West End Brewery's end in Adelaide city, from 1859 with 1980s moves to Thebarton by South Australian Brewing Co.
The West End Brewery presence from 1859 in Hindley Street, Adelaide city, ended in the early 1980s with the move to its Southwark Brewery at Thebarton, rebadged as West End Brewery. In 1984, South Australian Brewing Co.sold its headquarters/administration building (bottom left) to the Australian Institute of Management South Australia.
South Australian Brewing Company’s West End Brewery ended its era from 1859 in the Adelaide city’s west end in Hindley Street in 1980.
From its 1938 takeover of Walkerville Cooperative Brewing Company and its brewery at Thebarton (Southwark), South Australian Brewing operated from two independent brewery sites: West End in Hindley Street and the Walkerville Brewery, renamed Nathan Brewery after its Nathan brewing system plant.
Roland Jacobs followed his father Sam in joining the South Australian Brewing board in 1948. Two months later he was named managing director and in 1951 chairman. His strong leadership took the company beyond the difficult Depression and World War II years. In 1950, Jacobs selected a competent general manager in C. R. Aitken, allowing Jacobs more time to promote the company and brewing industry. Jacobs stepped down as managing director in 1961 but was chairman until 1965.
In 1949, South Australian Brewing administration was centralised in Hindley Street and the brewery at Thebarton was renamed Southwark Brewery. Walkerville's Nathan Bitter became Southwark Bitter.
From 1955, West End Brewery in Hindley Street made only draught beer in kegs while bottled beer only was produced at the Thebarton plant. In this decade, the company also sold its older less-profitable hotel and built modern ones in expanding suburbs. The brewery’s link to hotels would be changed with Gough Whitlam’s federal Labor government changes to the Trade Practices Act in 1974 ending the practice of tied houses: hotels that could only sell a particular brewery’s product.
In the early 1970s, South Australian Brewing decided to transfer all operations to Thebarton plant that had a major expansion and improvement. During the 1960s, Thebarton had gained a new brewhouse, two new automatic boilers, a filter room and the first outdoor vertical stainless steel storage tanks, each with 80,000 gallon capacity. In 1972-73, plans were finalised for a new bottling line and the new building and plant was opened in 1975.
Anticipating the closure of West End, the land next to the Thebarton plant (south of Winwood Street) was bought in 1971-72 to enable expansion.
South Australian Brewing’s West End Brewery came to an end in 1980 when, with traffic problems on Hindley Street, an ageing and inefficient plant and rising city land values, it was decided all production would be done at Thebarton. Operations moved to the Southwark Brewery in Thebarton, rebadged West End, and the old Hindley Street building was demolished in 1983.