Carlton & United Breweries (CUB) is an Australian brewing company based in

Melbourne Melbourne ( , ; Boonwurrung language, Boonwurrung/ or ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city of the States and territories of Australia, Australian state of Victori ...

and owned by Japanese conglomerate

Asahi Breweries The is a Japanese beverage holding company headquartered in Sumida, Tokyo. In 2019, the group had revenue of JPY 2.1 trillion. Asahi's business portfolio can be segmented as follows: Alcoholic drink, alcoholic beverage business (40.5%), over ...

. Its notable brands include

Victoria Bitter Victoria Bitter (VB) is a lager produced by Carlton & United Breweries, a subsidiary of Asahi, in Melbourne, Victoria. It was first brewed by Thomas Aitken at Victoria Brewery in 1854 and is one of the best selling beers in Australia. History ...

, Carlton Draught,

Foster's Lager Foster's Lager is an internationally distributed brand of Australian lager. It is owned by the Japanese brewing group Asahi Group Holdings, and is brewed under licence in a number of countries, including its biggest market, the UK, where t ...

, Great Northern,

Resch's Resch's is a brand of beer produced by Carlton & United Breweries, available in New South Wales, Australia. It was also the name of the Sydney brewing company who produced the beer brand and were based in Redfern until taken over by Tooth & Co ...

Pure Blonde Pure Blonde is a brand of low carb beer and cider produced in Australia. the brand is marketed internationally by Lion. Styles there are three Pure Blonde drinks marketed in Australia: Pure Blonde Organic Lager; Pure Blonde Ultra Low Carb ...

and Melbourne Bitter. CUB was established in 1904 as a merger of six existing breweries with Carl Pinschof as chairman and became a

public company A public company is a company whose ownership is organized via shares of share capital, stock which are intended to be freely traded on a stock exchange or in over-the-counter (finance), over-the-counter markets. A public (publicly traded) co ...

in 1913. It first expanded outside Victoria in 1931 and acquired a number of other brewing companies over the following decades. In 1983 it became a

wholly owned subsidiary A subsidiary, subsidiary company, or daughter company is a company completely or partially owned or controlled by another company, called the parent company or holding company, which has legal and financial control over the subsidiary company. Unl ...

Elders IXL Elders Limited, formerly known as Elder, Stirling & Co., Elder Smith and Co. and Elder Smith & Co. Ltd, is an Australian agribusiness that provides agricultural goods and services to primary producers in Australia. History Early history (1839 ...

and CUB was delisted from the stock exchange. In 1990, Elders IXL was renamed

Foster's Group Foster's Group Pty. Ltd. was an Australian beer group with interests in brewing and soft drinks, known for Foster's Lager, now called Carlton & United Breweries since the company was renamed in 2011. Foster's was founded in 1888 in Melbourne, ...

, and in July 2004, Fosters Group changed its name to Carlton & United Beverages. In February 2009, CUB announced the decision to separate the Australian Wine division from the Australian Beer, Cider & Spirits (BCS) division, and rename BCS to Carlton & United Breweries. In December 2011, American multinational

SABMiller SABMiller plc was an Anglo–South African multinational brewing and beverage company headquartered in Woking, England on the outskirts of London until 10 October 2016 when it was acquired by AB InBev for US$107-billion. It was the world's sec ...

acquired Foster's Group, and took over ownership of Carlton & United Breweries as part of the acquisition. Subsequently, in October 2016, CUB was included in the purchase of SABMiller by

Anheuser-Busch InBev Anheuser-Busch InBev SA/NV, known as AB InBev, is an American-Belgian Multinational corporation, multinational Drink industry, drink and brewing company, brewing company based in Leuven, Belgium. It is the largest brewer in the world, and in 20 ...

. SABMiller ceased trading on global stock markets and as a result, Carlton & United was then owned by Anheuser-Busch InBev. In July 2019, Asahi Breweries agreed to purchase CUB, with the

Australian Competition & Consumer Commission The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) is the chief competition regulator of the Government of Australia, located within the Department of the Treasury. It was established in 1995 with the amalgamation of the Australian Tra ...

and

Foreign Investment Review Board The Foreign Investment Review Board (FIRB) is a non statutory body established in 1976 to advise thTreasurerand the Australian Government The Australian Government, also known as the Commonwealth Government or simply as the federal governme ...

approving the deal in May 2020.

History

Carlton and United Breweries was formed in 1904 with the merger of six major Australian breweries: Carlton Brewery,

Castlemaine Brewery Company (Melbourne) Castlemaine Brewery Company (Melbourne) Ltd was a major brewer in Victoria, Australia, from 1885 until its amalgamation into the new Carlton and United Breweries in 1907. The Castlemaine Brewery had been founded in 1857 by Edward Fitzgerald, wit ...

, Foster Brewing Company, McCracken's City Brewery, Shamrock Brewing and Malting Company and Victoria Brewery. The six breweries - along with another two (Melbourne Brewery and Distillery Pty Ltd and Coghlan and Tulloch's Ballarat Brewing Co Ltd) - had formed a cartel known as the Society of Melbourne Brewers in 1903. Emil Resch played a significant role in enabling the amalgamation. Resch also went on to become the first general manager of CUB. The company became public in 1913 with the issue of 100,000 shares. Over time it has bought out many other brewers, such as Abbotsford Co-operative Brewery in 1924 (a company set up by independent hoteliers to combat the anti-competitive nature of the Society of Melbourne Brewers.) Their first interstate acquisition was

Northern Australia The unofficial geographic term Northern Australia includes those parts of Queensland and Western Australia north of latitude 26th parallel south, 26° and all of the Northern Territory. Those local government areas of Western Australia and Q ...

n Breweries and the

Cairns Cairns (; ) is a city in the Cairns Region, Queensland, Australia, on the tropical north east coast of Far North Queensland. In the , Cairns had a population of 153,181 people. The city was founded in 1876 and named after William Cairns, Sir W ...

Brewery in 1931. Further acquisitions were the Ballarat Brewing Company,

Queensland Brewery Ltd Queensland Brewery Ltd was a company that operated a brewery in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. History Originally, the brewery was based at Bulimba in Brisbane, Queensland,(now known as Teneriffe) in on the western bank of the Bulimba Rea ...

, Thos McLauchlin & Co Pty Ltd, Richmond Brewery and

Tooth & Co Tooth and Co was the major brewer of beer in New South Wales, Australia. The company owned a large brewery on Broadway, Sydney, Broadway in Sydney from 1835 to 1985, known as the Kent Brewery. It was historically one of Australia's oldest compa ...

. In 1983, CUB was wholly bought by

, a giant Australian diversified conglomerate with pastoral, financial, materials, and food interests. Elders Brewing Group (as it then became known as) continued to acquire brewing companies in the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States. In 1990 Elders Brewing Group changed its name to Foster's Group, to reflect the name of their most internationally recognised product. In 1985, CUB purchased the Tooth and Co. site on

Broadway Broadway may refer to: Theatre * Broadway Theatre (disambiguation) * Broadway theatre, theatrical productions in professional theatres near Broadway, Manhattan, New York City, U.S. ** Broadway (Manhattan), the street ** Broadway Theatre (53rd Stre ...

in Sydney. The company demolished all of the existing Kent Brewery buildings on this site, except for one. CUB Management decided to close the Broadway site in 2003, with one of the reasons given being that it was a "large island of industry stranded in Sydney's central residential revival" that was happening in nearby Chippendale. In 2007, the site was sold and redeveloped into a commercial complex containing office blocks, shopping centre, and a boutique hotel known as The Old Clare Hotel. In July 2004, Carlton & United Breweries changed its name to Carlton & United Beverages (retaining CUB acronym), citing the company's diversification into pre-mixed drinks, juices, ciders and non-alcoholic drinks. In February 2009, Foster's announced the outcomes of a review of its global wine business, including the decision to separate the Australian Wine division from the Australian Beer, Cider & Spirits (BCS) division, and rename BCS to Carlton & United Breweries.Foster's announces the outcomes from its wine review
ASX announcement 17 February 2009, Media Centre, fosters.com.au. Accessed 2009-10-10. In mid-June 2016 CUB made the controversial decision to lay off 55 workers (mostly electricians and fitters) before inviting those same workers to reapply for their old jobs on individual contracts involving stripped conditions, clauses and significant pay cuts (the workers are suggesting a 65 per cent wage cut once penalty rates and other entitlements are factored in). SABMiller, CUB's global owner, responded to criticisms from the union movement that its action was not illegal as it has no direct contractual relationship with the maintenance crews that were laid off. Rather, it has a contractual relationship with one subcontractor and the action constitutes the "passing" of a contract to another, which has the prerogative to set pay and conditions of workers at its own discretion. SABMiller have made no comment regarding the lower pay and poorer conditions offered to workers. Carlton Draught 375mL Bottle

The decision generated considerable poor publicity for CUB, with a widespread social media campaign as well as union efforts to highlight the workers' plight, who argue the brewer has conducted a "transmission of business" manoeuvre. Several pubs in Victoria have stopped selling CUB products in support of the sacked workers. In July 2019,

agreed terms to purchase Carlton & United Breweries with the transaction completed in May 2020 after being cleared by the

and

Carlton Premium Beverages

In 2020 Asahi Beverages has announced that it will combine its two alcohol businesses Carlton & United Breweries (CUB) and Asahi Premium Beverages to form Carlton Premium Beverages.

Products

After the takeovers by SABMiller and then

, CUB distributed their international brands such as

Aguila Águila or Aguila is Spanish for "eagle". It may refer to: Places *El Aguila, Valle del Cauca, a town and municipality in Colombia *Aguila, Arizona, United States Ships *, the first ship of the Chilean Navy *, a British passenger ship sunk in 19 ...

, Corona Extra,

Stella Artois Stella Artois ( , ) is a pilsner beer, first brewed in 1926 by Brouwerij Artois in Leuven, Belgium. In its original form, the beer is 5.2 per cent Alcohol by volume, ABV, the country's standard for pilsners. The beer is sold in many EU countrie ...

, Beck's,

Budweiser Budweiser () is an American-style pale lager, a brand of Belgian company AB InBev. Introduced in 1876 by Carl Conrad & Co. of St. Louis, Missouri, Budweiser has become a large selling beer company in the United States. Budweiser is a filte ...

Hoegaarden Hoegaarden () is a Municipalities of Belgium, municipality in the province of Flemish Brabant, in Flanders, one of the three Communities, regions and language areas of Belgium, regions of Belgium. The municipality comprises the villages of Hoegaar ...

Leffe Leffe (; ) is a beer brand owned by InBev Belgium, the European operating arm of the global Anheuser–Busch InBev brewery giant. There are several beers in the range, and they are marketed as abbey beers. They are brewed in large quantitie ...

and Leffe Radieuse.

Beer

Cider

Spirits

References

Citations

Sources

External links

*
History of the Foster's Group
Fosters.com {{DEFAULTSORT:Carlton and United Breweries Asahi Breweries Alcoholic drink companies Breweries in Australia Australian beer brands 1907 establishments in Australia Food and drink companies established in 1907 Companies formerly listed on the Australian Securities Exchange Beer brewing companies based in Victoria (state) Food and drink companies based in Melbourne Manufacturing companies based in Melbourne