114 – XXXX Brewery Tour

Just to be clear, XXXX is the name of their most popular beer. The name of the brewery is Castlemaine. Or it was, which I will explain later.
I could go into a long history of beer, as they did on the tour, but I will omit most of it because Wikipedia exists. I will say, in medieval times, monks did most of the brewing of beer. Monks could read and write, where most of the population could not, so when they brewed their various kinds of beer, they wanted a clear cut way to identify the various brews, so they used crosses. One cross was the everyday, common beer. 2 crosses was the better beer, and 3 crosses was the best, which commanded the premium price. The crosses looked like ‘x’s on the barrels, so the first beer rating scale was invented, making XXX the mark of the best. Or the heaviest. Or whatever caused that beer to have more labor, time, ingredients and such involved. There were not exactly consistent standards at the time.

Queen Elizabeth the first of Brittan liked a lighter brew of beer. She was not hung up on the number of X’s defining quality, which was good because her court consumed 2.5 million liters of beer a year and needed 60 breweries across the country to supply it. Understandably the queen got grumpy if she did not get her beer for breakfast, and if each brewery was off doing their own thing, with their own recipes and such, the queen did not always get what she wanted. So they came up with the idea for the queen to have a single with the master brewer so all the breweries were producing the same product. At about the same time in 1516, Duke William the IV of Bavaria came up with the idea of Reinheitsgebot, or ‘purity order’ one of the worlds oldest purity laws that specified beer could only be made from water, barely and hops.
Which held things together for beer makers until the mid 1800’swhen Louis Pasteur figured out the yeast component and now, we have all the ingredents for ‘modern’ beer.

And none of that has anything to do with Australia and this company. The tour credited James Cook for bringing beer to Australia in 1768 on his famous ship the Endeavor. Of course they then admit he did have beer on the ship; 4 tons of it, in fact; but it was consumed in the first month of the voyage so never reached Australia. then the tour dropped the subject entirely and moved on, so I am assuming they have no idea who or why anyone brought beer to Australia.

In the 1870’s beer was here… in Australia. Brothers Nicholas and Edward Fitzgerald had already established breweries in Melbourne, Sydney and Newcastle before moving to the warmer and friendlier climate of Queensland.
In 1870, the Milton brewery started out as a rum distillery, but because of mismanagement and bad luck did not make a go of it. The Fitzgerald brothers stepped in to form a partnership with Quinlan, Donnelly and Company to buy the Milton Brewery.
Donnelly fell ill within a month and sold out to Quinlan, then died. Quinlan died a year later and the entire financial future of the enterprise fell to his widow. Thankfully for the Fitzgerald brothers, the widow decided to throw her influence and money back into the ring, hired a man named George Gray to manage her interests and the new venture was called ‘Castlemaine Brewery.’
Which then overcame the superstitious population and opened its doors on Friday the 13th, 1878.

Personally, given the bad luck from the beginning of this location, I would have waited a week, but it worked out.

The first beer they made and sold on the first day was the ‘Castlemaine XXX Sparkling Ale’ and was a recipe from their other breweries in Victoria.
In 1880, the brewery was doing something odd and the local population was not sure what. Holes were appearing along the route from the office building on Queen street to the Brewery building in Milton.
Those holes soon sported poles, and the poles then were linked with a wire. After much ado, the public was informed the very first telephone line in the Brisbane area had been installed between the brewery and the office.

I only include that tid bit because they were very proud of their technological innovations and revolutionary ways during the tour, and they were very proud of their phone line on the tour.

In 1916, Castlemaine’s directors decided to concentrate on brewing a beer ‘especially for Queenslanders’.
Which is where the last X was added, because it was that much better than the best. Welcome XXXX Sparkling Ale to the lineup.
But there were immediate problems. When the beer was shipped specifically, through the hot climate and sunshine of Queensland, the beer became ‘light struck’ or ‘skunked.
That means the beer ‘spoils’ or develops a specific ‘off-flavor’ when exposed to certain wavelengths of light. The light exposure leads to a chemical reaction that produced a skunk-like aroma and taste.
The main cause of this phenomenon is a reaction between riboflavin, a compound naturally present in beer, and the isohumulones, which are the bitter compounds derived from hops. With light exposure, the riboflavin absorbs energy and becomes highly reactive, leading it to break down the isohumulones into smaller molecules. Some of these smaller molecules can then combine with sulfur compounds, producing the characteristic skunk-like smell.

And now you know why a lot of beer is in brown bottles. Or kegs, or now cans. Light cannot get through to spoil it.

Not all light produces this change in the riboflavin. The wavelengths most responsible for this reaction are found in the blue and ultraviolet regions of the spectrum. So, sunlight or fluorescent lighting emitting higher levels of blue and ultraviolet light are at greater risk.
And this was a problem. So they brought in Bohemia (now Czech Republic)-born Master Brewer Alios Wilhelm ‘Bill’ Leitner who had immigrated to Australia and was working his way around the country as a brew master. 
After extensive research of the entire brewing and shipping process, he figured out the problem came from the way the brew vessels were cleaned, not entirely by light exposure. He stayed with the company for the rest of his career and with the introduction of some choice strains of European yeast, he redesigned the XXXX recipe that has not changed since he perfected it.

With the new beer popularity, in 1924, Mr. Fourex appeared as the symbol of XXXX beer. No one is exactly sure where the inspiration for Mr. Fourex came from, but he has been a staple in Queensland ever since.

So here is where I am going to take a bizzare turn because stuff was happening in the 1920s that involved brewing and an iconic Australian food. Not exactly this brewery back then, but they are very involved in the process now, so, history lesson extra.

The Australian company Fred Walker and Co. hired Cyril Callister to figure out a way to utilize the used yeast waste being dumped by the breweries. No idea why Fred Walker had an interest in used yeast, other than he was a cheese maker, but Callister took the task to heart. He used autolysis to break down the yeast waste, concentrated the product into a clear liquid extract, then blended it with salt, celery and onion extracts to form a sticky black paste.  

Sounds awful, and I would not define it as food, but whatever.

Proud of the new product, apparently intended to be consumed by humans, a contest was held to name the new product, which resulted in the name Vegemite. It appeared in 1923 and was said to improve children’s health.

It did not sell well. Not sure why.
It was not the only product in the food category of… I have no idea what food category one would place this, but Marmite was the chief competitor.
Marmaite was doing fine, so Vegemite decided to rebrand to see if they could sell more. Their big strategy was to rename Vegimite ‘Parwill.’
It is okay to ask why because I did. The answer is they coupled the new name with an aggressive ad campaign revolving around the theme ‘Marmite, but Parwill.’

Surprisingly, that didn’t work, so they reverted to the name Vegemite.

In 1925, Fred Walker partnered with J.L. Kraft to form the Kraft Walker Cheese Company. For 10 years the Vegemite/Parwill product was on the books and in the markets even though it was not a stellar seller. Then in 1935, Fred Walker died and the Kraft Walker Cheese Company decided to do something with it. In a 2 year campaign to promote sales, Vegemite was given away free with Kraft Walker cheese products. They followed the free giveaways with poetry competitions where imported American Pontiac cars were being offered as prizes. It took a bit, but sales picked up, and in 1939 Vegemite was officially endorsed by the British Medical Association as a rich source of B vitamins, therefore healthy and apparently something people needed to have.
Then WWII hit. Vegemite, for reasons I am not clear on, was rationed in Australia, but was included in all Australian Army rations. Probably to keep them healthy. Not unlike the legendary Kiwi Nugget from New Zealand, after the soldiers returned from war, they requested their Vegemite and by the late 1940s was used in nine out of ten Australian homes. And that is why Australians eat Vegemite.

There was a lot more history presented about this brewery, like how they incorporated refrigeration; were the first in Australia to use ‘stubbies,’ which are short bottles about the size of a 16oz can; how they saved the beer when the great flood of 1974 hit by lashing empty kegs together and putting pallets on top to make rafts to move the beer to safety… and so forth.
After the hour long, very well done, informative tour that this icon of Australian beer provided (and yes, I did learn a lot) 2 things stick to my head.

First, the brewery is a historic site now, along with their iconic XXXX sign. It is protected from demolition, alteration, change in an effort to link the present to the past. It is important to touch and experience places and things that can tie us to the past. I am 90% behind the idea.
Yet today the original building is barely used because it is ‘historic’ and they could not make the needed upgrades to integrate it into the factory. So almost an entire city block sits empty or for storage because it cannot be fully utilized.
The brewery is landlocked, although they do own a considerable amount of area where the actual brewing is done, but to preserve this one part, where again, all for history, means efficiency is compromised. Fine, I am willing to work with that, but it increases shipping because things need to be stored at another site. Moving the beer from site to site increases their carbon footprint, costs, all kinds of things that are hurting our current environment.
I am not saying allowing them to upgrade the original building will save any transport costs, but they took a lot of time toting their on site green power sources and such, then ended with the fact they can’t utilize a big chunk of their space and need to ship it all to another warehouse for distribution.
But I’m sure the city doesn’t mind because the taxes they pay, historic or productive, are the same. Which probably passed on to the consumer in the price of the beer.
Again, all of that is speculation as I have no idea how taxes, or historic preservation works in Australia, but it does seem like a giant contradiction to me.

The second thing I learned because when we were in the factory, there were screens running ads for beers that were not part of the Castlemaine line up.
I thought it was odd to advertise for others, so the question was asked as to why.

The entire tour had been written and designed to tote this Australian brewery, steeped in history of Australia. Even the early history when Castlemaine bought out another brewery that was going under, and thus became Castlemaine Perkins was described as expanding and preserving the Perkins name under the Castlemaine umbrella. Yeah them. Mergers happen and the great Australian Queensland beer dynasty grew.

In 1980, Castlemaine Perkins merged with the New South Wales brewing company Tooheys to form Castlemaine Tooheys Limited. Good. Again, established Australian breweries proudly making Australian beer.

Until Bond Corporation bought them 5 years later… which led to Lion Nathan purchasing the business in 1990.
If historic preservation is the goal, the company, not only the building should be considered. Lion Nathan is, or was a huge New Zealand drinks conglomerate. So Australia’s Iconic beer was owned by a New Zealand company, which is a little insulting, and in fact I heard jokes being made about it on a later tour.
That is the way of the world, I suppose. We are a global economy, and most name brands are not owned by the names anymore. They are owned by the giants in far off lands. Just as Vegemite was owned by Kraft. I do not know if it still is, but I bet it is under whomever now owns Kraft.
If you are wondering, Kirin Brewing out of Japan purchased Lion Nathan in 2009. They renamed it Lion in 2011.

Australian beer is still made in Australia. It is still the XXXX formula and it is still made in the same historically preserved building it was made in back in the 1900s.
Except they don’t tell you that, unless you ask why they would advertise Kirin in an Australian Brewery instead of XXXX or any of their other labels.
I also learned that all of the beer produced in Australia, for Australians under Australian brand names is in fact owned by Japanese beverage companies. Except for Coopers, which is the largest still owned by Australians. And of course the many microbrews around the continent.

So here we are in this global world, doing global things and sharing global ideas, which is wonderful. I appreciate being able to travel and speak English anywhere and likely be understood. Mind you, I hate that I am challenged when learning new languages and I do know how insulting it is to enter a culture and not at least know basic phrases in the native language. I was embarrassed by my own limitations, and grateful others were so accommodating of my weakness. But… it did open doors for me that otherwise I would be unable to cross.
I am grateful I can travel and have things I understand like convenience stores, or markets, or any number of little things that I am used to at home.
Yet I am also left feeling slighted by the global nature of the world. My mind has opened to so many new things on this trip about how people in different cultures relate to their environment.
I have seen animals I would have never seen in the wild in the United States, land features which are steeped in cultural traditions, and it is that diversity of nature that makes each location on the planet unique.
Until I go to a gift shop, (and make no mistake the Disney influence of putting a gift shop at every exit of every attraction is a global phenomenon in itself) and I find keychains made in China or shirts made in India.
I am deeply conflicted by the fact that I did this thing. I went to these places and anything other than a picture of myself next to the attraction that I might want to take home to celebrate the moment… is not a product of the moment. Even a picture can be manipulated, and make no mistake, many of them are. Even I took background people out of a few pictures. I could easily put myself in a picture with a background from anywhere on the planet, and that… bothers me.
We are a mass produced, global society which is comforting and enabling while potentially defeating the purpose of experiencing the global community first hand. Because as it has been said repeatedly, everything now is the same, but different. And the different is less than it used to be.
Or maybe it does not defeat the purpose. It simply redefines it. I have no idea how I feel about the global generic experience, but I am positive I have grappled with the assumptions and barriers in my head that have defined global travel for me.
And at the end of this tour, the whole debate gave me a headache. So I just bought the over priced t-shirt made in China with the logo printed in India from the Japanese owned business located in Australia. Because that is what American tourists do.