The brewery chimney has been exhaling more than the usual amount of smoke over the past year after expanding production to make up for the loss of a Christchurch brewery.
The smoke has caught the attention of the ORC and resource management director Selva Selvarajah said the brewery had been asked to sort it out by next year, rather than wait until its resource consent expired in 2018.
Lion owns both Speight's Brewery and the earthquake-damaged Canterbury Brewery and has increased brewing in Dunedin significantly to make up for lost production in Christchurch.
Lion external relations manager Judy Walter said the extra production increased the overall amount of smoke coming from the boilers but the density and quality were the same.
She said the company was upgrading its boiler systems as part of the next stage of a $29 million expansion project.
Details of that project are due to be released today.
Dunedin woman Sue White said she walked past the chimney twice a day and every time there was smoke "spewing" from it.
"Speight's makes much use of New Zealand's pristine environment in its advertising and it seems hypocritical to be the cause of so much air pollution, especially since they have their own environment fund."
Mr Selvarajah said an absence of "visible smoke" was one of the requirements of the brewery's resource consent and the ORC had asked the company to meet the latest standards by next year.
He said a small gas burner being installed soon should help but a permanent solution would be required by next year.
That would require either gas boilers, that generally send no particles into the air, or coal boilers fitted with equipment to capture all smoke particles.
Ms Walter said Speight's was proud of its environmental record and had just given $43,000 to Dunedin environmental groups through the Speight's Brewery Environment Fund.
