Great Australian Beer Yarns

by Peter Lalor

  My mother, although none too pleased, agreed.

  ‘I think he drinks Sheaf Stout,’ she said crossly, pulling me by one ear as I attempted to beat a hasty retreat, and reaching for her purse.

  Soon I was staggering to the presbytery door.

  ‘What’s this lovely beer you’ve got here, Junie Benson?’

  Father O’Dougherty was completely puzzled.

  It turned out he thought he’d rung Shepherd’s corner store for his weekly supply of Marchant’s lemonade.

  However, he did NOT insist I take the Sheaf Stout home and I’ve always believed it did not go to waste.

  FROTHY FACTS

  A SAD END

  The story about the man drowning in a vat of beer at the brewery has made its way into folklore. However, there may just be some truth to it.

  In the 1890s a brewer named Joseph Hartley was found floating in a tank of beer at the Castlemaine brewery in Victoria. He was dead, although it is not known if he had fought off any attempts to save him.

  The customs officers and health authorities insisted the beer be run off down the street gutters and a broken-hearted group of spectators gathered to watch.

  One paper at the time suggested that Hartley had become ‘too much absorbed in his business’.

  The Bulletin magazine published a poem at the time, bemoaning the loss of the beer and Hartley. In part, it read:

  For poor old Joseph Hartley,

  The poet sighs, or partly,

  And likewise drops a tear.

  But not for Joseph only,

  In the graveyard lying lonely.

  Doth the poet drop a tear,

  So crystal, bright and clear

  He is thinking, thinking, thinking,

  Of that liquor brewed for drinking.

  BARMAID BANS AND THE BEER UPRISING

  Did you know that until 1967 barmaids were banned in South Australia? Most other states had hosted anti-barmaid campaigns, and while they were not successful in New South Wales (in 1884 a bill was defeated by just one vote) or Western Australia, they were in South Australia and Victoria.

  In Victoria 346 licences were issued in 1885 to barmaids as a means of ending the pernicious practice of allowing women to serve beer. The licensed girls were to be the last of their kind. The Vics eased the regulation as a temporary measure during World War Two but publicans forgot to sack them when the boys got back. Thank God.

  Everyone has heard of the Eureka Stockade but in 1918 beer restrictions led to the most serious and prolonged civil disobedience campaign ever witnessed in Australia.

  The Federal Government ran Darwin’s hotels after World War One and imposed laws which restricted people taking beer away from pubs and then raised the price by threepence.

  A boycott was declared and in December 1918, 1000 men stormed the administrator’s office demanding the man be sent away on the first steamer. The administrator was manhandled, his assistant lost his trousers and an effigy was burnt. That administrator left town, as did another six months later, along with his secretary and the judge of the Supreme Court.

  This was a serious issue and eventually the drinkers prevailed.

  BOB HAWKE’S RECORD

  Politicians are remembered in history for all sorts of contributions: wars, corruption, sex scandals, economic mismanagement, taxes, total bastardry, ignorance, sloth, greed … but one got his name in the textbooks for the right reason — beer drinking.

  Our own Rhodes Scholar in Canberra, the right honourable former prime minister Bob Hawke actually made history even before he took the top job.

  As a young man at Oxford, the knockabout soon-to-be union leader was called out at the dining hall of his college for not wearing a gown. As part of the college rules he was obliged to down two and a half pints of British ale in less than twenty-five seconds. According to Bob’s memoirs, failure to do so meant he would have to pay for the first drink and then another.

  Bob was a politician even in those days and didn’t think he should have to fork out his own hard-earned money for a beer, so he took on that ale like his life depended upon it. Terrified of reaching into his pocket, the young Aussie student knocked back the lot in eleven seconds. The effort was recorded for history in the Guinness Book of Records.

  Bob’s record stood for some time, but we have heard about a young fellow called Leo Williams from the University of Queensland who put our Hawkie to shame. Representing the law faculty, the young man took on the whole campus in a drinking competition.

  Leo almost broke the laws of physics by downing 2.6 litres in an incredible 7.9 seconds.

  Apparently, a guy called Harold Fulton managed to drink thirty pints of beer in Sydney in the 1960s during an eight-hour session. He only had one leg too!

  BREAKFAST OF CHAMPIONS

  At any given time the sun is over the yardarm in some part of the world, but for brewers it’s never too early to have a drink. These hearty souls not only make the beloved liquid, some include it in their breakfast.

  Here’s a little recipe for a brewer’s breakfast. It’s not quite hair of the dog, more of a lining for the kennel.

  THE BREWER’S BREAKFAST

  one bowl of toasted muesli

  one cup of hot wort straight from the mash (unhopped)

  half a cup of fruit

  one cup of yoghurt

  Pour into schooner glass, hold nose and drink in one swill.

  CRICKETERS

  Remember the great days of the Australian male? Remember when real men wore moustaches without fear of any confusion in a public toilet? Remember the Aussie bloke and his beer-drinking exploits? Remember our cricket side when every single bloke was a fair-dinkum-knockaboutlarrikin who was pretty good on the field but much better in the pub?

  Not that long ago the Australian cricket team made most builders’ labourers look like synchronised swimmers. Back then the great challenge for our first XI wasn’t facing the fearsome Windies, or even deciding which open-necked paisley shirt went with which slacks; no, it was how much beer you could drink.

  And if the Ashes were the ultimate in cricketing tradition, then the Australia–England jet-plane beer-drinking record ran a close second.

  For many years it was held by the laidback Doug Walters, a man who could knock up a ton, drop a bit of money at the races, and smoke half a pack of fags between lunch and tea.

  It’s alleged Doug once stunned the whole side by announcing he was going to ‘warm up’. Nobody hated practice more than this naturally talented New South Welshman. Having made the statement, Doug arose, threw two darts at a dartboard, and sat down.

  Warmed up.

  In 1977 Doug Walters sat down for forty-four cans of beer on a flight between Sydney and London, a mark most considered unbeatable. Asked about this by Inside Edge magazine, Dougie told them a little about the flight.

  ‘Rod and I used to sit together and have a drink on the plane. Now we got some good service in those days and we set some records that I don’t think will be broken for a long while — you can’t get that sort of service on a plane these days.’

  Doug reckons it took a concentrated effort to establish the record and he didn’t dare sleep.

  ‘No way, mate. You can’t sleep and drink at the same time.’

  Then Rod Marsh, the West Australian wicket-keeper who looked like the progeny of a wrestler and a walrus, decided that he was going to set his own record. At five foot eight and a half inches, Marsh was heavy-set and had classic beer-drinker’s legs: each one looked like it could — and on some occasions did — hold a keg of beer.

  Rod always claimed that he had matched Doug beer for beer on the recordbreaking 1977 flight where he had acted as pace-maker, but nobody believed him. His chance to prove himself came in 1983 when the team was due to fly to London for the World Series in England.

  Rod’s best mate Dennis Lillee knew that the wicket-keeper was keen to have a crack, but secretly believed it wasn’t a good idea. Now the fast bowler is no wowser
himself, but he figured that it would be better to have somebody behind the stumps who hadn’t died of alcoholic poisoning before landing in the Land of the Pom.

  So, Dennis decided to get his mate well tanked before take-off. They drank on the red eye special all the way from Western Australia, kept going at an official cocktail party in Melbourne and then really hit their straps when they landed in Sydney the night before their departure for England.

  The plan worked a treat and everybody was crook as a dog the next morning, but just to make sure, the fast bowler lured Rod in for a couple of dog hairs before the flight. Three to be exact — and they weren’t to be counted as part of the trip.

  To make an attempt on any record takes a lot of preparation and planning and this record was no exception. The flight took twenty-four hours in three legs: Sydney to Singapore, Singapore to Bahrain, and Bahrain to London. That’s fifteen cans a leg and two cans an hour if you’re going to beat the record.

  Despite his mate’s best attempts at sabotage, Rod pressed the hostie button the moment the wheels left the ground in Sydney. The hostess was informed of the plans and said that she would help in any way possible.

  Apparently he was drinking Fosters, and although it sounded like he was speaking English as a second language, he was right on target when the plane touched down in Singapore. Graeme Wood was keeping score and had the little fella down for fifteen cans.

  It was illegal to drink during refuelling — something to do with volatile fumes mixing with the avgas — and the moment they touched down Rod passed out.

  Lillee relaxed; his plan had worked and his mate couldn’t keep up the pace.

  But he had underestimated the guy, who was one of the greatest keepers of all time, for the moment the plane was in the air again Rod was alert and drinking and put away fifteen more on the next leg.

  In his book Over and Out, Lillee claims that he fell asleep on this leg and was horrified to wake in Bahrain and see that his mate had put away thirty cans. Admittedly Marshy was now talking in an obscure Arabian dialect, but like a good keeper, he hadn’t missed a chance and was well on the way to the record.

  When the plane touched down the little fella went quiet, apparently having passed out.

  Of course, the moment that old plane took off Rod was back at it again and by this time the whole economy section was following the mammoth innings taking place high in the skies above the northern hemisphere. This was Bradmanesque — not that the teetotalling Don would have approved.

  Even the captain joined in and made an announcement about the record attempt to those who hadn’t already caught on. In those days responsible service of alcohol meant you could serve anybody who could remember their name or knew somebody who once remembered their name. Back then the only time you were too drunk to drive was when you couldn’t find your car; and our man had no intention of driving anywhere, so they just kept those beers coming.

  Anyway, the tally kept rising and Lillee swears that as the plane tilted for its descent towards Heathrow, beer started to spill over his mate’s bottom teeth.

  As they approached the airport, can forty-four arrived and was eventually forced down before tragedy struck. The record-breaking forty-fifth can came down the aisle and somehow Marsh indicated that he couldn’t do it. The runway was approaching almost as fast as the ignominious failure.

  Back in those days a mate was a real mate and the rest of the team held his mouth open and somehow poured the beer down his throat. Although, if the truth be known it probably came to rest about a centimetre below his tonsils.

  Rod Marsh had done it and there were delirious celebrations from everybody except the wicket-keeper, who was by now catatonic.

  Woods and Lillee had to change him out of his drinking clothes and into the official ACB gear before hitting customs. They propped him between themselves and made for the gates, only to be caught by the lizards of the English press who had the temerity to suggest in the next day’s paper that Lillee had been in on the game too.

  If they only knew what a wowser he really was.

  But there you have it — Rod Marsh, beer-drinking champion of the Australian cricket team with an unbeaten forty-five-can London–Heathrow record.

  Many claim David Boon later matched or beat this, but Boon denies it and we can find no reason to doubt him. Cricketers don’t lie. Do they?

  Merv Hughes says that Boonie knocked off fifty-six cans on a flight to London. Walters argues that Boon is not in the running for the record because he counted the ones he drank in the terminal.

  Boonie spoke about the record recently and said that it was ‘a fairytale’. When asked how many he really had he said, ‘Oh mate, you can make whatever mark you want. When you’re having a beer, who counts?’

  Why don’t Channel Nine do a commemorative print of the lads’ famous feats? There’d be plenty who’d be proud to hang that on the wall of the home bar. I can hear Tony Greig’s sales pitch now: ‘This wonderful commemorative print captures the moment the …’ Oh well, maybe not.

  AUSTRALIA TO LONDON UNOFFICIAL BEER-DRINKING RECORDS

  1977 Doug Walters 44 cans

  1983 Rodney Marsh 45 cans

  1993 David Boon 56 cans (unconfirmed)

  DEAD DRUNK

  There’s a story doing the rounds about a thirty-three-year-old Australian who won some sort of drinking contest, but at enormous cost.

  This bloke, who worked in the computing industry but didn’t have quite as many megabytes of hard drive as you’d expect, keeled over after drinking thirty-four glasses of beer, four bourbons and sixteen tequilas in one hour and forty minutes. His blood alcohol was apparently .353. That’s more than seven times over the limit and way past a man’s ability to keep alive, let alone drive.

  Our computer geek was partaking in a drinking competition which gave contestants 100 minutes in which to consume as much alcohol as possible. Under the rules of the competition, you were awarded one point for a beer, three for a wine and eight for a spirit. Our man scored 202 — the equivalent of 202 beers in 100 minutes — and won the competition by 44 points.

  Unfortunately, he died before he could collect the prize and the barman was fined $20,000 for his part in the stupidity.

  FISHY STORY

  Believe it or not, anthropologists believe the human race has survived until now because it drank beer.

  Back in the time when water was a carrier of the Black Plague and all sorts of disease, even the churches recommended that people drink ale (the only known beer in the early days). Apart from the fact that the church owned the breweries, they also knew that the water in it was boiled and sterilised.

  Anthropologists reckon that people in the West developed a capacity for grog during these times, while the gene pools of Asia were saved by a taste for tea, which is apparently also made from boiled water.

  The earliest recorded mentions of beer date back to 6000BC. There’s even some thought that civilisation began when the old-timers began to harvest the first crops — in order to make bread and beer. The words have the same origin and beer was once made after the grains were baked into a bread-like form which was then able to be soaked in liquid.

  While it would have been pretty rough to drink and people probably used straws to filter the crap out, at least it kept you alive and happy. Some time later people realised that bread filled in a few gaps as well.

  These days the water’s clean, except that fish fornicate in it, and now it appears that there could even be fish and pig gut in beer. Animal liberationists, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, recently launched a campaign warning that some beers contain pepsin, a protein from pigs’ stomachs that makes beer frothy.

  There is also a concern that brewers are using fish bladders to clean the impurities. And they’re right; there’s a product called Isinglass, made from fish bladders, which is used to remove the yeast from beer.

  Now you know!

  MEATY DROP

  A lot of good beers and
breweries have come and gone since white man first built a pub on these shores. Then again, a lot of forgettable crap has gone the same way.

  One brewer wrote to the Australian Beer Journal in March 1895 with details of his remarkable new recipe for an ale which he claimed ‘will be a valuable medium for supplying nourishment to persons who are in ill health and unable to take food in its solid form’.

  Yeah, right.

  The brewer’s recipe involved adding fifteen pounds of calves’ heads or feet, ten pounds of bullocks’ heads and shins of beef, two bushels of malt, twelve pounds of hops and five grains of quinine to every brew.

  One can only imagine that a vegetarian plot undermined this ingenious recipe and stopped it becoming as Australian for beer as, well, you know.

  PUB WITH NO BEER

  Everybody has heard the song, but did you know it is based on a real-life tragedy?

  There have been some dark days in Australian history, but none so bleak as that terrible time that Ingham boy Dan Sheahan arrived at the Day Dawn Hotel after a hard day’s work only to be greeted with the news that the pub had no beer as American servicemen had drunk it dry.

  The Yanks’ troop convoys had passed through town and shown scant regard for the quota system which was in place at the time because of the war. And they were supposed to be on our side!

  With a tear in his eye, Dan accepted a glass of wine and retired forlornly to the parlour and began to write a poem.

  The late Gordon Parsons, singer-songwriter and timber worker from the Kempsey area, changed the lyrics a little and set them to the tune of an 1862 American folk song by Stephen Collins Foster called ‘Beautiful Dreamer’.

  Slim Dusty recorded the song ‘The Pub With No Beer’ and the rest is history … well, almost.

  You can find The Pub With No Beer at Taylor’s Arms, near Kempsey, New South Wales, but Queenslanders reckon that Ingham’s Lee Hotel, which is on the site of the old Day Dawn Hotel, is the real McCoy.