Beer in Australia facts for kids
Beer arrived in Australia when the British first settled the country. In 2004, Australia was one of the top countries for how much beer people drank each year. However, it ranked lower for overall alcohol consumption. The most popular type of beer in Australia is called lager.
The oldest brewery still making beer today is the Cascade Brewery. It started in Tasmania in 1824. The biggest brewery owned by an Australian family is Coopers Brewery. Other large breweries, like Carlton & United Breweries and Lion Nathan, are owned by companies from Japan.
More and more, people in Australia are choosing non-alcohol beer. Its popularity has grown a lot in recent years.
Contents
What is Australian Beer Like?
Australia has a big market for drinks like beer, wine, and spirits. Beer makes up almost half of this market. Most of the beer (85%) is made by big national companies. The rest comes from smaller local breweries, often called microbreweries. These smaller breweries get a special discount on taxes if they produce less than 30,000 litres of beer.
A Look Back: Beer's History in Australia
How Beer Started (1700s)
The story of Australian beer began very early, even before the first settlers arrived. Captain James Cook brought beer on his ship, the Endeavour. He used it to help keep the drinking water fresh during long voyages. In 1768, someone suggested to Joseph Banks, a scientist on Cook's journey, that brewing beer at sea would help if the water went bad. Cook's crew was still drinking beer in 1770 when he first explored the east coast of Australia.
For the first settlers and convicts, a drink called rum was very common. It was so popular that it even became a kind of money for a while.
The first official brewer in Australia was John Boston. He made a drink from Indian corn and cape gooseberry leaves. But it's likely that people were making their own beer even before that. The very first pub, called the Mason Arms, opened in 1796 in Parramatta. It was started by James Larra, who used to be a convict.
Growing Up (1800s)
Because rum was so popular, the government wanted to encourage people to drink beer instead. They thought beer was a better and healthier choice. In 1802, Lord Hobart wrote to Governor Philip King, suggesting they bring beer to the colony.
Today, most Australian beer is lager. But in the early days, Australian beers were mostly ales. These were different because they used a different brewing method and matured quickly. Lager wasn't brewed in Australia until 1885. Also, early beers were made without hops because it was hard to grow them or bring them into Australia.
James Squire was the first person to successfully grow hops in Australia in 1804. He also opened a pub and brewed his own beer. The government even rewarded him for his efforts.
In 1804, a government-owned brewery opened in Parramatta. Soon after, a private brewery opened too. Brewing quickly grew across all the Australian colonies. By 1871, there were 126 breweries in Victoria alone, even though its population was only about 800,000 people.
Here are some important moments from this time:
- 1832 – Peter Degraves started the Cascade Brewery in Hobart. It is Australia's oldest working brewery.
- 1835 – The Tooth brewery was set up in Sydney.
- 1837 – James Stokes opened the Albion Brewery in Perth. This brewery later became the Emu Brewery.
- 1838 – John Warren started "The Torrens," Adelaide's first brewery.
- 1838 – John Mills opened the first brewery in Melbourne.
- 1844 – William Henry Clark founded the Halifax Street Brewery in South Australia, which later became West End Brewery.
- 1848 – James Stokes opened the Stanley brewery, which also later became the Emu Brewery.
- 1853 – Queensland's first brewery, "The Brisbane Brewery," was opened by John Beach.
- 1862 – Thomas Cooper started the Coopers Brewery in Norwood, a suburb of Adelaide. The Cooper family still owns and runs this brewery today. Since 2011, it has been the largest Australian-owned brewery.
- 1864 – The Carlton brewery opened in Melbourne.
- 1881 – CS Button opened the Esk Brewery in Launceston.
- 1882 – Cohn Brothers' Victoria Brewery in Bendigo was the first in Australia to brew lager beer.
- 1883 – James I and his son took over the Esk Brewery, and J. Boag & Son was officially formed.
- 1887 – The Foster brothers came from New York and set up the first lager brewery in Australia to use refrigeration.
- 1889 – Lager was first brewed in Queensland at the Castlemaine and Quinlan brewery.
Tasmania was the first Australian colony to tax beer. In 1880, it introduced a tax of 3 pence per gallon, which went up to four pence in 1892.
Modern Times (1900s and 2000s)
By 1900, the number of breweries started to decrease because of a tough economic time in the 1890s. In 1901, after Australia became a federation, a new law called the Beer and Excise Act was passed. This law controlled how beer was made and sold, and it even made homebrewing illegal. Many breweries closed because of this new law. For example, in Sydney, 16 out of 21 breweries closed soon after the law started.
The breweries that remained began to join together. Larger breweries bought out smaller ones. Soon, only two major breweries were left in Sydney: Tooths and Tooheys. In Melbourne, five breweries joined in 1907 to create the huge Carlton and United Breweries.
- 1951 – Harry Ellis-Kells founded the Darwin Brewery, which later became the N.T Brewery.
Since 2011, most major breweries in Australia are owned by big international companies like Kirin (Lion Co) and AB InBev (Foster's Group). The only big exception is Coopers Brewery, which is still Australian-owned.
Boag's Brewery was sold to Lion Nathan in 2007. Even though Foster's Lager isn't a very popular beer in Australia today, it has become very popular around the world. Most of it is made for export to other countries. In 2005, Foster's was one of the top ten best-selling beers globally.
Images for kids
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The NT Draught Darwin Stubby
