Australian beer

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A bottling machine being used in 1945.

Australian beer is mostly now lager. Although Australia was settled predominantly by the British, it is too hot for ale brewing, and before refrigeration beer was difficult to brew at all (and obviously impossible to serve cold).

The oldest brewery still in operation is the Cascade Brewery, established in Tasmania in 1824.

The majority of the large Australian breweries are now owned by the conglomerates Foster's Group and Lion Nathan. Notable exceptions are Boag's, which is owned by San Miguel, and Coopers, which is the only large brewery that is still privately owned. Boutique brands of beer are fast becoming the flavour of the masses which is forcing the large brewhouses to change their ideas on what the drinkers want. Australia's numerous microbreweries are gaining decent market share.

Despite its heavy international presence, the so-called original Australian beer, Foster's Lager, has relatively low appeal throughout Australia.

1 Early History
2 Brands by region
3 Australian Stouts
4 Speciality beers
5 Beer Glasses
- 5.1 South Australian Traditional Beer Glasses
6 See also
7 External links

[edit] Early History

The history of Australian beer starts very early in Australia’s colonial history. Captain Cook brought beer with him on his ship Endeavour as a means of preserving drinking water. On 1 August 1768 as Captain Cook was fitting out the Endeavour for its voyage, Nathaniel Hulme wrote to Joseph Banks recommending that he take -

"a quantity of Molasses and Turpentine, in order to brew Beer with, for your daily drink, when your Water becomes bad. … [B]rewing Beer at sea will be peculiarly useful in case you should have stinking water on board; for I find by Experience that the smell of stinking water will be entirely destroyed by the process of fermentation."

– Letter to Joseph Banks 1768

Beer was still being consumed on board 2 years later in 1770 when Cook was the first European to discover the east coast of Australia.

Although beer is now the most popular alcoholic drink in Australia, this was not always the case. The drink of choice for the first settlers and convicts was rum –

Cut yer name across me backbone

Stretch me skin across yer drum

Iron me up on Pinchgut Island

From now to Kingdom Come.

I'll eat yer Norfolk Dumpling

Like a juicy Spanish plum,

Even dance the Newgate Hornpipe

If ye'll only gimme Rum!

Traditional Convict Song.

Rum was so popular, and official currency in such short supply, that for a time it became a semi-official currency (see Rum corps) and even lead to a short lived military coup, the Rum rebellion in 1808.

Drunkenness was an enormous problem in the early colony.

"Drunkenness was a prevailing vice. Even children were to be seen in the streets intoxicated. On Sundays, men and women might be observed standing round the public-house doors, waiting for the expiration of the hours of public worship in order to continue their carousing. As for the condition of the prison population, that, indeed, is indescribable. Notwithstanding the sever punishment for sly grog selling, it was carried on to a large extent. Men and women were found intoxicated together, and a bottle of brandy was considered to be cheaply bought for 20 lashes... All that the vilest and most bestial of human creatures could invent and practise, was in this unhappy country invented and practised without restraint and without shame"

– Marcus Clarke - For the Term of His Natural Life, 1867

As a means of reducing drunkenness, beer was promoted as a safer and healthier alternative to rum.

"The introduction of beer into general use among the inhabitants would certainly lessen the consumption of spirituous liquors. I have therefore in conformity with your suggestion taken measures for furnishing the colony with a supply of ten tons of Porter, six bags of hops, and two complete sets of brewing materials."

– Lord Hobart in a letter to Governor Philip King on 29 August 1802

The first (official) brewer in Australia was John Boston who brewed a beverage from Indian corn bittered with cape gooseberry leaves. It is likely though that beer was brewed unofficially much earlier. The first pub, the Mason Arms was opened in 1796 in Paramatta by James Larra a freed convict.

It is worth noting here that although Australian beer today is predominantly lager, early Australian beer was exclusively Ale. Lager was not brewed in Australia until 1885. Early beers were also brewed without the benefit of hops as no one had successfully cultivated them in Australia and importation was difficult. James Squire was the first to successfully cultivate hops in 1804. The Government Gazette from 1806 mentions that he was awarded a cow from the government herd for his efforts. Squire also opened a pub and brewed beer though an epitaph on a gravestone in Paramatta churchyard casts some doubt on the quality of the product –

YE WHO WISH TO LIE HERE

DRINK SQUIRE’S BEER!

In September 1804 a government owned brewery opened in Paramatta followed by a rival privately owned brewery 3 months later. The government brewery was sold 2 years later to Thomas Rushton who was its head brewer. That Paramatta brewery remains the only government run brewery ever operated in Australia. Brewing rapidly expanded in all the Australian colonies. By 1871 there were 126 breweries in Victoria alone which at the time had a population of only 800,000.

Some notable events from this period include –

1824 – Peter Delgraves starts the Cascade brewery in Tasmania. The brewery is still operating and is Australia’s oldest surviving brewery.
1835 – Tooth brewery is established in Sydney
1836 – John Warren starts South Australia's first brewery
1837 – James Stokes establishes West Australia's first brewery. This will later become the Emu brewery.
1838 – Mr Moss establishes the first brewery in Melbourne.
1862 – Thomas Cooper establishes the Coopers Brewery. The brewery is still operated by the Cooper family and is Australia’s largest independent brewery.
1864 – Carlton brewery opens in Melbourne
1885 – Gambrinus brewery in Melbourne becomes the first brewery in Australia to brew Lager.
1887 – The Fosters brothers arrive from New York with refrigeration equipment and establish the first Lager brewery to use refrigeration in Australia.
1889 – Lager is first brewed in Queensland at the Castlemaine and Quinlan brewery.

By 1900 the number of breweries had begun to dwindle as a result of the recession of the 1890s. In 1901, just after Federation, the new federal government passed the Beer and Excise act. This act regulated the making and selling of beer and made homebrewing illegal. The provisions in this act, regarded by many as draconian, lead to the closure of many breweries. 16 of Sydney’s 21 breweries closed either immediately after the acts introduction or soon afterwards. The remaining breweries began a process of consolidation with larger breweries buying out the smaller ones. With in a short time there were only 2 breweries remaining in Sydney – Tooths and Tooheys. In Melbourne, 5 breweries merged in 1907 to form the giant Carlton and United Breweries.

This process continues today with only two companies – Lion Nathan and the Foster's Group owning ever major brewery in Australia with the exception of Boag's, which is owned by San Miguel, and Coopers which is still family run.

Parts of this early history have been copied with permission from http://www.australianbeers.com

[edit] Brands by region

Before federation in 1901, Australia was a group of separate colonies, each with different laws regulating the production and sale of alcohol. In addition, until the late 1880s when the rail network began to link the capital cities together, the only means of transporting foods in bulk between the colonies was by sea. This prevented even the largest breweries from distributing significant amounts outside their home city. This allowed strong regional brands to emerge and although all but one of the major regional brands are now owned by multinational companies, loyalty to the 'local' brewery remains strong today.

New South Wales: Tooheys
Queensland: XXXX
South Australia: Lion Nathan's West End brand and Coopers
Tasmania: Boags in the north, Cascade in the south
Victoria: Carlton Draught and Victoria Bitter
Western Australia: Swan and Emu

In recent years, mixing of beer tastes due to a more mobile population, major campaigns by the larger breweries to spread their brands outside their home state and the growth of the ‘premium’ beer market have started to erode the traditional loyalties. Despite this, the brand loyalties are still strong with only Tooheys and Victoria Bitter gaining any significant market share outside their home state.

The premium beer market does not follow the state loyalties with the major premium brands being available nationwide. Popular ‘premium’ beers include Hahn and Crown lager.

With the notable exceptions of Coopers, and the dark Toohey's "Old Black", these are all mild-tasting commercial lagers.

[edit] Australian Stouts

In contemporary Australia, the overwhelmingly largest proportion of beer produced is of the lager variety, and most commentary on Australian beer reflects that predominance.

However, dark beers and Stout have a venerable history in Australia, and good quality Stouts are still made to this time.

Guinness has a strong following among the folk music communities in many states, and groups such as the Brisbane Guinness Appreciation Society in the late 1990s promoted it as an alternative to the regular brews. Couple this with the growth of Irish theme pubs and a growing awareness of the Irish roots of many Australians, Guinness has become increasingly available On Tap in recent years.

List of Mainstream Australian Stouts The following list contains many of the extant brands of Stout in Australia. In general, despite the fact that most of these brands are produced by Australia-wide combines, they are not readily available beyond their State of origin, nor are they aggressively promoted even within their own region. As a result of this lack of commercial promotion, they may not be well known even within Australia, let alone internationally.

Most of these varieties claim to be made by “traditional” methods, using quality ingredients.

Abbots Invalid Stout (Vic)
Carbine Stout (Qld)
Cascade Special Stout (Tas)
Coopers Best Extra Stout (SA)
Sheaf Stout (NSW)
Southwark Stout (SA)
Special Old Stout (SA)
Swan Stout ( WA)

List of Boutique Australian Stouts

Black Bart Stout
Colonial Mild Irish Stout
Ebony Stout
Flanagans
Grumpy’s Heysen Scottish Oatmeal Stout (SA)
Hat Lifter Stout
Iron Bark Amber Stout
Mountain Goat Surefoot Stout
Oxford Black
Russian Imperial Stout
SCB Extra Stout
Swan Valley Stout
Velvet Cream Stout

[edit] Speciality beers

Particularly in the trendier areas of the major cities, speciality brews produced by major brewers and by microbreweries, including a wide variety of ales, are increasing in popularity, as are some foreign beers.

Microbreweries of Australia include:

Holgate Brewhouse
Little Creatures
Mountain Goat Beer
Piss Beer
Feral Brewing Company
Bootleg Brewery
Blue Tongue Brewery
Matilda Bay Brewing Company
Barons ESB
Malt Shovel Brewery
Snowy Mountains Brewery (Crackenback Pale Ale & Bullock Pilsner) [1]

[edit] Beer Glasses

Australia is a diverse country, and one of the most notorious examples of this is the variation in the names for beer glasses in each state. As young Australians travel more, the differences are decreasing. Most pubs nowadays do not have a glass smaller than 285 ml/10 imperial oz. (Pot or Middy). In addition, many pubs outside of VIC and WA now have Pints (570 ml/20 oz.), possibly because the popularity of themed Irish pubs in Australia which have always used pints. Many inner suburban Melbourne establishments have also begun to serve schooners, not traditionally found in Victoria.

A request of a "Pot of Gold" may sound like a joke, but it is a valid order of a 285 ml (10 oz.) glass of XXXX Gold.

edit Names of beer glasses in different Australian cities
Capacity	Sydney	Darwin	Brisbane	Adelaide	Hobart	Melbourne	Perth	Canberra
115 ml (4 fl.oz.)	–	–	–	–	small beer	–	shetland (pony)	–
140 ml (5 fl.oz.)	pony	–	small beer	pony	–	pony	pony	–
170 ml (6 fl.oz.)	–	–	–	–	six	small (glass)	bobbie	–
200 ml (7 fl.oz.)	seven	seven	beer	butcher	–	glass	glass	seven
225 ml (8 fl.oz.)	–	–	glass	–	eight	–	–	–
285 ml (10 fl.oz.)	middy	handle	pot	schooner	ten (ounce)/pot	pot	middy	middy
425 ml (15 fl.oz.)	schooner	schooner	schooner	pint	schooner	schooner	schooner	schooner
570 ml (20 fl.oz.)	pint	–	pint	imperial pint	pint	pint	pint	pint
1140 ml (40 fl.oz.)	jug	jug	jug	jug	jug	jug	jug	jug
Notes: 1. Entries in bold are common. 2. Entries in italics are old-fashioned and/or rare. 3. Entries marked with a dash are not applicable. 4. Traditionally 425 ml is a size not found Western Australia.
Reference: 1. Australian Alcohol Guidelines Standard Drinks Guide

[edit] South Australian Traditional Beer Glasses

Until relatively recently, there were no Australia-wide standard measures for serving beer. South Australia in particular used two unusual measures that were not used elsewhere. These are :

170 ml (6 oz.) known as a “butcher”
255 ml (9 oz.) known as a “schooner”

In addition, a 425 ml (15 oz.) was (and still is) known as a “pint”; technically, as a “reputed pint”

Note that the SA schooner is considerably smaller than the measure of the same name in NSW, as is the SA “pint”.

Usage and understanding of these names is now generally restricted to people born before about 1950. In contemporary SA pubs and restaurants, the most frequent measure is now the up-sized "schooner" of 285 ml. (10 oz / half-pint ; in NSW, a “Middy), while “imperial pints” are also popular in bohemian, artistic and “theme” venues such as Irish pubs.