ABSTRACT
The trade in and consumption of spirits so dominates the writing of early Australian history that seemingly there can be no place for beer as a significant item of consumption or, therefore, for brewing as a significant area of production. The almost universal acceptance among historians that alcohol consumption in early Australia was extraordinarily high is largely founded on a limited range of official documents. There has been little attempt to quantify alcohol consumption per head or to compare it with either modern Australian levels or with those of Britain at the time. Detailed records of imports from 1800 onwards give a consumption figure of about eight litres of pure alcohol per person per year for 1800-24 (HRA I-IX: passim; Naval Officer 1810-24; Commonwealth Bureau of Census and Statistics: 155). This compares with 9.8 litres of pure alcohol per head in Australia in 1976-77 (Clements 1983:366), which has since fallen to about eight litres, and with eight litres in England, Scotland and Wales in 1801 (estimated from Mitchell and Deane 1962:6, 252, 256; Mathias 1959:172; House of Commons 1821:494-7). It is implausible that smuggling and illicit distilling would greatly alter the figure for per capita consumption in the colony. Most certainly, the increase in consumption would be far greater in Britain than in early Australia if smuggling and illicit distilling were to be included (see Mitchell and Deane 1962:244 for an estimate of illicit distilling in Britain). Legal distilling did not begin in Australia until the mid-1820s. Wine production was insignificant in the early decades of settlement. Peach cider was more widely made but still not important enough to alter consumption figures. The only other important source of alcohol was local brewing, adding one or two litres to pure alcohol consumption per head per year in the first three decades of the nineteenth century. This does not alter the conclusion that alcohol consumption was not extraordinarily high in the colony. Rather, the annual volume of beer produced, about five to ten gallons per head, adds to our understanding that early colonial society was neither extraordinarily drunken nor entirely desperate. The clear demand for a drink that was refreshing, tasty and low in alcohol, and the considerable effort that went into establishing a brewing industry to satisfy that demand, do not accord with the conventional view of early Australia.
