South Australian Brewing Company

West End Brewery building, 1982

West End Brewery, 1982

The Walkerville Cooperative Brewery, which produced the popular Nathan beers,[9][10] was taken over by the South Australian Brewing Company in 1938,[11][12] after which operations were concentrated on the old Torrenside Brewery (established 1886, a precursor of Walkerville Brewery).[2][13] The brewery was renamed Nathan Brewery to remove the Walkerville's "Southwark" branding[14] in 1939.[13]

In 1941, architect F. Kenneth Milne was responsible for upgrading the Hindley Street building.[15][16]

From 1949, the brewery was again renamed Southwark Brewery,[2][13] administration was centralised at Hindley Street, and in November 1951 Walkerville's Nathan beer (Bitter) was renamed Southwark beer (Bitter). "Southwark Bitter" (actually a lager) became the most well-known product.[14][17]

From 1955 operations were split between the company's two major factories, with the West End Brewery in Hindley Street making only draught beer in kegs; bottled beer only was produced in the Thebarton plant.

Until 1974, when the Whitlam government revised the Trade Practices Act, they were legally able to dispense only the company's beer in their pubs.[5]

In 1980, faced with mounting problems with traffic on West Terrace and ageing and inefficient equipment, not to mention the rapidly increasing value of City land, the original West End Brewery closed and the property sold,[5] operations moved to the Southwark Brewery in Thebarton, which was rebadged "West End". The old Hindley Street building was demolished in 1983, and in 1993, Lion Nathan took over the West End brands.[6]

Prior to the acquisition of the brewing assets by Lion Nathan in 1993, SA Brewing split its brewing assets into "SA Brewing Holdings", and its diversified operations were formed into a new listed company named Southcorp. One of Southcorp's major assets was "Southcorp Wines", (acquired from the Adelaide Steamship Company in 1990), and subsequently acquired by Lion Nathan's main Australian rival, the Foster's Group.

The tradition of painting the brewery chimney with the team colours of the South Australian National Football League (SANFL) premiership team began in 1954,[21] when a West Adelaide player and employee Clarrie Cannon[5] suggested painting the chimney in the West Adelaide Football Club colours, red and black, as the West End Brewery (then still in Hindley Street[21]) was located in their territory. General manager C. R. Aitken agreed, but only if West Adelaide was the winning team that year. However Port Adelaide Football Club coach and captain, Fos Williams, said that he expected his team to win, and the men agreed that if Port Adelaide won, their colours would be painted on the chimney. Port Adelaide won that year, so the chimney was painted in black and white vertical stripes, but Williams suggested that a red stripe be painted below the black to honour the runners-up.[22][23]

The tradition of painting the colours of the premier and runners-up was maintained at the Hindley Street premises until its closure in 1980,[21] before transferring to the Thebarton site,[24][5] which was rebadged "West End".[6] It continued there until the last finals before the closure of the brewery in 2020, with the Woodville West Torrens Eagles colours aloft.[25] The tradition of painting a chimney in the two teams' colours would continue at the Hoffmann Kiln at the Brickworks Marketplace in nearby Torrensville from 2021,[26] with the cost of the painting continuing to be borne by Lion.[27]

SA Brewing was the original sponsor of the "Showdown" in the Australian Football League in 1997, and is one of the sponsors of the "Slowdown" charity football match.[28][5]