Chris Shanahan: 260 Aussie breweries since 1984 says Stubbs

On April 12, in Australian Brews News, Dr Brett Stubbs set the record straight on post-war brewing in Australia. Stubbs rejects the myth that the Sail and Anchor Pub Brewery (Fremantle 1984) was the first to be built after the end of World War Two.

Stubbs tallies, “thirteen new breweries opened across the country between the end of the Second World War in 1945 and the opening of the Sail and Anchor nearly forty years later”.

Stubbs list includes new facilities built to replace old ones in both Perth and NSW. But the list includes three new breweries in Darwin – Swan Brewery, Carlton United Breweries and the short-lived Ellis-Kells Brewery – and Victoria’s brave but ultimately ill-fated Courage Brewery, commissioned in August 1968.

However, the 13 breweries established between 1945 and 1984 pales in comparison to the roughly 260 established since 1984, notes Stubbs.