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The former Swan Brewery is not only one of the finest groups of brewery buildings in Australia, it is also a site which caused controversy over whether European or Aboriginal heritage was more important at the location. It is a reminder both of our colonial heritage and the impact of that colonisation on the traditional owners of the land.

The first buildings at the Old Swan Brewery site were erected in 1838 as mills for timber-cutting and flour-grinding. The first steam-driven mills in Western Australia, they were later taken over as a convict depot after 1850. The buildings were subsequently used as a tannery, and at one time contained a restaurant used by travellers between Perth and Fremantle. It was this site that in 1877 was acquired by the Swan Brewery Company. The brewery buildings constructed from 1879 on the Swan River foreshore beneath Mount Eliza became one of Perth’s dominant landmarks.

The brewery ceased production at the Mounts Bay site in 1966 moved all brewing operations to the Emu Brewery site in Spring Street, and then, in 1978, to Canning Vale. In 1989, the West Australian government leased the site to building company Multiplex so it could be redeveloped as a commercial precinct. The Noongar community expressed the site’s ancient and sacred Aboriginal heritage, and established a protest camp on the site. Ultimately, their claims were turned down.

The renovated 1879 building now contains a restaurant and function centre which re-opened in 2001. 

The site also has a microbrewery which produces malt ales and lagers Bistro Riverside Micro Brewery steakhouse