It would be hard to make a case that there is a more influential family in the history of Australian brewing than the Breheny family. The family of Irish descent arrived in Australia in the 1850’s and quickly made their mark on the Australian brewing scene, continuing to hold significant positions until the 1980’s at breweries all over the country, from Perth to Cairns to Tasmania, but mostly in Victoria.
The Breheny Brothers Brewery name was first used around the turn of the 20th Century. First at Warrenheip, a suburb of Ballarat, where 3 Breheny Brothers joined forces with William Kenna to form Breheny Brothers & Kenna in 1891. Meanwhile further East, Edward Breheny had bought the Victoria Brewery in the thriving country town of Sale in 1897 and renamed it the Gippsland Brewery, which quickly became known for it’s affiliation to the famous brewing family taking the colony by storm with breweries bearing the family name also arising in Bendigo & Toowomba.
Brewery Type
Gypsy
Brewed At: Burnley
Region
Inner Suburbs
Tasting Room
None
As the authoritative book on the early history of Australian Brewing by Keith Deutsher will attest, brewing around the turn of the 20th Century was a fickle game. The Breheny Bros brand was mostly likely gone by the early 1920’s, despite the descendents continuing to work for prominent brewers for many more decades. Sometime in 2020 cousins Justin & James found that a family member still had some original, old family recipe books detailing some of the beers their forefathers had brewed.
They setout to bring their family brand back to life, first starting on an extensive research project to ensure they had the background right. They then setout to find a brewery capable of converting their century old recipes into something the modern drinker would be able to understand. After careful consideration they settled on Burnley Brewing to recreate their family recipes, with German trained brewer Michael Stanzel the man tasked with recreating the brews.
Michael’s brewing training in Germany had seen him deal with far older recipes than that provided by the Breheny’s, however terms such as “bushels of hops” required some research in order to recreate it as truthfully as possible. The Breheny’s relaunched their family brand at Burnley Brewing in March 2021 with the release of their Sparkling Ale, a beer last brewed at their Warrenheip Brewery a century ago. Since then they’ve released their Superior Pure Stout, also created at Burnley, whilst there are still more untapped recipes in their collection.
Naturally I’m going to write about that first release, Breheny Bros Sparkling Ale. Sparkling Ale is of course the only brewing style to have emerged from Australia, if you aren’t to count the Australian Pale Ale. This example is really nice combining the necessary malt sweetness, with grassy bitterness & some prominent yeast character. The thing that really tops it off for me is the can, which has combined a few different elements from historical Breheny Bros labels to create a really cohesive, retro look. Hopefully this brand will stick around longer in this second iteration!
Remember it’s always Beer O’Clock somewhere in the world!
