The last quarter of a century has been an extraordinary period in the history of the Australian brewing industry. It has been characterised by two seemingly contradictory trends. One is a process that has been apparent in Australian brewing since the 19th century, namely the concentration of the industry into a smaller number of firms operating a diminishing number of larger, mainly capital-city breweries. The other is the creation of new, small-scale breweries at a rate which this country has not seen for more than a hundred years. These new small breweries are the focus of this article.
The opening of the Sail and Anchor Pub Brewery in Fremantle, Western Australia, in 1984 was one of the very earliest signs of the beer and brewing revolution which has occurred throughout Australia recently. To many people it symbolises the beginning of this revolution. Indeed, it is widely held that the Sail and Anchor started the micro-brewing movement in Australia.
One of the main purposes of this article is to consider the extent to which the Sail and Anchor did influence the overall movement in this country. The fact that the Sail and Anchor has recently celebrated twenty years in business, and is the oldest operating pub-brewery in the country, makes now a good time to review the Australian pub-brewing movement in general, and, in particular, the Sail and Anchor’s role in that movement.
Historical Background
The boom in small brewery establishment in Australia in the 1980s occurred against a long-term historical background of brewery closures.
The breweries of the Australian states were most numerous and geographically most widely spread in the late nineteenth century. They declined afterwards to small numbers of mainly very large capital city breweries by the early decades of the twentieth century.
In New South Wales, for example, they declined from around eighty in the late 1880s to only six by the early 1930s; there were still six at the end of the 1970s. In Victoria, the other major brewing state, there were 126 breweries in 1872, declining to nine by the early 1930s; there were six at the end of the 1970s.
A similar pattern is evident in the other states. All of Australia’s domestic beer production at the end of the 1970s occurred in only 24 breweries. There have been further closures since then; fourteen major breweries have ceased to operate across the country, eleven of them in the 1980s, a decade in which the process was particularly prominent.
The explosion of new breweries in the 1980s is especially interesting considering the long-term background of mergers, takeovers and closures against which it occurred.
Small Brewery Movement
The total number of new breweries coming into operation in Australia since the beginning of 1984 now exceeds one hundred and ten (my tally up until the end of 2003, with several more opening during 2004). When these new brewery openings are graphed on an annual basis from 1984 until the end of 2003, two peaks are clearly evident: one around the late 1980s, and another around the early 2000s.
The former peak is my main concern here. Very few of the small breweries established during this first wave have survived, and most Australians are therefore unaware of, or have forgotten about, this early burst of activity. Most of the sixty-five or so small breweries presently in operation in this country were established only in the last five years.
The collapse of the movement at the end of the 1980s is another story, although it can briefly be said that a combination of factors including economic recession (the ‘recession that Australia had to have’, as it was dubbed by the Federal Treasurer at the time) was responsible.
It is convenient to categorise each of the new Australian small breweries as either a pub-brewery (one attached to a pub or other licensed outlet through which all or most of its beer is sold), or a wholesale-brewery (not part of a pub or other retail outlet, selling its products to a greater or lesser number of such outlets).
In reality, the categories of pub-brewery and wholesale brewery tend to merge, and some of the new Australian breweries of the 1980s do not fit neatly into one or the other, or have moved, suddenly or gradually, from one to the other.
My categorisation of a few operations as pub-breweries may therefore be contentious, but I have done so where there was initially a strong in-house retail component to the business even if accompanied by some wholesale trade. Bearing this in mind, of the thirty-eight new breweries established in Australia from 1984 until the end of 1989, I have categorised twenty-nine, about three-quarters, as pub-breweries. These pub-breweries, not the wholesale breweries, are my focus here.
Emergence or re-emergence?
After licensing of breweries was introduced in New South Wales in 1810, there were several publicans among the small number of brewers (usually between two and eight each year) licensed from 1810 until the early 1820s. Publican brewers, however, seem to have died out in New South Wales in the 1820s.
The major factor leading to their demise was probably the licensing system. A single fee of £25 applied to brewers, no matter what their output. This contrasts with the system in Great Britain at the same time where the licence fee for a brewer varied with the amount of beer brewed annually, allowing small breweries to flourish. Added to this, the publican brewer in colonial New South Wales was also required to pay for a licence to retail. Such a system advantaged larger, common (wholesale) brewers, and probably led to their early dominance in Australia.
Publican brewers also operated in other Australian colonies in the nineteenth century, but everywhere they were the exception rather than the rule. The 1980s phenomenon of pub-breweries was therefore not entirely a new one in this country, so I have referred to it here as a ‘re-emergence’.
The Sail & Anchor Pub Brewery and its influence
The Sail and Anchor Pub Brewery in Fremantle, Western Australia, came into operation in the latter half of 1984, and is now the oldest operating Australian pub-brewery. To beer aficionados it symbolises the beginning of the beer and brewing revolution which has occurred throughout Australia over the last twenty-or-so years.
Brewtech Pty Ltd, the company which created the Sail and Anchor, was incorporated in Western Australia in March 1984. It was the brainchild of brewer Phil Sexton and accountant Gary Gosatti (among others), and was supported financially by Western Australian mining mogul Peter Briggs.
The company bought the run-down Freemason’s Hotel, then renovated it and installed a small brewery built in Sydney by brewing manufacturer Predict Pty Ltd. Trial brewing commenced probably in August 1984, and the first sales of house-brewed ales took place in October.
The Sail and Anchor was only one component of Brewtech’s business, the other of which was the larger Matilda Bay Brewery which came into production early in 1985 at nearby Nedlands, several kilometres away from the port of Fremantle.
Matilda Bay was not a pub-brewery, but it did use the Sail and Anchor as an outlet for some of its products, which were mainly European-style lagers in contrast to the British-style ales brewed at the Sail and Anchor.
The Matilda Bay Brewery incorporated a 16hl brewhouse manufactured by Robert Morton and Co. Ltd of Burton-on-Trent and installed by Predict. The Matilda Bay Brewery was soon replaced by a much larger brewery of the same name, on a new site at North Fremantle, and that came into production in mid-1989. It utilised a brewhouse obtained from the defunct De Clerck brewery at Hazebrouck in northern France.
It is a measure of Brewtech’s success that the company soon attracted the interest of the big brewers and by mid-1990 had been taken over by Carlton and United Breweries. CUB’s interest was not focussed on the Sail and Anchor but, not surprisingly, on the much larger Matilda Bay Brewery, which had an annual capacity of 35 million litres (compared to about 2.5 million litres in the original Matilda Bay Brewery, and a mere 300,000 litres in the Sail and Anchor Pub Brewery).
Nevertheless, the Sail and Anchor also came into CUB’s ownership at that time, so its independent existence was quite brief – less than seven years.
In its early years, the Sail and Anchor exerted its influence in two main ways. The first was the conscious policy of its founders of expanding through joint ventures in other Australian states. The second was by acting as an example, or model, to others. Its influence and success were magnified by the influx of visitors to Fremantle during the America’s Cup defence in 1987. This event gave the pub-brewery a national and international exposure that it would not have achieved otherwise.
Joint Ventures
The first of Brewtech’s pub-brewery joint ventures was in South Australia, at the Old Lion Hotel in North Adelaide. Beer production began there towards the end of 1986.
Next was the Royal Hotel in North Melbourne. Approval for the redevelopment of this pub was granted by Melbourne City Council early in 1987 but the brewery, which was much larger than that at the Old Lion, did not come into production until late in 1988. By this time Brewtech had bought out its joint venture partners to take full control of the operation which became known as the Redback Brewery. Although this brewery was housed in an extension to the renovated Royal Hotel, its size makes it difficult to classify as a pub brewery. In it Brewtech (which was renamed Matilda Bay Brewing Company during 1988) produced draught beer for national distribution.
The third Brewtech joint-venture pub-brewery was in Hobart, at the St Ives Hotel. Although begun after the Melbourne project, the smaller Battery Point Brewery, as it was known, came into production earlier, at the beginning of 1988. Unlike its counterparts in Adelaide and Melbourne, the St Ives Hotel brewery is still in operation.
Brewtech also undertook a joint venture in New South Wales, but this failed to bear fruit. Towards the end of 1986 plans were well advanced to install a brewery in the renovated British Lion Hotel in Glebe, an inner-Sydney suburb. This was to be the first of several such pub-breweries, but in May 1987 Brewtech pulled out of the project, selling its half share to its joint venture partner, Centrepac Pty Ltd. Centrepac remained interested in brewing in Sydney, but rather than the original idea of a chain of pub-breweries, it pursued the development of a single larger brewery in that city.
Although Centrepac’s first involvement in small-scale brewing in Sydney was as a partner of Brewtech, the company’s interest in small breweries originated elsewhere and quite differently, as is explained later.
Setting an example
Within five years of the opening of the Sail and Anchor, nearly thirty other pub breweries or similar operations had opened around Australia, in all states. Brewtech had a financial interest in only three of these: the Old Lion in Adelaide, Battery Point in Hobart, and Redback in North Melbourne. Most, therefore, had been established independently. There can be little doubt, however, that the success of the Sail and Anchor provided the catalyst for many of the others. The theme of including a small brewery in the restoration of an historic pub or other tourist venue was repeated many times across the country during the late 1980s.
Examination of the origins of small breweries shows that many were connected with Brewtech indirectly, either through ex-employees, or simply by setting an example to be followed. The most obvious case of emulation of the Sail and Anchor appeared in Fremantle, only a short distance from the Sail and Anchor, during 1986. The old His Majesty’s Hotel, renamed His Lordship’s Larder, housed a small extract brewery after its renovation.
Traditional Brewing Company Pty Ltd
A second example with clear Sail and Anchor connections appeared in Melbourne about the same time. The Aberdeen Hotel in North Fitzroy was lavishly renovated and reopened in August 1986 as the Loaded Dog, Melbourne’s first pub brewery, preceding Brewtech’s own Victorian joint-venture at North Melbourne.
The Loaded Dog was the creation of the Traditional Brewing Company Pty Ltd, one of whose principals (Geoff Chamberlain) had been manager of the Sail and Anchor. Loaded Dog’s first brewer, Tony Barker, had also worked in that capacity at the Sail and Anchor (and later was involved in setting up the Frontier Brewery in Darwin’s Top-End Hotel).
The Loaded Dog proved so popular that the Traditional Brewing Company set up a second Melbourne pub brewery, the Geebung Polo Club Pub Brewery. Brewing commenced there in 1988.
The Loaded Dog changed hands in mid-1988 and new brewer, Rob Strong, soon afterwards took the novel step of installing a Burton union system in the brewery. It consisted of twelve 49 litre barrels in two rows of six, connected by a 400 litre trough.
Pub Brewing Pty Ltd
Three pub breweries were under development in Adelaide by early 1986. One was the Brewtech joint venture at North Adelaide, the Old Lion, already mentioned. Another was the Port Dock Brewery Hotel at Port Adelaide which was in production by the end of 1986. The inspiration for this project was clearly Brewtech and its activities in Western Australia.
The success of the Sail and Anchor and the growing interest in pub-breweries even encouraged two of the parties involved in the Port Dock project (Duncan MacGillivray and Grant Powell) to form a new company called Pub Brewing Pty Ltd which set about developing a chain of pub breweries on the Port Dock model.
The influence of Pub Brewing quickly extended from its Adelaide base into the eastern states. Its first joint venture was the Lord Nelson Brewery Hotel in Sydney which came into production early in 1987. This is one of the more successful of the early pub-breweries, having operated continuously since 1987, and produced more than 3000 brews, an average of 3.3 per week, over nearly eighteen years. Like the Port Dock, it utilised an 8hl plant manufactured by Inn Brewing Limited, a company formed to manufacture and install pub brewery equipment in the United Kingdom.
Pub Brewing’s second joint venture, the Station Tavern and Brewery in Melbourne, followed later in 1987. The company was also involved, as a consultant, in setting up further pub-breweries in Melbourne (Bill Bell’s), at Rosevears in Tasmania, and at Newcastle (Queen’s Wharf) and Goulburn in New South Wales. The Goulburn operation was unusual in that it was based in a long-disused nineteenth century brewing and malting complex which was being redeveloped as a tourist attraction with bar, visitor accommodation, and a brewing museum.
Centrepac Pty Ltd
A brewery was part of the concept plan for the Tamworth Country Centre, a tourist project in the northern New South Wales town of Tamworth. Development of the Tamworth Country Centre began about 1983, and included a tavern and a golf course.
The idea of including a brewery had come from one of the project’s founders being aware of small breweries operating in Europe and, more particularly, the USA. When the developers became aware of Brewtech’s operation in Western Australia, this served as a model for the Tamworth brewery. Moreover, Rod Zemanek, the Sydney-based engineer who had been intimately involved with the construction and installation of Brewtech’s Western Australian breweries through his company Predict, was engaged to fulfil a similar function at Tamworth.
The Longyard Hotel at the Tamworth Country Centre was officially opened in 1985, and Britten’s Brewery, which was housed in a separate but adjacent building, came into production early in 1988. Before the completion of Britten’s Brewery, Centrepac had won a tender to install a tavern and brewery at Sydney’s old hydraulic pumping station as part of the massive Darling Harbour redevelopment.
The result was the Pumphouse Brewery Tavern which produced its first beer early in 1989. Before that time, during the bicentenary year, the tavern sold beer produced at the company’s Tamworth brewery. Both the Pumphouse Brewery and Britten’s Brewery used brewhouse equipment manufactured by Robert Morton.
Brewhouse Operations Australia Pty Ltd
By the end of 1986, largely as a result of the example set by Brewtech, but also through the activities of others, the pub-brewery concept had spread widely throughout Australia, with seven operational in three states. None had yet started in Queensland, but several were under development, including two in Gold Coast taverns. A common factor in most of the Queensland developments was Brewhouse Operations (Australia) Pty Ltd, a company established to design and manufacture small breweries for installation in Australia and for export.
The activity already occurring in the pub-brewing field in Australia doubtless inspired the creation of Brewhouse Operations, but the company’s principal, Graham Howard, had a background in home-brewing and in building small-scale breweries for that purpose which pre-dated the establishment of the Sail and Anchor. Howard opened his own pub-brewery, Brisbane’s first, in 1987. It was, however, short lived.
Rifle Brigade Pub Brewery
The first Victorian pub brewery (in the strict sense of the term) to come into operation outside the capital city was the Rifle Brigade Pub Brewery in the provincial city of Bendigo. This began producing its own beer in the latter half of 1987. It was inspired by pub-breweries in the United Kingdom, and not directly by the Sail and Anchor, although the idea was reinforced by the earlier development of the Loaded Dog in Melbourne.
Indeed, the same Melbourne firm of architects prepared the designs for both the Loaded Dog and the Rifle Brigade. The brewery at the Rifle Brigade was manufactured and installed by Ausbrew Pty Ltd, a South Australian company established in 1987 to service the rising tide of small-scale brewing in Australia.
Multiple Beginnings
There can be no doubt that the Sail and Anchor Pub Brewery and its creators were pioneers in the field of small-scale commercial brewing in Australia, and that Brewtech, directly or indirectly, contributed to the adoption and spread of the idea of pub-brewing. It is equally certain, however, that some pub breweries in Australia in the 1980s were independently conceived and brought into existence.
The Sail and Anchor did not provide the model in all cases. The idea of incorporating a small brewery into a renovated historic pub or other development in Australia in fact had multiple beginnings.
Scharers’s Little Brewery
Even before the renovation began of the Freemason’s Hotel in 1984, a publican at Picton, on the southern outskirts of Sydney, had obtained a licence to operate a brewery in his George IV Inn. Although Scharer’s Little Brewery did not come into production until mid-1987, it was several years earlier in its conception than the Sail and Anchor, so must be considered as a pioneering Australian pub-brewery venture.
Geoff Scharer had long entertained the idea of brewing beer to supply his own pub, but it was not until he attended a brewing trade exhibition in London in 1975 that he was inspired to begin doing so. Scharer inspected a small brewery in Switzerland, installed at the back of a restaurant in Basl, then eventually obtained a 25 hL brewhouse of German manufacture and the technical assistance of a German-trained brewer to bring his idea to fruition.
If the Sail and Anchor did influence the establishment of Scharer’s Little Brewery, it was, through its demonstrable success, to make the concept more palatable to financiers who were initially reluctant to support such an unusual project.
Australian Traditional Breweries Pty Ltd
Almost simultaneously with the opening of the Sail and Anchor in Fremantle, another small brewery was established on the opposite side of the country. The Old Ballarat Brewery was erected within the grounds of the Old Ballarat Village, a motel and conference centre on the outskirts of the Victorian provincial city of Ballarat.
While not a pub-brewery in the strict sense, Old Ballarat Brewery did supply all of its beer at first to the motel and restaurant at the Village, and to an associated pub in the centre of Ballarat. Old Ballarat made its first beer in May 1984, three months before Sail and Anchor began trial brewing.
The idea of including a small brewery in the Old Ballarat Village complex came from its founder, John Gilbert, having become aware, as Phil Sexton and others had done, of the pub-brewing movement that was in full swing in the UK in the early 1980s. Sexton had got the idea at the very beginning of the 1980s while studying brewing at Birmingham University.
In Gilbert’s case, a chance meeting in 1983 at a pub in Oakham with the brewer from Ruddles inspired him to include a brewery in his Old Ballarat Village. Gilbert, an entrepreneur whose numerous ventures also included a pottery, a mineral water business, and a royal (real) tennis court, saw the potential of a brewery to attract visitors to Old Ballarat Village.
The Old Ballarat Brewery was short-lived, undergoing a change of ownership and of direction in 1986, but before this happened Gilbert formed Australian Traditional Breweries Pty Ltd to set up a network of small breweries around the country, by franchising the concept and providing technical support from the parent brewery at Ballarat. This resulted from the success of a residential seminar held at the Old Ballarat Village in November 1985 to promote the idea. Early in 1986 the company became Australian agents for Inn Brewing Limited, the English pub-brewery equipment manufacturer.
Despite the Old Ballarat Brewery’s new owners steering away from the original mini-brewery franchising concept after 1986, Australian Traditional Breweries was involved in the establishment of three pub-breweries. One was at the Botanic Hotel in Adelaide (opened late 1986). This was short-lived, having ceased production in 1987. A second was at the Eaglehawk Hill convention centre at Sutton near Canberra (opened 1987, and closed about 1993). The third was the Strzelecki Brewery, established in 1988 in an old butter factory at Mirboo North, Victoria, and now operating as Grand Ridge Brewery. These three and the Old Ballarat Brewery all used equipment supplied by Inn Brewing Limited.
Conclusion
The Sail and Anchor was one of the earliest of the new wave of small Australian breweries of the 1980s, and was certainly the first operational pub-brewery (strictly defined) in the country. It and its founders undoubtedly exerted a strong influence on the Australian pub-brewery movement, both directly and indirectly.
It is equally clear, however, that many of the Australian small breweries of the 1980s were inspired directly by such things in other countries. The small brewery movement in the United Kingdom was unquestionably the major overseas influence on Australia’s at that time, especially in the cases of Brewtech and Old Ballarat. Small breweries in continental European countries, especially Germany, and even the emerging sector in the United States, also influenced the adoption of the concept in Australia.
First published The Brewer & Distiller • Volume 1 • Issue 4 • April 2005
