Planners Think About Drink

Illawarra Mercury

Saturday July 14, 2001

with DAVID ELLIS

THE entrepreneurial burghers of old Sydney Town had their priorities right when the government decided in 1833 to put a township on the site of what is now the city of Goulburn.

One of the first things they'd build would be a brewery.

So keen were they to see it happen that construction started 14 years before the new town could boast a population of 1000 souls, 15 before it got a permanent courthouse, and 35 years before the first steam train chugged into sight.

And today the vast stone Goulburn Brewery is not only Australia's oldest still in its original colonial state, but also offers tours through its 165-year old beer-making facilities, providing a captivating look into our past.

There's also the chance to taste beers as they were made in days of yore, and enjoy tasty meals and comfy accommodation (how many mates can tell you they really did spend a night in a brewery?).

Michael O'Halloran conducts these tours, and if ever there's a man with a passion for a brewery, it's him.

As well as describing the whole process from malting the barley to milling it, brewing, mashing, fermenting, pasteurising, coopering and bottling, he shows visitors the original buildings and actual equipment where all this was achieved.

He augments this with historic photos and paraphernalia and a look at the original stone stables and residential mews, making his tours as interesting for those of non-drinking persuasion as those keen on the amber stuff.

And throughout, he throws in bits of trivia of the why-do-we-say-that variety.

For instance, ``ploughing through your work" derives not from farm activities, but from malters who used wooden shovels to turn the grain.

Dungeons were so-named after brewery dungs (pronounced ``dunj"); a totally dark, window-less room with metre-thick stone walls in which a fire roasted the barley on trays overhead.

``Ready to roll" was the order called from a floor above when malted barley was ready to go down a shoot to the floor below for bagging.

The Goulburn Brewery was designed by the convict architect Francis Greenway who was transported for forgery in 1814, and appointed civil architect by Governor Macquarie. He was later sacked after a row between the two, but not before he'd planned Sydney's Hyde Park Barracks, the Macquarie tower and lighthouse, St James Church and others.

In private life he designed an elaborate harbourside warehouse worthy of its owner's status for wealthy merchant Robert Campbell, and on the corner of Sydney's Bligh and Hunter streets a palatial mansion for Campbell's son Robert jnr.

Interestingly, after Robert jnr's death his mansion was bought by one of the Goulburn Brewery's owners William Bradley, and in 1857 became Sydney's Union Club, a meeting place for the colonial elite. (The Union Club still exists today, now located in nearby Bent St.)

Greenway favoured Georgian-style architecture and many of his major works, including the Goulburn Brewery, reflect this style - buildings being grouped within a square bounding a courtyard.

Although he designed the Goulburn Brewery, there's conjecture whether Greenway actually supervised its construction before his death in 1836, when only the brewery mill had been completed.

Michael O'Halloran's tours, on Sundays at 11am and 3pm, cost $8pp or $6pp for groups; phone 48216071. Other times by arrangement.

© 2001 Illawarra Mercury

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