty strong.

Behind the bar, a mountain graphic with curls of waves at the bottom stood tall; rays of light shone over it, seeming to mimic the sun—everything connected to Mic and Molley, American homebrewers who loved the outdoors and for the last ten years have found themselves thousands of miles from “home.”

Eddyline didn’t initially start in New Zealand, but the Buena Vista, CO-based brewery now has two locations in Nelson. The two brewery owners’ paths have zigged and zagged as much as any whitewater rapids. But they’ve found their Eddyline in a place perhaps they never expected.

At the bottom of the world.

Geology, Fancy Suits, and a World War II Marine

Mic and Molley met at New Mexico Tech. He was studying for a master’s degree in geology while she was in accounting and had plans to open a restaurant.

With research funded by Exxon, Mic fully intended to take a full-time position with the company in Houston when he graduated. But after an orientation in July, he came back thinking, “holy cow, you have to wear a fancy suit?”

Feeling pretty discouraged, Mic and Molley took a trip climbing in Southwestern Colorado at one of their favorite mountain ranges. “We ended up shutting down this cool little restaurant that had a big window [looking into] the brewery,” recalls the homebrewer. “After a couple of beers, I just knocked on the glass, and the brewer came out. I just wanted to ask him some questions, but we ended up staying until one in the morning.”

Until then, the pair of homebrewing hobbyists had never considered opening a brewery. For Molley’s senior project, she needed to write a business plan. “I had the perfect idea,” says Mic. “We can make beer and have a restaurant!”

But ideas are one thing. Reality is another.

Although they originally wanted to open a brewpub in Colorado, that didn’t happen.

“We were just two twenty-five-year-olds with zero money to our name,” shares Mic. “Everyone laughed at us.”

The pair eventually convinced a World War II Marine, who was renovating an old Adobe building in New Mexico, to lease them the space.

“We went to all the dairy farms and just asked farmers if they had any old, spare tanks,” laughs Mic. The pair hodgepodged Socorro Springs Brewing Co. together, opening the brewery in 1999 in Socorro, NM.

“But the dream was still to get to Colorado,” says Mic.

Ten years later, they opened Eddyline in Buena Vista, CO, as a small brewpub serving beer and wood-fired pizza.

So how does a couple with brewing origins in New Mexico and a dream to open a brewery in Colorado get halfway across the world to Nelson, New Zealand?

“It’s Colorado With a Coastline!”

Photography courtesy of Hop Culture

In 2010, Molley and Mic took their first holiday in a decade. They chose New Zealand because by that time they had three kids and knew cousins there. They spent time driving around in a camper van, working their way from the top of the North Island down to the South Island.

“Our minds were blown,” exclaims Mic. “Oh my god, this is Colorado with a coastline!”

The one big difference?

They couldn’t find any craft beer.

Mic specifically remembers celebrating an unofficial holiday in New Zealand called Crate Day, which takes place on the first Saturday of December.

More of a drinking challenge, Crate Day involves picking up a whole crate of twelve 745ml beer bottles and trying to down as much as possible before midnight.

Mic says they got super excited because, while driving around the North Island, they found a liquor store with a crate of India pale ale. “We were like, score,” he remembers. When they finally popped the top of these bottles later on the beach, a brown, caramelized beer came out.

“Where is the [craft] beer here?” Molley exclaimed.

Mic chimes in, “Nobody even knew what an IPA was here. What was this place!?”

The light bulb went off. “Holy cow, we know how to make IPA,” says Mic.

After returning from vacation, Mic and Molley admitted that they might have been wearing rose-colored glasses. “It couldn’t have been that good,” says Mic. So they tested the theory, flying back to New Zealand for a second trip. This time, they landed on the South Island at Christchurch, rented a camper van, and drove north, eventually pulling into Nelson.

“It was just such a cool town,” says Mic. “I still think it’s the friendliest town in New Zealand.”

Excited and buzzing, the duo applied for a business visa in New Zealand when they returned to Colorado.

And heard nothing back.

Years of Silence, Months of Planning

Without a clear path to New Zealand, Mic and Molley moved forward in Colorado, eventually pulling a several-million-dollar SBA loan for a second Eddyline location.*

“As we broke ground and poured the concrete for the foundations, we got this email,” says Mic. “Hey, here’s your business visa.”

It took two years for the New Zealand government to approve the couple’s request, but it only took Mic and Molley two months to move. They received the confirmation email in February 2014 and, by April, had booked a flight to New Zealand.

According to Mic, the email ambiguously told them they had nine months to progress significantly. By August 2014, the pair had rented a house, signed an agreement to lease a space for a brewery (just an empty lot with a big sign), and submitted that progress to immigration.

Mic describes those initial months were a mix of everything. Except everything was different.

While building out the brewery, the pair had to switch from an imperial measurement system used in the States to a metric one. In New Zealand, parts of equipment, plumbing, and electrical systems, to name a few, were all different. Even regulations around labor and employment varied.

“It was a totally different language,” says Mic, who admits that while it was challenging to relearn everything he knew…it was also pretty fun.

“If you kayak the Grand Canyon you don’t run it all at once,” he explains. “You break it down into little rapids and every rapid you break down into hopping form one eddy to the next. You break it down into steps and enjoy the adventure.”

Starting a brewery in New Zealand was certainly the adventure of a lifetime. By February 2016, Eddyline New Zealand opened its first location, going back to its roots as a tiny little hub with wood-fired pizzas.

The response.

“People just loved it,” says Molley.

*Editor’s Note: While in New Zealand, Mic and Molley hired Brian England (who is also Mic’s brother-in-law) to be the CEO of their Eddyline Brewery in Buena Vista, CO. In 2018, Mic and Molley sold their Colorado facility to England and the brewery’s financial controller, Melissa McFee.

Hazies, West Coast IPAs, Porters, Amber Lagers

Photography courtesy of Hop Culture

Photography courtesy of Hop Culture

Look at the chalkboard on Eddyline’s wall and you might initially be overwhelmed. Beers read like scorelines, ranging from a healthy dose of West Coast IPAs and hazies to a handful of wheats, session ales, pilsners, and even an amber lager modeled off Modelo.

“Coming from the States, one of our favorite beers was Negro Modelo,” says Mic, who remembers drinking that beer at summer barbecues in the 90s when he worked as a lifeguard. Eddyline’s own version called Amigo, which won a gold medal at the 2023 NZ Brewers Guild Awards and bronze at the 2024 NZ Brewers Guild Awards, starts with base of New Zealand Gladfield malts and malted maize corn. Ad additional hit of NZ hops creates an easy-drinking amber lager that you could crush all through a New Zealand summer.

When Eddyline first opened in Nelson, people often came in asking for a draught. “Oh, all our beers are on draft,” Mic would answer to which they’d respond. “No mate, just give me a bloody draught.”

Unbeknownst to the Heynekamps, draught was a style of beer in New Zealand, a malty, lightly hopped amber. Amigo not only reminded Mic and Molley of their summers in the States, but filled a niche for old-school drinkers in New Zealand.

On the hoppy side, CrankYanker is a Westie you’ll always find on the menu. Eddyline’s first-ever beer evolved from one of Mic and Molley’s homebrewing recipes, a fifteen-gallon batch they brewed for friends at weekly Friday potlucks with one request: Leave your honest feedback.

A more modern West Coast IPA with big American hops like El Dorado, Cascade, Centennial, and Mosaic, CrankYanker drinks with less bitterness and more maltiness. “TWhen Molley and I started homebrewing in 1993-1994, we fell in love with IPA, but back then…all the big hitting hops like Citra and Simcoe didn’t exist,” says Mic. “CrankYanker is really a reflection of the evolution of IPA from the mid-90s to today.”

A name suggested by a regular, CrankYanker “is that time you’re cranking, just grinding your way up the hill, thinking about the beer you’re going to have when you get to the bottom,” says Mic.

Octolupulus, on the other hand, showcases all New Zealand hops. The hazy IPA, at only 4% ABV, uses eight different hops, along with one hundred percent New Zealand malts from Gladfields. “It’s one of my favorites right now,” says Molley.

Actually a request from some of Eddyline’s accounts to make a lower-ABV IPA, Octolupulus has the mouthfeel and hoppiness of an IPA paired with sessionability. “That one has a strong following because…it has a big aroma and great flavor, but people can have more than one pint easy enough.”

As we work through a paddle of rainbow-colored spectrum of beers, Mic and Molley explain that they’re often inspired by nature and music.

Like with GorgeJuice, a mashup made to sound like gorgeous. “Whenever you’re in a gorge, it’s the most gorgeous place on Earth,” says Mic, who has kayaked the Grand Canyon twice and says there are tons of incredible gorges to explore all around Nelson. Another two-time medal winner at the NZ Brewers Guild Awards, GorgeJuice takes the classic CrankYanker recipe and adds El Dorado, a touch of Citra, and standard Centennial and Mosaic.

On the darker side, the Roaring 40’s Porter, a triple-bronze winner at the NZ Brewers Guild Awards, references the “40-duty latitudes,” a region between 40° and 50° south latitude in the Southern Hemisphere known to sailors for strong winds. “I call it the Roaring Forties because you got all these just crazy storms,” says Mic. Dark and stormy are great descriptors for this chocolate and caramel-malt-based 6.3% ABV porter with El Dorado hops.

Now might be the perfect time to go to Eddyline, because if they have anything fresh-hop on, grab it. Last year, two of Eddyline’s fresh-hop beers won a bronze and silver at the Untappd Community Awards. This year, Mic says the weather held out for a great hop-growing season.

Mic made four fresh-hop beers this year, including a pilsner with Pacifica hops, an intensely resinous IPA called Hoptimus Prime, a unique black IPA with an experimental hop called NZH-109, and Mic’s favorite, Hop Project ’25 with super juicy Motueka and Riwaka hops.

For the latter, Eddyline sourced those fresh hops from Brent McGlashen at the one-hundred-and-twenty-five-year-old Mac Hops. McGlashen hand-picks the hops for Eddyline, saving a couple of rows for the brewery each year based on which are performing best.

Unfortunately, we were just a touch early for fresh-hop, only arriving in time to see the remnants of the brew day.

“The beers turned out amazing,” Mic teased in a follow-up Zoom call. “I wish you could have tried them!”

Green With Eddyline

Photography courtesy of Hop Culture

This whole time, Mic has shared Eddyline’s story with a distinct verve—proud of the brewery’s sense of adventure and lore.

But as we walk back into the brewery, he admits something.

“There are a couple of different things I hate about breweries,” he quips. “Number one is the waste.”

As lovers of the outdoors, Mic and Molley have prioritized sustainability at Eddyline.

Walking me through the brewhouse, Mic points out all the different areas of improvement.

At Eddyline, they use an electric boiler to help reduce their carbon footprint, along with solar panels that cover about seventy percent of their electricity usage. “On the weekend, it offsets more,” says Mic appreciatively.

The business owners also incorporated a centrifuge into Eddyline’s brewhouse on both the hot and cold sides. “Most brewers are just using [a centrifuge] on the cold side,” Mic explains. “What it does is, when we’re done using the kettle, it is one hundred percent empty. We have this big pile of trub sitting there that needs water to spray it. Instead, the centrifuge takes it, mechanically separates it, and then puts that in a separate waste tank so we don’t have to use water to spray all that gunk out.”

With the centrifuge, Mic says, Eddyline has gotten their water usage down to about four liters of water per liter of beer, so “more than a fifty percent reduction of water use.”

Lastly, Eddyline installed a system to recapture its CO2 right before the pandemic.

As a former geology student, Mic knows the waste generated by creating CO2. Eddyline’s Earthly Labs CiCi carbon capture equipment captures CO2 from fermentation and reprocesses it, meaning Eddyline “one hundred percent isn’t buying CO2,” says Mic.

Crossing Eddylines, Crossing Oceans

Photography courtesy of Stacey Lee-Weitz | Hop Culture

When Mic and Molley talk about the Eddyline, their eyes sparkle like the sun reflecting off the water.

You can almost see the far-off look in their eyes, filling the space with memories of mountains climbed or gorges kayaked.

At Eddyline, it’s all about capturing that exact moment in the glass. The one where you pull out of the chaos and into the calm, taking time to pop a beer from under your kayak skirt and relive the challenges you just faced.

That’s a feeling everyone can have, whether they live in the mighty mountains of Colorado or the gorgeous landscapes of Nelson.

“It’s like pulling out of the busy, fast current of your life into the slow waters of a pub, and you look where you’ve been, where you’re going, and celebrate your wins,” says Mic. “Whether you just go for a casual, quick run up the hill and back down, or you’re doing a giant epic ride, you’re going to finish it with a beer, right?”

Do it in the Eddyline.