Sheep and cattle graze alongside the brewery where Laura Park, Artsci’19, produces award-winning beer on the other side of the world.
When the young alumna landed in New Zealand in 2023, she had a holiday job offer at a rustic rural brewery and grand plans to travel the length of the country. Three years later, the backpack is gathering dust and that temporary gig has morphed into the role of head brewer at Lakeman Brewing Co.
Nestled in the rolling hills near Lake Taupō, Lakeman Brewing Co. thrives on a family-owned farm where sheep and cattle graze peacefully alongside the brewery.
The family-owned beer plant stands on a farm in the hills around Lake Taupō, where Park has spent her time winning beer-making medals, driving tractors, and developing new muscles from lugging sacks of grain. She has also learned to fish for trout and taken up trail running alongside the nation’s largest lake, with its geothermal hot springs and winter skiing nearby.
Park discovered craft beer at Queen’s. Her timing was unfortunate though; the financially stretched student had to abandon her favourite tipple soon after encountering it.
“I realised it was too expensive and I had to go back to drinking the cheap stuff,” she says.
While the quality of her drinks improved after graduation, none of the usual medical school-teaching-laboratory jobs she qualified for appealed. Eventually, a friend drew attention to her thirst for discussing and consuming boutique beer and Park enrolled in a 16-month brewmaster’s diploma course.
Head brewer Laura Park meticulously perfects her small-batch creations, blending science and craft in every hand-crafted beer at Lakeman Brewing Co.
“I am definitely using my science degree,” she says. “My chemistry labs, experimenting, following a process – it all definitely helps me with brewing. And life sciences was a tough degree, so it reinforced my work ethic.”
Under Park’s watch, the Lakeman brewery team scooped up multiple medals at the 2025 New Zealand Beer Awards, including three golds in the popular IPA class. Her martini-inspired Porn Star Gone Sour beer proved a sellout hit and the Fruit Loop Hazy IPA was also her idea, promising a pillowy malt base with a punch of tropical fruit that could “send you a little loopy.”
While brainstorming beer names is part of the fun, she takes her trade seriously. Park is a fan of New Zealand-grown hops, and of the “incredibly pure” lake water used in the brewing process.
This kind of small-batch beer making is far less mechanised and more hands-on than she is used to and the Ontario urbanite is relishing her rural workplace.
“For now, I’m not looking at going anywhere. I feel like I’m making beer that’s not quite like anything anywhere else in the world.”
