Fat Yak

Fat Yak

Matilda Bay Brewing Company is not just any Australian brewery – it is the first brewery to be established in Australia since World War II, and therefore the birthplace of the Australian craft beer movement itself. Founder Phil Sexton, a former brewer at the Swan Brewery in Perth, recognised in the late 1970s that the Australian beer landscape was dominated by a handful of large corporations all producing the same uniform lager everywhere, and that there was room for a completely different approach – inspired by the social beer culture of Western Europe. In 1983 he founded Brewtech Pty Ltd together with Garry Gosatti, John Tollis and Ron Groves, and in 1984 opened the first small brewery inside the historic Sail & Anchor Hotel in Fremantle, from which iconic beers such as Redback – Australia's first wheat beer – and the Dogbolter Dark Lager soon emerged.

With Alan Bond's legendary America's Cup victory in 1983 and the resulting attention on Fremantle as the venue for the 1987 title defence, the city experienced an investment boom that also brought Matilda Bay into the spotlight and enabled the opening of a larger brewery in 1986 on Stirling Highway in a former Ford plant. Carlton & United Breweries' interest grew, and in 1988 Matilda Bay sold a 20% stake to CUB, before the brewery was fully acquired in 1990 for more than 50 million Australian dollars. Sexton and his team subsequently left the company and in 2000 founded Little Creatures Brewing, which in turn significantly shaped the next generation of the Australian craft beer scene.

After decades of production moves between Western Australia, Tasmania and Victoria, Phil Sexton returned to his life's work in 2019 and opened a new Matilda Bay brewery in Healesville in the picturesque Yarra Valley in Victoria in partnership with Carlton & United Breweries, to fulfil the founder's promise: «Restoring Matilda Bay to its rightful place as Australia's leading craft beer is unfinished business for me.» Today the brand belongs to Asahi Beverages and stands after more than 40 years as a living symbol of the fact that a single visionary with a simple idea can permanently change the taste of beer across an entire continent.