b'An amber ale taleIt was in the 1870s that Australia first developed a realCarlton & United Breweries (now part of Asahi Beverages) taste for the golden ale. Nowhere was it more popularacquired the Melbourne Cooperative Brewery Companythan in Melbourne, where brewing became one of theand its Abbotsford brewery in 1924.first large-scale manufacturing industries in the city. By1878 Melbourne had more than 1,000 hotels selling beer, amounting to an impressive ratio of one pub for every247 people.Large-scale brewers did not just brew, they also ownedmany of the pubs and controlled much of the beer trade. When seven of Melbournes great brewers increased the wholesale price of beer supplied to publicans, a frustrated group of independent pub owners including Henry Young of Melbournes famed Young & Jacksons and future lord mayor Sir Stephen Morell decided theyd had enough. They resolved to produce their own beer and, in 1904, established the Melbourne Cooperative Brewery Company in Abbotsford. The Abbotsford brewery produced four beers: Melbourne Bitter, Abbotsford Stout (which became Abbotsford Invalid Stout in 1909), Abbots Lager, and Abbotsford Sparkling Ale. The first two continue to be brewed today. Occasionally a special batch of Abbots Lager is produced to celebrate the history of the brewery.The new brewery achieved what the publicans were hoping for: between 1904 and 1906, the wholesale price of beer was reduced from 3/2/6 per hogshead to 2/15/0 per hogshead (a hogshead being a quarter of a liquid tonne). The Melbourne Cooperative Brewery Company was a neighbouring tenant of Hedderwick Fookes & Alston in Batman House. The firm assisted the brewers with legal, accounting and secretarial services, and the cooperative hotels also generated considerable legal work. The Melbourne Cooperative Brewery at Abbotsford.80'