The Cascade Brewery

Today we're looking at an iconic Tasmanian building. It's appropriate because I've got two toasts to make. But first, a little bit of history.

Established on this site in 1824 (as the inscription kindly tells us) by Peter Degraves, this is Australia's oldest continuously operating brewery. They make beer, ale, cider, cordial (squash), soft drinks, and juices. The building is quite striking - you drive around the corner of Macquarie St /Strickland Ave and it's standing there on the corner. Now it has enormous silos and tanks, and often big clouds of steam pouring out. Somedays we can smell the hops, despite being quite a long way away from it, and on other days it's apples.

As with all things good and Australian, Degraves thought up the idea of a brewery while in gaol. It sits on a rivulet that runs straight off the mountain, and was a little way out of town at that point in time. The building was rebuilt in 1927, as the business expanded.

My old primary school sits just down river from the brewery (next door to the old Blundstone's tannery) and at some point during my primary education there was a beer spill into the river. I can still remember the smell. Tannery plus watery beer. Yum yum. :S

And if you ever visit Tasmania, you may hear stories of the 'Midlands Beer Line'. If you're in the north, you drink their product - Boags. In the south, and you drink Cascade. Of course, inter-line breeding and migration has softened the boundaries, and now it's fairly acceptable to drink whatever you like whereever you like.

And two toasts. Raise your glasses to Bill Hunter, a brilliant Australian actor who died last night. Without him Priscilla: Queen of the Desert and Strictly Ballroom would have been nothing. Australia would have felt long, and Gallipoli ... well, actually I can't remember that film all that well, but I'm sure it wouldn't have been as good.

Finally, leaving the best till last, a toast to my parents who've reached a significant anniversary today. Congratulations lovely Mum and Dad. You're pretty nice, I reckon you've done a fair job this far, thanks for everything you've done for us all!





Edit: forgot to mention that Cascade is now owned by Fosters. Ugh and Ergh. But it's all still made locally at least. Well, as far as I'm aware it is.