Airdate: Your Shout: The History of Australian Beer

A whole show about beer. That’s what The History Channel is promising later this month, with a two part documentary, hosted by Mike Gibson.

Your Shout: The History of Australian Beer, produced by Graham McNeice Productions, will offer “a definitive and very entertaining history of beer in Australia.”

BYO stubbie, I presume.

More than any other ritual in the past 200 years, two people sharing a beer has defined the Australian character. It has brought us together in pubs and at sporting events, quenched our thirst, encouraged friendships and is a great reward after a hard day’s work.

Your Shout profiles the leading Australian brewers who went on to become household names: Thomas Cooper, the Foster brothers, the Tooth Family, Edmund Resch, James Squire and John Thomas Toohey.

The two-part series traces the development of Australia’s most familiar beer brands, including Fosters, XXXX, Coopers, VB, West End and Swan and examines how regional variations in beers developed around the nation.

Your Shout also tells some of Australia’s most colourful stories and yarns about the men and women who have served beer in Australia’s public houses in both the cities and in the outback – and takes a look at some of our best-known beer-drinking rituals, including the age-old tradition of the ‘shout’.

As far back as Captain James Cook’s first charting of the East Coast of Australia, beer has played a central role in Australia’s history, with Cook actually brewing beer on his voyage in 1770 to sterilize the ship’s fetid drinking water. And while home brewing was the norm for many early settlers, the brewing of beer soon became one of Australia’s major industries and established some of the nation’s great family fortunes.

Featuring interviews with historians as well as footage from some of this country’s best-known beer advertising campaigns, from early pub art through to the more recent high-end television commercials, Your Shout is the definitive look at our beloved amber nectar.

Two-part series premieres September 21 and 28 at 7.30pm AEST

Hic.