Cars were bumper-to-bumper at an Auckland petrol station as they waited to fill up on a beer-based biofuel.

Brewtroleum was unveiled at Gull Kingsland on July 6 with the public invited to a free $50 fill to mark the launch.

Following extensive testing and research, DB Export claims to be the first company in the world to make beer-derived biofuel commercially available and is selling the product at 60 North Island Gull service stations from today.

Tom Carnegie / Fairfax NZ. Green MP Gareth Hughes cuts the ribbon at the launch of DB Exports new biofuel called Brewtroleum.

The company has produced an initial 30,000 litres of ethanol that has been mixed with petrol to make 300,000 litres of 98 octane biofuel.

The ethanol was made from more than 58,000 litres of yeast slurry that would have otherwise been discarded or used by farmers as stock feed.

Brewtroleum iis said to emit 8 per cent less carbon than traditional petroleum and deliver the same performance when compared.

Green MP Gareth Hughes cut the ribbon at the launch and said he was there "to show my support for a great example of homegrown innovation".

"In New Zealand we've got a great opportunity to use more biofuel, transport accounts for around one-fifth of our greenhouse gas emissions.

"We import around seven to eight billion dollars worth of oil from places like the Middle East.

"So if we can be producing our own biofuel from waste products like beer yeast that's good news for the environment and I just want to say good on DB for this example of innovation," Hughes said.

DB head of domestic beer marketing Sean O'Donnell said the idea to create the biofuel came about six months ago.

"Our brewers at DB Export were talking about what we can do with the waste, and one of them said we could make a biofuel," O'Donnell said.

"This is a genuinely exciting opportunity. It's a world-first, we're helping Kiwis save the world by doing what they enjoy best – drinking beer.

"If you were to fuel your car with biofuel over a year it would be over 250 tonnes of carbon emission you would be saving."

O'Donnell said he would like to see DB Export Brewtroleum become a long-term offering.

"It's a case of testing consumer demand and assessing the feasibility of ongoing production and logistics. We expect the first batch to last approximately six weeks," he said.

David Bodger, general manager of Gull New Zealand, said Gull was happy to help make DB Export's idea a reality.

DB Export Brewtroleum is the first in a series of "ideas over beers" that DB Export will roll out in the coming months as part of its Made by Doing campaign.