Carlton Special Export Lager

Carlton & United Breweries Ltd has been arguably Australia’s best-known brewery. Generally referred to as CUB, it has a range of popular beers; names such as Foster’s Lager and Victoria Bitter (VB) date back for more than a century. CUB also has the broadest international reputation of any Australian brewery because of its large-scale export marketing and licensing agreements granted to a number of overseas breweries.

In November 1905 members from several breweries held a meeting to consider the consolidation of six of Melbourne’s largest breweries – Foster’s, Shamrock, McCrackens, Carlton, Victoria and Castlemaine. Negotiations for this huge business undertaking took almost two years, culminating in the formation of Carlton & United Breweries Pty Ltd, which was registered on 8 May 1907.

Of the six breweries that amalgamated, only two continued to operate. The Carlton Brewery in Bouv­erie Street became the company’s headquarters and major production centre, supported by the output from the Victoria Brewery, which continued to brew until 1983. Brewing ceased at the Castlemaine, Shamrock and City breweries, and the Foster Brewery was retained as a standby plant until December 1910 when the property was sold.

The success of the new company was largely due to the wise and dynamic management of Emil Resch. Appointed general manager, he was one of Australia’s most outstanding brewers of the time. He directed the installation of a laboratory, and the old ‘rule of thumb’ practices gave way to scientific methods of controlling the quality of beer production.