How Aussies swapped rum for a hard-earned VB

WHEN a pub in Newport ousted one of Australia’s favourite beers they took on the weight of Australian beer drinking history

Men in a Sydney hotel rush to buy beers before the 6pm closing time in 1954. The “six o’clock swill” was abolished in 1955.

WHILE some beer drinkers like to sample different brews, others like to match ales to weather, mood or food. However, many remain loyal to their favourite drop throughout their entire life.

When northern beaches pub, The Newport (formerly the Newport Arms) recently took one of Australia’s favourite beers VB off their taps after a multi-million dollar renovation, many loyal patrons were up in arms. While there are other brews to choose from, VB lovers have started a petition to get their beloved bitter back.

It remains to be seen whether The Newport will come between the drinkers and their beer — something of an anathema to the Australian way of life — but something even the well-connected Temperance movement couldn’t do in the 19th and early 20th centuries. It is a way of life that some say needs changing, to reduce or break our dependence on alcohol, but it is also a way of life that goes back centuries.

In Europe up until the 18th century many sources of fresh water in large towns and cities had become polluted by the flow of human waste. For many people alcoholic beverages were safer to drink than the local water.

AIF soldiers drink beer with a US sailor, on leave in Sydney during World War II.

In England in the early 18th century cheap freely available gin, introduced from the Netherlands during the Thirty Years War in the 17th century, had brought about an epidemic of drunkenness. Poor people drank it to forget their drudgery, while others drank it medicinally and parents gave it to their children to keep them quiet.

By comparison, beer was seen as a healthier alternative and the government tried to encourage beer as an alternative to gin. Beer had been the favoured drink on British naval vessels until the capture of sugar plantations in the West Indies in the 17th century made rum cheaper and more available. Being a spirit it also took up less room below decks. Lt James Cook brought barrels of beer and rum with him when he landed here in 1770 and there was beer, wine, rum, arrack and other forms of alcohol aboard the ships of the First Fleet.

Contrary to popular opinion, before the British incursion, indigenous Australians had brewed their own mild alcoholic beverages — such as mangaitch, brewed from the sugar in banksia blooms in Western Australia. There was also arrack, usually made from the sap of coconut flowers, which was introduced by the Macassan fishermen in the north or by Dutch sailors in the west. Although, the indigenous people of Sydney are generally thought to have been first introduced to alcohol in 1788.

A horse and cart loaded with barrels of beer from West End Brewery in Adelaide in 1951.

In the first years of the penal settlement convicts were often given a ration of alcohol, often rum, as a motivation to work, to the point where it was sometimes used as a de facto currency. Illicit stills were also set up to augment the meagre rations so that many people remarked on the frequent drunk state of the convicts.

Beer was still seen as a healthier alternative to potent spirits like rum. While there were convicts brewing beer illicitly before him, in 1796 John Boston set up the first official beer brewery in Australia, making beer from Indian corn using the leaves of the cape gooseberry for bitters.

Men drinking beer on the footpath outside the Balaclava Hotel in Alexandria, NSW in 1955.

As more breweries were established in Australia in the ensuing decades, beer began to supplant spirits as a favoured drink, primarily because it was cheaper and had a broad appeal to workers. Wine and fortified wine was often seen as something medicinal or a drink that was only imbibed by the well-to-do. By the beginning of the 20th century beer drinking had come to be seen as an intrinsic part of the Australian male culture, while women drank sherry or wine. Advertisements often associated beer with masculine, Australian pursuits.

People were also very attached to their favourite, usually a local brewery, like Carlton in Victoria, Tooheys in NSW, XXXX in Queensland, Swan in WA, Coopers in South Australia and Cascade in Tasmania. That eroded over time as people moved around the country and brewers began exporting their beers to other states.

With the growth of the Australian wine industry after World War II the supremacy of beer was finally challenged. Over the past 20 years most Australians have become more wine literate and even more adventurous with their beer tastes, but some still like their favourite Aussie froth.

Originally published as How Aussies swapped rum for a hard-earned VB