This will be my last post about my trip to Tasmania. I realised yesterday that I was there for seven days, but I have managed to write nine blogs about it! I think that’s a fair effort – granted they’re mostly photo essays.

Louise made a request when we were organising the trip that we visit the two main boutique breweries in Tassie: Cascade and Boag’s.

I will start with Cascade for a few reasons; we went there first, it was founded first and they let us take photos inside the factory.

The Cascade Brewery is located at the base of Mt Wellington, about 10min drive South from Hobart centre. For a fuller history please see the Wiki entry, however some highlights were that it was founded in 1824, constructed by convicts, one of the owners was jailed for a period of time for bad debts in England and it is the older continuously running brewery in Australia. Additionally they are one of a very few breweries that malt their own barley, most others buy it pre-malted, including Boag’s.

Cascade has a lovely restaurant that can double as a function centre, it would be lovely for a wedding as the gardens are gorgeous. Here we see Louise looking pensively back towards Hobart.

The brewery was set up at the base of Mt Wellington so that the brewers would have access to the cleanest water. I was particularly amused by the pipes in this photo: mountain water pumped directly into the brew house.

The beer lovers among you will appreciate how much beer there is in this shot. You may also be pleased to know that this is Beez Neez – a honey wheat beer not originally brewed by Cascade; unfortunately (or fortunately depending on your point of view) Cascade is owned by Carlton United Breweries and Beez Neez was one of the brands CUB acquired from another boutique Melbourne based brewery.

In this shot I was trying to demonstrate how close the mountain is to the brewery, mostly all you can see is misty cloud where the mountain is. Also you can see the sexy yellow high-vis vests we were required to wear as modelled by the delightful Louise.

Our second brewery was J. Boag and Son in Launceston. This brewery was established considerably later, 1883, by buying out an existing brewery Esk Brewery. The original facade of this brewery is still on the site today (the photo appeared in an earlier blog. For more info see the Wiki entry.

This is the outside of the main brewery building, as you can see Louise is quite excited to be there. I don’t have as many photos of Boag’s as they wouldn’t let us take photos inside.

I found it interesting though that Boag’s was essentially a bogan beer for a long time, akin to VB or Fosters, until they launched their premium range in 1994. This launch included a number of photos by Helmut Newton and really put Boag’s into the minds of mainland Australians (and beyond). Above we see one of the Newton photo’s from this campaign; you can’t go wrong with seamed stockings.

Some of you will know that I choose not to drink alcohol, and that therefore it was weird for me to go on two brewery tours in Tas, however I appreciated the historical content, the manufacturing process is quite interesting, I tasted a number of different beers and I feel like I can now appreciate the different flavours and blends more, I also now know what hops and malt taste/smell like and their influence on flavour.

I was also very amused by the fact that both breweries sell/give their discarded barley (and in Boag’s case also discarded yeast) to beef and dairy farmers for feed; apparently it has a relaxing effect on the beef and makes dairy cattle very happy – I can’t imagine why. I will be looking at Tasmanian cows differently now knowing they are likely to be drunk!

This post concludes the Tasmania series; I hope you have enjoyed hearing about my adventure. I am going to Sydney next weekend so you’re likely to be bombarded by entries about that for a while. I need to spend some time this week writing, while I am in Sydney I will be attending a writing group and it would be good to have something to contribute!