From a cordial business to the Standard Brewery.

Tooheys was founded by two Irish-born brothers who grew up in Melbourne. The Australian Dictionary of Biography says John Thomas Toohey (1839–1903) was born in Limerick and taken to Melbourne as a child in 1841, and that his brother James Matthew Toohey (1850–1895) was born there. English Wikipedia says the brothers ran pubs in Melbourne before moving to Sydney in the 1860s, and dates the business to 1869, when John obtained a brewing licence.

The dictionary sets out the early years in detail. In about 1869 John set up an auctioneering agency and cordial business in Castlereagh Street, Sydney; in 1870 the brothers began brewing at the Metropolitan Brewery; and in 1873 they bought the Darling Brewery in Harbour Street. The company tells a shorter version: the brothers took over a cordial factory in Darling Harbour, got a brewing licence and, one September, drank the first Tooheys Black Ale — the beer it now sells as Tooheys Old.

The business soon moved to a larger site. The company and English Wikipedia date the move to the Standard Brewery in Surry Hills to 1875; the dictionary gives 1876, on the site of the old Albion Brewery in Elizabeth Street, with twenty-six workers. Before 1880, the dictionary says, Sydney drinkers preferred imported beer, but in the 1880s the beers of Toohey’s and its rival Tooth’s quickly became popular. James was elected to the New South Wales parliament for South Sydney in 1885, and in 1902 the brewery became a public company, Toohey’s Ltd, with John as chairman, the dictionary says. From 1895 the brewery was run by John and by James’s eldest son, also named John Thomas.

A toast, a stag and a question.

Tooheys has used advertising slogans for well over a century. The Australian Dictionary of Biography says the slogan and symbol “Here’s to ’ee” originated in 1894. In the 1980s, the company says, it first used the line “How Do You Feel?”, and its website today opens with “I feel like a Tooheys or two.”

The names of its beers have given the brand much of its imagery. The company lists Tooheys Flag Ale, an Oatmeal Stout and a Stag Lager, which it says was inspired by the brothers’ favourite pub, the Bald Faced Stag at Leichhardt; for a time, it says, Tooheys also sold spirits, including Stag Rum, Dominion Dry Gin and Corio Grande Brandy. Its first lager, the beer now called Tooheys New, dates from 1930 according to English Wikipedia; the company says it was first brewed as Tooheys New Special in 1931.

The other half of the identity is sport. English Wikipedia says Tooheys New sponsors the New South Wales Blues in rugby league’s State of Origin series, with its logo on the players’ sleeves, and that the team was once known by the sponsored name “Tooheys Blues.” The brand was naming-rights sponsor of the Bathurst 1000 motor race from 1988 to 1995 and of the Melbourne Cup from 2001 to 2003, English Wikipedia says.

Design and documentation.

The seven brands in this group are all Australian beers: Victoria Bitter, Carlton Draught, XXXX, Tooheys, James Squire, Boag’s and Cascade. Between them they belong to just two groups, both owned from Japan. Victoria Bitter, Carlton Draught and Cascade belong to Carlton & United Breweries, which was formed in Melbourne in 1904 from a merger of six breweries, became part of Elders IXL in 1983 and so of the Foster’s group, passed to SABMiller in 2011 and to Anheuser-Busch InBev in 2016, and has been owned by Asahi since June 2020, English Wikipedia records. Cascade joined CUB in 1993, the Tasmanian Business Reporter says.

XXXX, Tooheys, James Squire and Boag’s belong to Lion, which took shape in October 2009 when Kirin bought the brewer Lion Nathan, English Wikipedia says. The Queensland and New South Wales names came first: Castlemaine Perkins, the Brisbane home of XXXX, merged with Tooheys of Sydney in 1980, the combined company was bought by the Bond Corporation in 1985, and Lion Nathan took full control in 1992. James Squire is younger: it was launched at the Malt Shovel Brewery in Camperdown, Sydney, founded as the Hahn Brewery by Chuck Hahn in 1988, backed by Lion from 1993 and renamed in 1998 after the tavern of the First Fleet convict-brewer James Squire. Boag’s, the Launceston brewery formed as J. Boag & Son in 1883, was bought by San Miguel in 2000 and by Lion Nathan in November 2007.

A beer brand’s identity is carried less by a recipe than by a name, a label and the place it promises — a brewery tower, a home state, a founder’s story — even after the company behind it has changed hands several times. Each guide separates what independent sources record from what the company says about itself: who started it, who owns it now, where it is brewed and how its look has changed.

From Surry Hills to Lidcombe, and from Bond to Kirin.

Tooheys grew by buying rivals. In 1967 it bought Miller’s Brewers at Taverner’s Hill, closing that brewery in 1975, English Wikipedia says, citing The Canberra Times. Brewing moved west from Surry Hills to Lidcombe, on Parramatta Road in western Sydney — in 1955 according to English Wikipedia, citing the company’s website of 2015, and in the early 1970s according to the company’s website today.

In March 1980 Tooheys merged with Brisbane’s XXXX brewer, Castlemaine Perkins, to form Castlemaine Tooheys, which Alan Bond’s Bond Corporation bought in 1985. The merged company gave its name to a constitutional case: in Castlemaine Tooheys Ltd v South Australia, decided in February 1990, the High Court of Australia struck down a South Australian deposit law on non-refillable bottles brewed in other states as inconsistent with section 92 of the Constitution, English Wikipedia says. The New Zealand brewer Lion Nathan took a half share of Bond’s brewing business in 1990 and full ownership in 1992, and in 2009 Japan’s Kirin agreed to buy the rest of Lion Nathan; ABC News named Tooheys among its beers. The group, renamed Lion, has owned Tooheys under Kirin since 2009, and the brewery at Lidcombe also brews Lion’s Hahn beers, whose production moved there from the Hahn brewery at Camperdown some time between 1993 and 1999, English Wikipedia says.

The range today, the company says, is Tooheys New, a lager; Tooheys Extra Dry; Tooheys Old, a dark ale; and Tooheys Ultra Zero Carb, which English Wikipedia says was launched in 2024. Lion also sells 5 Seeds cider, launched in 2009 under the Tooheys name.

For a design guide, Tooheys shows how a family name, a toast and a football jersey can carry a beer across a century and a half. Compare its former merger partner XXXX and its sister Lion brand James Squire. For this guide we use navy, red and gold with a condensed sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

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