One Australian brand is more recognised than any other around the globe: Foster's. However, few know who actually fostered this unique lager and lent it that famous name.
In 1886 two brothers, W.M. and R.R. Foster, stepped off the boat in Melbourne from New York City to make their fortune brewing a new kind of beer for the colonies. They brought the most advanced brewing equipment available and the world's best brewing expertise in a German/American brewer and a New York refrigeration engineer. The brothers paid almost every penny they had, £48,000, to build Melbourne's most modern brewery.
The new brewery was designed to brew Australia's first bottom-fermented lager, a crisp, refreshing beer style more suited to the country's climate than the traditional warm English ales. Lager must be brewed and stored at very low temperatures so central to the high-tech brewery (by 1880's standards) was a huge 60-horsepower steam engine powering an ice-making machine and a freezing apparatus with a 25-ton capacity that pumped cold brine through 6 miles of pipes to cool the cellars and fermenting room.
Foster's Lager was stored for 60 days at 35 degrees Fahrenheit - most other beers of the day suffered barely a week at 60 degrees. The first Foster's Lager prototype was brewed in November 1888 and bottled in the classic heavy bottle of the day with a wired-down cork.
Foster's was launched in the hottest months of the year and the Foster Lager Brewing Company took great pains to ensure it was delivered in optimum condition. Every Foster's stockist was issued with a free daily supply of ice: a not inconsiderable logistical exercise for the time. Just as the brand was beginning to establish itself, for some inexplicable reason the Fosters sold the company to a Melbourne syndicate and returned to the US.
In 1888, the city hosted a Centennial Exhibition and Foster's Lager won first prize in the Exhibition's International Brewing Award against all comers. The award-winning style became the blue-print for Australian brewing and German brewers in Melbourne were even prosecuted for trying to pass their beer off as Foster's by swapping the bottle labels.
In 1899 Australian soldiers answered the British Empire's call and troops left for the Boer War in South Africa followed by a shipment of sustaining amber liquid: the very first export of Foster's Lager.
By 1907 the only war Foster's was involved in was the battle for market share with the plethora of other small breweries in and around Melbourne. The companies decided to join forces and Carlton & United Breweries Proprietary Limited (CUB) was formed.
By 1910-11 Foster's Lager sales had increased by an astounding 83.8 per cent and the brand never looked back. In 1958 Foster's adopted the modern and highly transportable packaging of steel cans.
Foster's slowly started to become known internationally through the demand of young Aussies abroad and in 1970 the eye-catching royal blue Foster's livery was adopted.
Barry Humphries's cartoon strip, The Wonderful World of Barry Mackenzie and the film The Adventures of Barry Mackenzie, in which the Aussie anti-hero yearns for an ice-cold Foster's, made Foster's a household word in Britain and the biggest beer import in UK's history.
In 1972 All Brand Importers started importing Foster's to the US in an over-sized 26-ounce can and Robert Redford and Paul Newman were seen with Foster's. Sales doubled every subsequent year. In 1976, CUB sent one million cans of Foster's to New York: the largest single consignment of foreign beer to ever enter the city. Within just a year, 10 million litres of Foster's were being sold in the US.
Foster's became the leading international brand for CUB and its success has since become a marketing model for other Australian products.
The association of fit, healthy, successful young athletes building a thirst in competition and then celebrating with a refreshing Foster's was an irresistible image. Foster's sponsored the Australian Rules Grand Final telecast internationally and introduced signage at every major Test Cricket ground. In 1985 CUB announced that the Melbourne Cup, Australia's world-famous two-mile horse-race, would be worth $1 million and would henceforth be called the Foster's Melbourne Cup.
Australia snared a round of the Formula One World Championship in 1985 and from 1986 to 1994, Foster's seized the sponsorship rights to the Australian Grand Prix. Today, Foster's is an official sponsor and the official beer of Grand Prix races around the world.
Recognising the potential for a national lager a distribution deal was forged with UK brewers in 1981 so Foster's Lager could be sold on draught throughout the UK. In 1987 the Foster's Brewing Group acquired the major UK brewer Courage and Foster's became Courage's leading lager brand. Bolstered by extensive marketing Foster's soon secured a significant share of the UK draught beer market.
Foster's was enhanced in 1993 with a new look, higher alcoholic content and another multi-million pound advertising campaign. In 1995 the amalgamation of Courage into the Scottish & Newcastle Group created the largest brewer in the UK, giving Foster's a truly national presence in the UK. The brand is the number 1 beer in London and has been for more than 10 years. One in 5 British adults - almost 8 million - drink Foster's every week. The equivalent of 700 million pints of Foster's are drunk in Britain every year.
But Foster's popularity isn't confined to Britain: Now Foster's is the third largest-selling international beer brand. Over 100 million cans of Foster's is consumed worldwide every year and Foster's is the world's third most widely distributed beer, with distribution in over 150 countries.
