Beer in Australia - Early History

Early History

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

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. … 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 led 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 severe 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 Parramatta by James Larra, a freed convict.

It is worth noting here that although Australian beer today is predominantly lager, early Australian beer was exclusively top fermented and quick maturing ales. 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 Parramatta 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 Parramatta 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 Parramatta 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 Degraves 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 Western Australia's first brewery. This later became the Emu brewery.
• 1838 – Mr Moss establishes the first brewery in Melbourne.
• 1862 – Thomas Cooper establishes the Coopers Brewery. The brewery is still owned and operated by the Cooper family and is the largest Australian-owned brewery.
• 1864 – Carlton brewery opens in Melbourne
• 1881 - CS Button opens the Esk Brewery (from 1883 taken over by James Boag & Son) in Launceston.
• 1885 – Gambrinus brewery in Melbourne becomes the first brewery in Australia to brew Lager.
• 1887 – The Foster 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 act's introduction or soon afterwards. The remaining breweries began a process of consolidation with larger breweries buying out the smaller ones. Within 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 every major brewery in Australia with the exception of Coopers, which is still family owned and run; Boag's, previously owned by San Miguel, was sold to Lion Nathan in November 2007.