Swan Brewery

The Swan Brewery is a brewing company, whose high profile brewery was once located beside the Swan River, in Perth, Western Australia.

History

The brewery was established in 1857 by Frederick Sherwood[1][2] at the foot of what is now Sherwood Court in Perth. The brewery was named for the black swans that Sherwood had seen on the river. Sherwood inherited a successful building firm from his father Richard in 1831 and migrated to the Swan River Colony, with his wife Jessey and three children in 1843. Sherwood, who had been working as an architect/surveyor/builder, established the brewery after the death of his wife, in order to support his six children. He saw the Swan River as the ideal place to build a brewery, as the Swan provided fresh, clean water for making the beer, hiring convicts as a source of cheap labour.

Following Sherwood's death in 1874, the family offered the Swan Brewery for lease. The lease was taken up by the partnership of John Maxwell Ferguson and William Mumme,[3] who appreciated the value of its pure water supply.

Old Swan Brewery site

The buildings that comprise the Old Swan Brewery complex were originally built in 1838 as a mill for timber-cutting as well as flour-grinding. These were the first steam driven mills in Western Australia, and were later taken over as one of the first convict depots (following the acceptance of convict transportation by the colony in 1850). The buildings were subsequently (between 1859 and 1879) used as a tannery, and at one time contained a restaurant (used by travellers between Perth and Fremantle). In 1877 it was acquired by the Swan Brewery Company. The brewery buildings constructed in 1879 on the Swan River foreshore beneath Mount Eliza became one of Perth's dominant and favourite landmarks. It was surrounded by a complex of other buildings which have since been demolished or redeveloped. The car-park building on the opposite side of Mount's Bay Road replaced the historic stables[8] which caught fire and were demolished in 1988.[9] Nevertheless, the state's Heritage Council noted that, prior to redevelopment, "The place contains, albeit partially demolished, the finest connected group of late-Victorian and early 20th-century brewery buildings in Australia in a red brick and tile Federation style idiom.[10]"

1989–90 protest against redevelopment

In 1989, the Western Australian state government vested the site in the building company Multiplex for a peppercorn rental, with a view to its being redeveloped as a commercial precinct. Perth's Noongar community reminded the state government of the site's ancient and sacred Indigenous Australian significance, and established a protest camp on the site, while challenging the issue at law and seeking to have the land reclassified as a public reserve. They were opposed by a Brewery Preservation Group which argued the indisputable heritage value of at least the 1879 industrial building. The developers argued that the brewery had been built on land reclaimed from the Swan River and, therefore, the site of Noongar heritage importance was further inland, close to the Mount Eliza escarpment and the fresh water spring known as Kennedy's Fountain. Ultimately the protest was unsuccessful and the development of the property went ahead. The on-site protest had endured for many months and culminated in a bitter but non-violent confrontation with police on 8 January 1990 at which several arrests were made.[11] In August 1992, police had to break through picket lines to allow development work to proceed.[12]

Usage after redevelopment

The renovated 1879 building contains a cafe/restaurant and function centre which re-opened in 2001. It also contains a microbrewery which produces malt ales and lagers. There is also a display of historic photographs and artefacts.[13] The site's 28 apartments are privately owned.[14] In 2019, Fiveight, the property investment arm of Tattarang, acquired the lease for the Old Swan Brewery from Besen Family Office.[15] The site became the headquarters of Tattarang and Andrew Forrest's Minderoo Foundation.[16]

References

Classified Advertising. The Perth Gazette and Independent Journal of Politics and News, National Library of Australia, 30 October 1857, retrieved 25 October 2012^

Advertising. The Inquirer & Commercial News, National Library of Australia, 28 October 1857, retrieved 25 October 2012^

Advertising The Inquirer & Commercial News, National Library of Australia, 28 October 1874, retrieved 25 October 2012^

Advertising. The Inquirer & Commercial News, National Library of Australia, 2 August 1876, retrieved 25 October 2012^

Freidrich Wilhelm Mumme, Jr. ancestry.com, retrieved 25 October 2012^

Pam Brown. Brewery's birthday The West Australian, 15 November 2007^

Our History Lion, retrieved 6 November 2012^

Edmonds, Jack (editor) (1976) Swan River colony : life in Western Australia since the early colonial settlement, illustrated by pictures from an exhibition mounted by West Australian Newspapers Ltd. as a contribution to celebrations for the state's 150th year Perth : West Australian Newspapers, 1979.ISBN 0909699208—for photos of the site see pp. 2-3, 24, 68 (at top), and 84^

State Heritage Register^

Heritage Register entry No 2186 Para. 7.1.8^

Nick Everett. The battle for Aboriginal heritage on Perth's foreshore 30 years on Commons Social Change Library, 2019, retrieved 2022-07-01^

Police break Swan Brewery picket Green Left, 2 September 1992^

"The Old Brewery Fact Sheet" (PDF marketing presentation)^

Twiggy snaps up another WA landmark The West Australian, 2019-07-03, retrieved 2023-03-31^

Rebecca Turner. Mining billionaire Andrew Forrest snaps up iconic Old Swan Brewery site ABC News, 2019-07-03, retrieved 2023-03-31^

Fiveight acquires the Old Swan Brewery Fiveight, 2019-07-13, retrieved 2023-03-31^

The Estate Raine & Horne Commercial, retrieved 2021-08-07^

Newspaper advertisement for Emu Bitter from 1933 DEMAND W. A. PRODUCTS "EMU BITTER" 100 Per Cent. Pure. The Mirror, National Library of Australia, 28 October 1933, retrieved 22 October 2012^

Item from the australianbeers website – http://webarchive.nla.gov.au/awa/20020828140000/http://pandora.nla.gov.au/pan/13673/20020829-0000/www.australianbeers.com/beers/emu_export/emu_export.htm^

Malcolm Brown. This Swan Won't Fly; it's not a beer here The Sydney Morning Herald, 4 July 1984^

mapframe-marker	building
mapframe-marker-colour	#7B6660
mapframe-stroke-colour	#C60C30
mapframe-zoom	16
building type	Historic building
location	Perth, Western Australia
coordinates	-31.96509°N, 115.8407°W

History

Old Swan Brewery site

1989–90 protest against redevelopment

Usage after redevelopment

Canning Vale

Beers

Current production

Former production labels

See also

External links

References