Whitestone Cheese chief executive Simon Berry and Scotts Brewery owner Phil Scott saw similarities between their Oamaru-based businesses and an opportunity to collaborate.
In a New Zealand first, they teamed up to create a beer cheese, an ''Indian Pale Airedale'', officially launched at a private function last night.
Since January, they have been trialling different recipes and techniques to develop the perfect beer cheese.
''We tried washing it [with hops], we tried soaking it in hops, we tried mixing in the hops - the hops in the cheese was the winner by far,'' Mr Berry said.
''Then we had to experiment with the concentrations of hops and how to get the hops in there ... and the challenge of the cheese knitting together.''
If the hops were too dry, too much of the moisture was sucked out of the cheese.
The longer it was left to mature, the more the cheese flavours emerged.
''It's been a bit of a gamble, a bit of a trial and error,'' Mr Berry said.
The final product was hoppy, punchy and slightly floral, with a good amount of bitterness.
It looked like cheese and really tasted like beer - that was the ''wow factor'', he said.
For Mr Scott, it had been an interesting insight into the cheese-making process.
''Cheese and beer, it's something quite unique, a bit of fun and a bit of a challenge,'' he said.
''Beer's best fresh, but cheese needs a bit of ageing so it's been finding the right combination ... we knew it would take time.''
The cheese will be available nationally from November 1.
There was ''great synergy'', they said, between the two businesses, which both produced artisan craft products from of state-of-the-art equipment, using new and old technology.
For now, they will see how the ''Indian Pale Airedale'' is received, but there have been discussions about experimenting with some other cheese and beer combinations down the line.
