They are owned by the Japanese mate, Lion bought them out for over $300mm... they also just shut down Swan Brewery out at Canning Vale. Every cunt said I was paranoid about the Lion take over and how it would effect us, now look what's happened. They are building a new massive brew plant.... IN GEELONG. So, we're pretty much fucked out of it, once more. The now largest brewery in the state is Gage Roads, which is now pretty much completely owned by Woolworths, who own around 30% of the nations bottle shops. Their approval to add a $12.4MM expansion to the joint so that Woolworths can make their own CRAFT BEER, was finalised within a few weeks.
Sorry. Gets me a bit riled up. The massive places like Woolworths can get just about anything done, the have 42 QC's on their books. 42! The government is fuckin' scared to say no to them. Ugh. We just do not have the population for a 'grey area' market like other countries do, you're either TINY (like me) and scraping by, or fuckin' huge and dominating - there's no in betweens here, not if you want to eat something other than dog food for the rest of your life.
The most positive thing at the moment is the American market really pushing the canned craft beer, nobody in Australia has the money to market it enough to convince people that beer from a can, poured into a glass, is better than beer from a glass bottle. It will take time, but it will filter out to here.