A beer for Queensland tastes - the history of XXXX and Castlemaine Perkins Brewery

The Milton brewery began as a rum distillery in 1870, lasting only 7 years as 2 separate failed operations, before being bought out by business and shipping agents Fitzgerald Quinlan and Co, forming a limited liability company known as Castlemaine Brewery and Quinlan Gray and Co. Brisbane Ltd. 

The operation was to be run by brothers Nicholas and Edward Fitzgerald, who had previously established the Castlemaine Brewery in Victoria. 

By 5 September 1878, advertising had begun for Milton Distillery Company and Castlemaine Brewery, Milton, offering for sale rum, wine, ale and porter. 

The brewery was officially opened on Friday 13 September 1878, producing ‘exceedingly palatable’ beers, produced through a brewing process The Telegraph described as ‘uninteresting to the great majority of readers’, but to which The Brisbane Courier devoted over 500 words. 

The first beer – ‘Castlemaine XXX Sparkling Ale’ – was sold that same day, using an existing recipe from their Victorian operations. 

By the end of September, the brewery’s proprietors boasted an establishment ‘replete with every modern improvement’ and were proud to ‘respectfully solicit a share of public patronage’. 

Interestingly, Castlemaine Perkins Limited was granted Brisbane’s first telephone line in 1880, linking their office in Queen Street with the brewery at Milton.

After surviving the economic recession – and the Great Flood – of the early 1890s, and at the beginning of the Great War in 1914, the company made the decision to ‘withdraw from the general and mercantile fields and concentrate on brewing’.

December 1915 saw the apparent introduction of Castlemaine K.K. Ale, a light ale variously described as ‘the natural beverage for this climate’, ‘perfection’ for mankind’s demand for ‘some stimulant in its liquid form’, facilitating ‘the digestion of other nutriment’, and containing ‘palatable, and entertaining beautiful properties’.  

Curiously, a number of short notices for K.K. Ale use only the words ‘the alcohol present in this beer is only sufficient to enable it to rank as an alcoholic beverage’. The product had disappeared from advertising by 1918. 

In 1916, according to former Castlemaine Perkins CEO, the late Frank Burnett, Castlemaine’s directors decided to concentrate on brewing a beer ‘especially for Queenslanders’.

Along with a need to suit Queensland tastes, the beer also needed to stand up during transport to the ‘hottest and driest parts of the state’. 

In 1916, Castlemaine XXXX Sparkling Ale (note the extra X) began production, but was ‘plagued with brewing problems’ and produced much expensive waste.

In an effort to solve the problem, the company employed Bohemia (now Czech Republic)-born Master Brewer Alois Wilhelm ‘Bill’ Leitner, who bought with him significant experience at breweries across Victoria, New South Wales and South Australia. 

In August 1928, it was announced that Castlemaine Brewery and Quinlan Gray and Co. Ltd would merge with Perkins and Co. Ltd.  

Perkins and Co had much in common with Castlemaine – most notably its establishment by a pair of brothers who moved from Victoria to Queensland. Patrick and Thomas Perkins built the Downs Brewery in Toowoomba in 1868, before taking over an established Brisbane brewery, Mary Street’s The City Brewery. 

Perkins and Co. had in fact once been a fierce competitor to Castlemaine (even going as far as producing a XXXXX beer) but had fallen on hard times. 

The resultant company, Castlemaine Perkins Ltd, was now the largest brewing operation in Queensland, assuming the entirety of Perkins’ Toowoomba operations, sections of their city plant, along with the trade of 69 of their freehold and leased hotels.

In October 1928, notice of 'extensive alterations and additions’ in the form of cold store and packing rooms to the Milton brewery were advertised. At a published cost of £50,000 (some $4.8 million today), the renovations were hoped to double the level of production. 

By December, The Brisbane Courier declared that it would be ‘the most modern and complete plant and buildings of any brewery in the Commonwealth’, with the capacity to produce ‘600 dozen’ bottles per hour and its own power substation to fuel all activities. 

At this time much positive press was produced to celebrate the brewery’s preference for Queensland materials. A curious advertorial, of the type that would repeat regularly throughout the decade, was published to welcome in the New Year in January, 1931 in The Truth. 

The full-page spread was split between Castlemaine Perkins and their main competitor, Fortitude Valley’s Queensland Brewing, Ltd. (better known as Bulimba Beer, producer of the well-known Gold Top Pale Ale), highlighting that their malt, sugar, bottles, labels and even bottlecaps were all produced in Queensland. 

Indeed, both brewing companies would continue to operate in mutually beneficial partnership. In June 1931, amid ongoing economic depression and an influx of beers from southern states – the net results of which, according to the Castlemaine Perkins 1931 AGM, were especially dire for the hotel industry – the 2 breweries issued a statement announcing the retail price of their beer would be reduced. 

‘By adopting this action the local breweries are bringing the price of bottled beer to a level which should be within the purchasing capacity of the consuming public,’ the statement read. ‘This is essentially a local industry, which should receive support from patriotic Queenslanders ...’ 

Both breweries received enthusiastic support from ‘parties of business men’ invited to tour their facilities, with one observing ‘it all comes back to the old slogan “Help your State and help yourself”’. 

There was no doubt Castlemaine Perkins was investing in the state. The 1930s saw a period of rapid growth for the Milton site, with the construction of 3 refrigerated beer cellars, a malt tower, grain storage (upgrading from stacked bags to ‘rat-proof bins’) and a gyle (fermentation) room replete with 14 glass-lined steel beer vats. In 1936, the company purchased land in Black Street to complete a significant expansion of 7 acres costing some £160,000. 

The company continue to develop, and the brewery expand, throughout the 1940s and 50s. In 1958, the Toowoomba brewery and malthouse was closed, and in 1959, the famous neon XXXX sign was placed atop the brewery by Claude Neon. 

Canned beer arrived in 1961 (quite the reversal from the company’s position a quarter of a century earlier), and the stubbie the following year.

The Milton site was not immune from the devastating floods that hit Brisbane on 25 January 1974. A number of store rooms and the brewery delivery yard ‘went underwater’ and damage to the lower levels of stacked cardboard cartons caused dramatic collapses. According to The Courier-Mail, around ‘100,000 dozen bottles and cans’ affected by floodwater had to be destroyed. 

While the brewery was rendered non-operational, diary excerpts from employee John Armitt published in Fourex News, recount staff creating a makeshift raft to ferry unsullied beer to safety, and demolishing a wall to roll casks into waiting delivery trucks. At the flood's maximum height on 29 January, Armitt still lists the day's sales as over 850 cartons and over 2000 kilderkins (small casks) – nearly 167,000 litres of beer.

In 1989, the XXXX sign above the brewery was beginning to rust, and was refurbished by Claude Neon. At the same time, the iconic 7-metre-high Mr Fourex sign was installed on the city side of the brewery.  

In 1980, Castlemaine Perkins merged with New South Wales brewing company Tooheys, to form Castlemaine Tooheys Limited, which was in turn taken over by Bond Corporation 5 years later.  

In Castlemaine Perkins was acquired in 1990 by New Zealand drinks conglomerate Lion Nathan. In 2009, Japan's Kirin Brewing Company assumed 100% ownership of Lion Nathan, which was renamed Lion in 2011. 

Throughout its history, the company has been closely associated with outdoor and sports advertising. A 1939 photograph from State Library’s collections shows a giant XXXX sign atop the Sandgate entrance to the Hornibrook Highway, while another favourite collection item is a 1982 Brisbane Commonwealth Games commemorative beer bottle, produced by Castlemaine Perkins, who were the Major Sponsor of the Games. 

The company’s 1991 sponsorship of the Queensland State of Origin team coincided with the release of XXXX Gold, marking the beginning of 2 successful dynasties. Spend long enough in our archives, and you’ll come across a copy of Andrew Trimmer’s advertising poster for XXXX Light Bitter featuring a rampaging Queensland elephant (‘The Forward Pachyderm’) in a Maroons jersey, scattering NSW Blues players in its wake. 

In 2009, Castlemaine Perkins was inducted into the State Library’s Queensland Business Leaders Hall of Fame. In an interview produced to celebrate the company induction, former CEO Frank Burnett succinctly summed up their secret to success: 'There was a bit of a joke at the company: if it moved, we sponsored it; if it was still, we painted a Fourex on it!'.