Lion Brewing and Malting Company

Lion Brewing and Malting Company of Jerningham Street, Lower North Adelaide was one of the many breweries which proliferated in Australia in the nineteenth-century. In those days beer was much cheaper than now; the wholesale price was 1/ a gallon, but transport was expensive, and small breweries were to be found all over the country. Most of these have now disappeared, having either closed down or become merged in larger businesses. Lion Brewing and Malting eventually confined itself to malting barley and manufacture of aerated waters and cordials.

The company was floated in 1888 in order to secure the brewing, hotel and property assets of Beaglehole and Johnston, issuing 75,000 shares of £1 each. The company owned many hotels in South Australia including the Cross Keys Hotel at Dry Creek (and subdivided around 20 acres adjacent in 1912), the Flagstaff Hotel, Darlington, the Oriental Hotel in Osmond Terrace, Norwood and the Bath Hotel at 91 King William Street in the city. Later in the 20th century it became a shareholder in another major hotel owner, Knapman and Sons, and bought out that company in 1973.

Andrew Galbraith Johnston (1827 – 18 December 1886), James Johnston (1818 – 12 April 1891) and three other brothers, all of Campbeltown, Scotland, arrived in South Australia on the Buckinghamshire early in 1839 with their father, who soon built one of South Australia's first malthouses and founded the town of Oakbank. He served a ten-year apprenticeship as a draper, then opened a shop in Reedy Creek which he left for the goldfields. He was quite successful and with his brother James, after a brief stint as a miller in Bridgewater, joined his father's brewing business and together built it into a highly profitable business.

Robert Cock, a "first settler" who accompanied Governor Hindmarsh on HMS Buffalo, and for whom Cox's Creek was named, has been reported as founder of the malting business. and had a substantial farm in the area.

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