IT was September 1979, not even a full five years after Queensland had lowered the drinking age from 21 to 18 – the last state to do so. Well before the days of craft beer and microbreweries, there was one castle that ruled everyone north of the Tweed. The Castlemaine Perkins Brewery.

Situated in the inner-Brisbane suburb of Milton, a stone’s-throw from the rugby league heartland of Caxton Street and overlooking the wild brown river that caused the city so much grief in the 70s – this was the building that kept Queensland happy.

In those days there weren’t many options outside of XXXX, with only the occasional VB or Carlton tap sneaking behind the bar – there were no other Queensland brewers.

It was still nearly a decade before a cunning entrepreneur named Bernie Powers would team up with QLD’s first NRL franchise in an attempt to take the crown, with his popular, but short-lived Powers Bitter.

The day the beer stopped flowing

With most of the state relying on the distribution from the XXXX brewery in Milton for their downtime and celebrations, there was a lot of drama when one chilly September morning, the beer stopped flowing.

The workers had walked off in support of a log of claims that had built around the company voicing their intentions to take back that years bonuses and working conditions.

“Everywhere up in the far north was alright, there was a brewery in Cairns providing them all by transfer. No one up there was on strike. Just in Brisbane,” says Pat Ogden, who served as the publican for the iconic Globe Hotel in the western Queensland town Barcaldine for 41 years.

“It all dried up pretty quick and the punters weren’t too happy. If you could get your hands on a can of XXXX in 1979 you could make a million bucks.

“Not saying they didn’t drink everything I managed to get in here. I had to make a few trips up north to Hughenden to pick up some of the grog coming out of Cairns.

“But the biggest crime was, for every little drop we got, Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen (former Premier of Queensland) charged an extra 10% licence fee. Most of the publicans held off on that, I think I was the only fool who paid him.”

As the strike continued, the demand for a drink was too much, the owners had to start outsourcing from interstate brewers. This was a shock to the vast Queensland population, all they had ever known was the “barbed-wire”.

“The only thing better than your favourite beer… is a cold beer,” says Pat Ogden.

“I was bringing in VB, MB and Carlton Draught kegs for them. They got used to that stuff. It was the South Australian beer that I had to bring in when things were really bad – West End Draught, KB and the rest… the regulars had to chew to get through them.”

Order is restored

Statewide, hoteliers were rationing their draught beer for weekends. Sticking to cans and bottles on the weekdays.

Things were tough for the everyday Queenslander, in a state with such a thriving pub-culture – they had to make do with whatever their loyal publicans could provide.

After two very long months, the entire state was able to exhale in relief and order was restored. The workers of the Milton Brewery returned to work in late November.

Not surprisingly, the patriotic Queenslanders returned to drinking XXXX straight away. But it was nice to say they had tried something else.

The XXXX Brewery in Milton, as it stands today.