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Chambers & Blades | |
Dragon Brewery
Chambers & Blades
Chambers & Blades
Morphett Street Brewery (Chambers & Blades)
Morphett Street, Adelaide
Charles Chambers & Frederick Blades
1870 to 1871
1871 to 1901
Dragon Brewery (Chambers & Blades)
South Terrace, Adelaide
Charles Chambers & Frederick Blades
1871 to 1887
William Chambers & Frederick Blades
1887 to 1895
William Chambers & Frederick Blades Jr
1895 to 1901
Address
South Terrace, AdelaidePhotos
Ephemera
Timeline
| After the closure of the Morphett Street Brewery in 1870, its brewing plant and equipment were purchased by Charles Chambers and Frederick Blades. The machinery was relocated to South Terrace, where a new brewery was established. This new enterprise was named the Dragon Brewery, situated near the Green Dragon Hotel, a connection that led locals to often refer to it informally as the Green Dragon Brewery. The Dragon Brewery quickly became part of Adelaide’s growing brewing scene during the 1870s, producing a range of traditional English-style ales and stouts that were distributed throughout the colony. The brewery’s location near the city and its association with a well-known public house made it a familiar name to local drinkers. When Charles Chambers passed away in 1887, his brother William Chambers stepped in to help manage the business alongside Blades. Under their partnership, the brewery continued to prosper. In an era before large-scale breweries invested in bottling plants, most beer was sold in wooden casks for hotel sale. To reach a wider audience, the partners contracted Mr. Castle of Morphett Street to bottle Dragon Brewery’s ales and stouts for retail sale. Bottled Dragon Beer began to appear in bottle shops and hotels across the state, helping to extend the brewery’s reach beyond the immediate Adelaide area. However, like many independent breweries of the period, the Dragon Brewery faced financial difficulties during the 1890s economic depression. The company was declared insolvent in 1893, but an arrangement was made with creditors that allowed brewing to continue. The founders’ persistence helped the business survive, at least temporarily. When Frederick Blades died in 1895, his son, Frederick Blades Jr., took over his father’s role as partner and brewer, continuing operations alongside William Chambers. By the close of the nineteenth century, the landscape of South Australian brewing was changing rapidly. The introduction of stricter government regulations, coupled with the rising popularity of lager-style beers, favoured by the state’s growing European population, placed increasing pressure on smaller, traditional ale breweries. Many were absorbed by the state’s two major brewing powers: the South Australian Brewing Company and the Walkerville Co-operative Brewing Company. Others simply closed their doors, unable to compete with the scale and efficiency of their larger rivals. The Dragon Brewery was among the casualties of this consolidation. It ceased production in 1901, marking the end of over thirty years of brewing on South Terrace. Its equipment was purchased by the Walkerville Co-operative Brewing Company, which continued to modernise its facilities in response to growing demand. In a final link to the old enterprise, Frederick Blades Jr. was employed by Walkerville as a brewer, carrying with him the legacy and knowledge of one of Adelaide’s last truly independent nineteenth-century breweries. 
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