Wellington brewery Garage Project has created history after being ranked 59th in the list of the world's top 100 breweries by a popular American review site.

In RateBeer's 20th year, they are the second New Zealand brewery to make the annual list and confirms Garage Project as a true global star. Warkworth's 8 Wired previously made the top 100 list, most recently in 2013.

Robert Kitchin/FAIRFAX NZ Jos Ruffell, Pete Gillespie, and Ian Gillespie - Garage Project brewery founders.

The website examined more than 640,000 beers made by over 36,000 brewers around the world to come up with the 2019 rankings.

"It's great to see our work picking up recognition further afield and the team is thrilled with the results," said Garage Project co-founder Jos Ruffell.

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"Much like the global restaurant rankings, it can be hard to get noticed tucked away down here, but we're proud to be part of the growing Kiwi beer scene.

"It's quite special and the quality is constantly rising which keeps us on our toes. That quality and our unique ingredients around hops is drawing in top brewers and beer enthusiasts from across the globe which we think will keep pushing the awareness and appreciation of breweries across New Zealand."

Garage Project's standing amongst the global elite is reflected in the upcoming Hāpi Symposium and Festival which they are hosting in Wellington in April, with 15 breweries on the top 100 list – including No 1 ranked Hill Farmstead – bringing beers to New Zealand for the festival.

RateBeer says the rankings are based on five different weighted scales that place an emphasis on contributor reviews during 2019 but also includes historical performance, how different breweries rate across a variety of styles, and other factors that allow a comparison between newer and older, larger and smaller brewers.

More than two-thirds of the breweries in the top-100 were America-based with Britain (10), Belgium (8) and Canada (6) the most dominant non-US countries.

Garage Project also had three beers listed in the website's Top-100 beers: Cockswain's Courage Double Barrelled Edition Porter, Party & Bullshit Hazy IPA and Unconditional Love Mix Tape IPA.

In another triumph for Wellington, two flagship bars, Little Beer Quarter and Hashigo Zake, were named the best places to drink beer in New Zealand.