Sovereign Brewery ‘Ballarat Gold lager’ Poster

The Old Ballarat Brewery was the second of the modern-day boutique breweries in Australia, and the first to become established in Victoria. The Anchor Brewery in Fremantle, WA, began in July 1984, and the Old Ballarat Brewery followed later that year.

John Gilbert built a large motel and convention centre on 16 hectares of land opposite Ballarat’s re­nowned Pioneer Village. The complex had its own tennis courts, restaurant and pottery factory on the hill at the back. Gilbert had seen the success of mini-breweries in England, and, with considerable vision and even more courage, he ventured into a new era of Australian brewing by building a brewery on the slope of land just above the convention centre.

The Old Ballarat Brewery produced just the one style of beer, a full malt lager with a fine flavour and texture. Most of the production was packaged in small bottles, many of which were supplied to convention customers, hotels, clubs and corporations, with the bottle label carrying the name, emblem and any other distinctive feature required by the customer. 

A small printing factory operated at the site; it designed and printed more than 120 different labels during the life of the brewery, where a minimum order of 20 dozen bottles of Old Ballarat Brew would be processed and specially labelled.

The market was expanded to Melbourne, and several shipments went to Sydney, but penetration of the market was difficult. Early in 1987 the brewery was sold to Sovereign Brewery Pty Ltd, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Pacific Maltings Pty Ltd, and brewing continued under the Sovereign name.