Abbotsford Brewery The Best Ale ‘We’ll keep the flag flying’ Poster

In 1903 a meeting of free (not brewery tied or owned) hotel keepers decided to start a new co-operative brewery and, in 1904, the Melbourne Co-Operative Brewery Limited came into existence.

The new brewery started operations on the bank of the Yarra in Bent Street, Abbotsford, and came to be popularly known as the Abbotsford Brewery which still exists today.

Melbourne Co-Operative kept on expanding and paying big dividends but, in 1925, after much negotiating with CUB, a new company was formed by amalgamation of CUB and Melbourne Co-op. In the new company, an allocation of 650,000 shares to Melbourne Co-op made that company the largest unit in the new company.

This poster was made during WWI specifically to advertise support for the war effort. ‘We’ll keep the flag flying’ has a different meaning to what you think as the brewery really looked after their workers and families who had enlisted. If brewery workers enlisted and were receiving less money than they had earned at Abbotsford then the company made up their pay. If a man was on active service, irrespective of whether his pay was more or less than his brewery wage, the company paid an extra amount equal to a quarter of his weekly wage.