Lion is an

alcoholic beverage Drinks containing alcohol (drug), alcohol are typically divided into three classes—beers, wines, and Distilled beverage, spirits—with alcohol content typically between 3% and 50%. Drinks with less than 0.5% are sometimes considered Non-al ...

company that operates in Australia and New Zealand, and a subsidiary of Japanese beverage conglomerate Kirin. It produces and markets a range of

beer Beer is an alcoholic beverage produced by the brewing and fermentation of starches from cereal grain—most commonly malted barley, although wheat, maize (corn), rice, and oats are also used. The grain is mashed to convert starch in the ...

and cider in Australia, and

wine Wine is an alcoholic drink made from Fermentation in winemaking, fermented fruit. Yeast in winemaking, Yeast consumes the sugar in the fruit and converts it to ethanol and carbon dioxide, releasing heat in the process. Wine is most often made f ...

in New Zealand and the United States through Distinguished Vineyards & Wine Partners. It acts as distributors for a range of

spirits Spirit(s) commonly refers to: * Liquor, a distilled alcoholic drink * Spirit (animating force), the non-corporeal essence of living things * Spirit (supernatural entity), an incorporeal or immaterial being Spirit(s) may also refer to: Liquids ...

in New Zealand, but does not own any distilleries outright, although holding a 50% share of Four Pillars Gin in

Victoria Victoria most commonly refers to: * Queen Victoria (1819–1901), Queen of the United Kingdom and Empress of India * Victoria (state), a state of Australia * Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, a provincial capital * Victoria, Seychelles, the capi ...

. Lion was formed in October 2009 under the name Lion Nathan National Foods when Kirin Holdings Company Limited purchased brewer Lion Nathan and merged the business with

National Foods Bega Dairy & Drinks (also known as BDD or BDD Pty Ltd) is a subsidiary of Australian diversified food company the Bega Group, having been purchased from the Japanese company Kirin (who owns Lion in Australia) in November 2020. It was previou ...

, which it had owned since 2007. In 2011, the company changed its name to Lion, one company with three businesses: Lion Beer, Spirits, and Wine Australia; Lion, Beer, Spirits and Wine NZ; with National Foods becoming a

Melbourne Melbourne ( , ; Boonwurrung language, Boonwurrung/ or ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city of the States and territories of Australia, Australian state of Victori ...

-based subsidiary called

Lion Dairy & Drinks Bega Dairy & Drinks (also known as BDD or BDD Pty Ltd) is a subsidiary of Australian diversified food company the Bega Group, having been purchased from the Japanese company Kirin (who owns Lion in Australia) in November 2020. It was previou ...

. Lion Dairy & Drinks was acquired by Bega in November 2020. the Australian arm of the company is registered in

Sydney Sydney is the capital city of the States and territories of Australia, state of New South Wales and the List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city in Australia. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Syd ...

as Lion-Beer Spirits & Wine Pty Ltd, a body corporate with multiple business names registered to it, including the Lion Nathan Australia,

South Australian Brewing Company The South Australian Brewing Company, Limited was a brewery located in Thebarton, South Australia, Thebarton, an inner-west suburb of Adelaide, South Australia. It is a subsidiary of Lion (Australasian company), Lion, which in turn is owned by ...

, James Boag Brewing, Byron Bay Brewery, Hahn Brewing Company, James Squire Brewery, Castlemaine, Little Creatures Brewery, and others. Lion New Zealand is the largest alcoholic beverage company in the country, employing 1000 people. The company markets beers such as

Speight's Speight's is a beer brand and a brewery located in Dunedin, New Zealand. The brand is owned by the Japanese-controlled holding company Lion, itself a subsidiary of Kirin. Speight's is best known for its Gold Medal Ale, one of the best-selling ...

Steinlager Steinlager (sometimes known as Steinlager Classic) is a lager-style beer brewed by Lion in East Tāmaki, a suburb of Auckland, New Zealand. It has won several prizes, notably at beer competitions in the United States, and is New Zealand's bigges ...

, Mac's, Emerson's,

Stella Artois Stella Artois ( , ) is a pilsner beer, first brewed in 1926 by Brouwerij Artois in Leuven, Belgium. In its original form, the beer is 5.2 per cent Alcohol by volume, ABV, the country's standard for pilsners. The beer is sold in many EU countrie ...

and

Corona Corona (from the Latin for 'crown') most commonly refers to: * Stellar corona, the outer atmosphere of the Sun or another star * Corona (beer), a Mexican beer * Corona, informal term for the coronavirus or disease responsible for the COVID-19 ...

, big names in spirits such as

Smirnoff Smirnoff (; ) is a brand of vodka owned and produced by the British company Diageo. The Smirnoff brand began with a vodka distillery founded in Moscow by Pyotr Arsenievich Smirnov (1831–1898), but its modern incarnation traces back to the ...

Baileys Baileys Irish Cream is an Irish cream liqueur made of cream, cocoa and Irish Whiskey emulsified together with vegetable oil. Baileys is made by Diageo at Nangor Road, in Dublin, Ireland and in Mallusk, Northern Ireland. It is the original Ir ...

Bacardi Bacardi Limited ( , , ) is the largest privately held, family-owned spirits company in the world. Originally known for its Bacardí brand of white rum, it now has a portfolio of more than 200 brands and labels. Founded in Cuba in 1862 by Facund ...

, and

Johnnie Walker Johnnie Walker is a brand of Scotch whisky produced by Diageo in Scotland. It was established in the Scottish burgh of Kilmarnock, East Ayrshire in 1820, and continued to be produced and bottled at the town's Hill Street plant, once the world's ...

, and many wines. The company owns a number of breweries and contract bottling plants in Australia and New Zealand. The Thebarton brewery in

Adelaide Adelaide ( , ; ) is the list of Australian capital cities, capital and most populous city of South Australia, as well as the list of cities in Australia by population, fifth-most populous city in Australia. The name "Adelaide" may refer to ei ...

operated by the

is sometimes referred to as the West End Brewery (for other uses of this name, see West End Brewery).

History

Antecedents

The original forerunner of the company was Brown Campbell & Co, the company of Logan Campbell and William Brown who established the Hobson Bridge Brewery in

Auckland Auckland ( ; ) is a large metropolitan city in the North Island of New Zealand. It has an urban population of about It is located in the greater Auckland Region, the area governed by Auckland Council, which includes outlying rural areas and ...

in 1840. By 1897 it was the largest brewery in the North Island if not the country. In May 1897 Brown Campbell & Co amalgamated with Louis Ehrenfried's Albert Brewery, which he had bought in 1878, to form Campbell and Ehrenfried. The new company was managed by Arthur Myers, Ehrenfried's nephew. In 1914 Campbell and Ehrenfried merged with the Great Northern Brewery, which owned the Lion brand. In 1923 ten breweries amalgamated to form New Zealand Breweries. Campbell and Ehrenfried merged its breweries into New Zealand Breweries but remained a separate company. Douglas Myers, grandson of Arthur Myers, became CEO of Campbell and Ehrenfried in 1965. The northern division of New Zealand Breweries adopted the name Lion Breweries in 1977. Campbell and Ehrenfried bought 19.9 per cent of Lion Breweries in 1981. By the late 1980s, New Zealand Breweries had developed into one of New Zealand's largest companies. In 1988 Lion Breweries took over LD Nathan & Co, New Zealand's largest retailer, which at the time owned Woolworths NZ, to form Lion Nathan, listed on both the Australian and New Zealand stock exchanges under the symbol LNN. The same year, Woolworths' general merchandise division was rebranded DEKA, with ownership transferred to the

Farmers Trading Company Farmers Trading Company Ltd (branded as Farmers) is a New Zealand mid-market department store chain. Headquartered in Flat Bush, Auckland, Farmers operates 59 stores across New Zealand, specialising in family fashion, beauty, homewares, furnitu ...

in 1992. In 1990 it became an Australasian business when it established a major presence in Australia by securing management control of

Bond Corporation Alan Bond (22 April 1938 – 5 June 2015) was an English-born Australian businessman noted for his high-profile and often corrupt business dealings. These included his central role in the WA Inc scandals of the 1980s; the biggest corporate co ...

’s brewing assets, including the

Tooheys Brewery Tooheys is a brewery in the suburb of Lidcombe, in Sydney, Australia. It produces beer under the ''Tooheys'' and ''Hahn Brewery'' trademarks, and is part of the Lion (Australasian company), Lion beverages group which was acquired by the Japanese ...

in Sydney and Castlemaine Perkins in Brisbane. In 1998 Douglas Myers sold most of his 16 percent share in Lion Nathan to Kirin Brewery Company of Japan.

Foundation

In 2005, Lion Nathan made a takeover bid for the independent South Australian

Coopers Brewery Coopers Brewery Limited, the largest Australian-owned brewery, is based in the Adelaide suburb of Regency Park, South Australia, Regency Park. Coopers is known for making a variety of beers, the most famous of which are its pale ale and sparkl ...

. The takeover was strongly opposed by Coopers' management, and was rejected at an Extraordinary General Meeting when 93.4% of the shareholders voted in favour of permanently removing the "3rd tier purchasing rights" of Lion Nathan, effectively preventing any current or future takeover bid. In September 2009, shareholders voted in favour of a complete takeover by Kirin Holdings.Lion Nathan shareholders approve Kirin takeover
The Australian, 17 September 2009. Retrieved on 2009-09-17.
Forbes.com, 17 September 2009. Retrieved on 2009-09-17.
Sydney Morning Herald, 17 September 2009. Retrieved on 2009-09-17.
Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 17 September 2009. Retrieved on 2009-09-17. Lion was established in October 2009 under the name Lion Nathan National Foods when Kirin purchased the brewer Lion Nathan and merged the business with

, which it had owned since 2007. The company was 46% owned by Kirin, with the difference made up by Australian and New Zealand share funds.

2010s

In 2011, the company changed its name to Lion, one company with three businesses: Lion Beer, Spirits, and Wine Australia; Lion, Beer, Spirits and Wine NZ; with National Foods becoming a

-based subsidiary called

. Lion Dairy & Drinks was acquired by Bega in November 2020. In June 2013, the company launched the Tap King draught beer product that is sold with a CO₂ gas chamber so that consumers can drink draught beer at home.

Lionel Richie Lionel Brockman Richie Jr. (born June 20, 1949) is an American singer, songwriter, record producer, and television personality. He rose to fame in the 1970s as a songwriter and the co-lead singer of the Motown group Commodores; writing and recor ...

appeared in a television commercial to promote the device and reportedly received A$$1.5 million to appear in the promotional campaign. The introduction of the Tap King caused controversy, due to the perceived impact upon alcohol venues. Concerns were raised in regard to lower patronage rates for venues due to a greater incentive for consumers to drink beer in home environments.

Present

the Australian arm of the company is registered in

as Lion-Beer Spirits & Wine Pty Ltd, a body corporate with multiple business names registered to it, including the Lion Nathan Australia,

, Mac's, Emerson's,

and

, big names in spirits such as

, and

, and many wines.

Breweries and beers

Australia

Castlemaine Tooheys

Located in

Brisbane Brisbane ( ; ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and largest city of the States and territories of Australia, state of Queensland and the list of cities in Australia by population, third-most populous city in Australia, with a ...

Queensland Queensland ( , commonly abbreviated as Qld) is a States and territories of Australia, state in northeastern Australia, and is the second-largest and third-most populous state in Australia. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Austr ...

, Castlemaine Perkins is the brewer of the XXXX brand of beers. In March 1980, Castlemaine Perkins merged with

Tooheys Tooheys is a brewery in the suburb of Lidcombe, in Sydney, Australia. It produces beer under the ''Tooheys'' and ''Hahn Brewery'' trademarks, and is part of the Lion (Australasian company), Lion beverages group which was acquired by the Japanese ...

to form Castlemaine Tooheys.

purchased Castlemaine Tooheys in 1985. Castlemaine Tooheys was acquired in 1992 by

Lion Nathan Lion is an alcoholic beverage company that operates in Australia and New Zealand, and a subsidiary of Japanese beverage conglomerate Kirin Company, Kirin. It produces and markets a range of beer and cider in Australia, and wine in New Zealan ...

SA Brewing Company/West End

Prior to the acquisition of the brewing assets by Lion Nathan in 1993, the

split its brewing assets into "SA Brewing Holdings", and its diversified operations were formed into a new listed company named Southcorp. The SA Brewing Company continued to trade under that name as an Australian private company until 1 May 2019, but from 21 January 2019 was subsumed as a registered business name under Lion-Beer Spirits & Wine Pty Ltd, being a body corporate registered in Sydney. the only beer brewed under the West End brand is West End Draught, a currently a 4.5%

abv Alcohol by volume (abbreviated as alc/vol or ABV) is a common measure of the amount of alcohol contained in a given alcoholic beverage. It is defined as the volume the ethanol in the liquid would take if separated from the rest of the solution, ...

pale lager Pale lager is a pale-to- golden lager beer with a well- attenuated body and a varying degree of noble hop bitterness. In the mid-19th century, Gabriel Sedlmayr took British pale ale brewing and malt making techniques back to the Spaten Bre ...

, first brewed in 1859. (West End Export, West End Gold, and West End Light are no longer produced.) The Thebarton site finally closed on 17 June 2021, with about a third of the workforce, mainly those in sales and sponsorship roles, staying on with the company in South Australia. The company said that West End beer would be produced at its other breweries and that it would maintain the same recipe.

Malt Shovel/James Squire

James Squire beers are mostly produced by the Malt Shovel Brewery in

. The brewery has won various awards including: Champion Australasian Brewery, 2000 and 2003 (Australian International Beer Awards), and Best Bohemian-Style Pilsener, 2008 (World Beer Cup). Since 2017, Malt Shovel also brews the originally New Zealand Panhead range of beers.

Other Australian brands

Other Australian beer breweries and labels owned by Lion are Hahn,

Emu The emu (; ''Dromaius novaehollandiae'') is a species of flightless bird endemism, endemic to Australia, where it is the Tallest extant birds, tallest native bird. It is the only extant taxon, extant member of the genus ''Dromaius'' and the ...

Swan Swans are birds of the genus ''Cygnus'' within the family Anatidae. The swans' closest relatives include the goose, geese and ducks. Swans are grouped with the closely related geese in the subfamily Anserinae where they form the tribe (biology) ...

, James Boag, Little Creatures, Iron Jack (Sydney), Furphy (brewed in

Geelong Geelong ( ) (Wathawurrung language, Wathawurrung: ''Djilang''/''Djalang'') is a port city in Victoria, Australia, located at the eastern end of Corio Bay (the smaller western portion of Port Phillip Bay) and the left bank of Barwon River (Victo ...

), Stone & Wood (brewed in

Byron Bay Byron Bay ( Minjungbal: ''Cavvanbah'') is a beachside town located in the far-northeastern corner of New South Wales, Australia (in Bundjalung Country). It is located north of Sydney and south of Brisbane. Cape Byron, a headland adjac ...

New South Wales New South Wales (commonly abbreviated as NSW) is a States and territories of Australia, state on the Eastern states of Australia, east coast of :Australia. It borders Queensland to the north, Victoria (state), Victoria to the south, and South ...

), White Rabbit, Byron Bay Brewery and Kosciuszko.

New Zealand

Mac's craft beers

Mac's craft beers were produced in New Zealand's first significant

craft brewery Craft beer is beer manufactured by craft breweries, which typically produce smaller amounts of beer than larger "macro" breweries and are often independently owned. Such breweries are generally perceived and marketed as emphasising enthusiasm, ne ...

McCashin's Brewery McCashin's Brewery, also previously known as Mac's Brewery, is a small brewery based in Nelson, New Zealand. It was founded in 1980/81 by one of the pioneers of craft brewing, Terry McCashin, who produced the well-known Mac's beer. Today it ...

, in 1981, by Terry McCashin. Lion acquired the brand in 1999, but the original brewery continues to produce craft beers under a different name (Stoke). A wide range of styles of beers in both bottles and cans continue to be sold under Mac's branding, including Mac's Gold (lager), Black Mac (a dark lager), and Hop Rocker (golden

pilsener Pilsner (also pilsener or simply pils) is a type of pale lager. It takes its name from the Bohemian city of Plzeň (), where the world's first pale lager (now known as Pilsner Urquell) was produced in 1842 by Pilsner Urquell Brewery. Histor ...

). The website continues to list the back catalogue of Mac's beers as well.

Other NZ beers

, Lion owns the

Emerson's Brewery Emerson's Brewery Limited is a microbrewery located in Dunedin, New Zealand established in 1992. Emerson's produces eight year-round beers and three seasonal beers. In November 2012 the brewery was purchased by Australasian company Lion, whic ...

, Lion Red, Lion Brown, Panhead, Little Creatures,

Waikato Draught Waikato Draught is a New Zealand Draught-style Bitter beer brewed by Lion The lion (''Panthera leo'') is a large Felidae, cat of the genus ''Panthera'', native to Sub-Saharan Africa and India. It has a muscular, broad-chested body (b ...

, Black Ice, Rheineck and Lion Ice brands. (Canterbury Draught, first brewed in 1854 as Ward's Beer after the brewer Hamilton Ward and rebranded as Canterbury Draught in 1990, was associated with the Canterbury Cricket Association through sponsorship by Lion. However, the Christchurch earthquakes in 2011 put the brewery out of business.)

International brands

The following beer brands are brewed and/or marketed in Australia by Lion: *

(March 2012 to present) *

Budweiser Budweiser () is an American-style pale lager, a brand of Belgian company AB InBev. Introduced in 1876 by Carl Conrad & Co. of St. Louis, Missouri, Budweiser has become a large selling beer company in the United States. Budweiser is a filte ...

(December 2009 to present) *

* Beck's *

Guinness Guinness () is a stout that originated in the brewery of Arthur Guinness at Guinness Brewery, St. James's Gate, Dublin, Ireland, in the 18th century. It is now owned by the British-based Multinational corporation, multinational alcoholic bever ...

(Draught and Extra Stout brewed in Australia) *

Kilkenny Kilkenny ( , meaning 'church of Cainnech of Aghaboe, Cainnech'). is a city in County Kilkenny, Republic of Ireland, Ireland. It is located in the South-East Region, Ireland, South-East Region and in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinst ...

(Draught brewed in Australia) * Kirin Ichiban and Kirin Megumi * Pacifico (brewed "mainly" in Mexico) *

Belle-Vue Kriek Belle-Vue Brewery is a brewery founded in 1913 in Molenbeek-Saint-Jean, Molenbeek, Brussels by Philémon Vandenstock from nearby Itterbeek, which lies in a region known for its lambic type of beer. A variety of Belle-Vue lambic and fruit beers a ...

Hoegaarden Hoegaarden () is a Municipalities of Belgium, municipality in the province of Flemish Brabant, in Flanders, one of the three Communities, regions and language areas of Belgium, regions of Belgium. The municipality comprises the villages of Hoegaar ...

Leffe Leffe (; ) is a beer brand owned by InBev Belgium, the European operating arm of the global Anheuser–Busch InBev brewery giant. There are several beers in the range, and they are marketed as abbey beers. They are brewed in large quantitie ...

* Negra Modelo *

Boddington's Boddingtons Brewery was a regional brewery in Manchester, England, which owned pubs throughout the North West. Boddingtons was best known for Boddingtons Bitter (Boddies), a straw-golden, hoppy bitter which was one of the first beers to be ...

* Oranjeboom

Ciders

Lion owns 5 Seeds,

James Squire James Squire, alternatively known as James Squires, (bapt. 18 December 1754 – 16 May 1822) was a First Fleet convict transported to Australia. Squire is credited with the first successful cultivation of hops in Australia around the start of t ...

, Kirin, and Pipsqueak ( Little Creatures) ciders.

Wines

Lion does not have interests in any Australian wine brands. In 2001 the Lion Nathan Wine group purchased a controlling interest in Australian

companies Petaluma and Banksia, adding New Zealand wine company Wither Hills in 2002. In 2005, Fine Wine Partners (FWP) was established as a joint venture between distributors Distinguished Vineyards and Tucker Seabrook, Robert Hirst's company. Lion bought out Tucker Seabrook in 2008, becoming sole owner of the company. FWP included the brands Petaluma, Croser, St Hallett, Knappstein, Stonier and Tatachilla, four wineries, and a large distribution network. In 2016,

Accolade Wines Accolade Wines is an international wine business with its headquarters in South Australia and corporate offices in Melbourne. It has been owned by the Carlyle Group, an American private equity company, from 2018 until 2025 when the business merg ...

acquired FWP, with Lion concentrating its core business of beer and cider in Australia, but continuing to hold wine businesses in New Zealand and the United States. Distinguished Vineyards & Wine Partners was founded in 2008, and owns a number of wineries and brands in the US (including Markham Vineyards and Textbook Wines in the

Napa Valley Napa Valley is an American Viticultural Area (AVA) in Napa County, California. The area was established by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) on February 27, 1981, after a 1978 petition submitted by the Napa Valley Vin ...

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

) as well as in New Zealand (such as Wither Hills, Mt Difficulty, The Ned and Lindauer).

Spirits

In 2006, Lion bought ready-to-drink McKenna Bourbon from its parent company, Kirin. In 2007 it bought Inner Circle Rum, which included a

distillery Distillation, also classical distillation, is the process of separating the component substances of a liquid mixture of two or more chemically discrete substances; the separation process is realized by way of the selective boiling of the mixt ...

Beenleigh Beenleigh is a town and suburb in the City of Logan, Queensland, Australia. In the , the suburb of Beenleigh had a population of 8,425 people. A government survey for the new town was conducted in 1866. The town is the terminus for the Beenle ...

. While retaining ownership of the two brands, in a 2008 joint venture with Bacardi-Martini, Lion Bacardi would be marketing the two brands. In 2020 McKenna Bourbon is owned by

Heaven Hill Heaven Hill Distilleries, Inc. is a private family-owned and -operated American distillery, founded in 1935 and headquartered in Bardstown, Kentucky, that produces and markets the Heaven Hill brand of Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey and a vari ...

distillers in the US. The only mention of this and a wide range of other spirits on the website is with regard to their distribution in New Zealand by Lion. In March 2019, Lion acquired a 50% stake in Victorian small distillery Four Pillars Gin. and in July 2023 it acquired the remaining 50% stake it previously didn’t own for a rumored $50M AUD, becoming the outright owner of the Healesville-based distillery. In November 2020 Four Pillars were awarded as the World's best Gin producer for the second year running at the

International Wine and Spirit Competition The International Wine & Spirit Competition is an annual wine and spirit competition founded in 1969 by the German/British oenologist Anton Massel. Each year the competition receives entries from over 90 List of wine producing countries, countrie ...

References

External links

Lion International WebsiteJames Squire Website
Kirin Group Breweries in Australia 1923 establishments in Australia Food and drink companies established in 1923 Manufacturing companies based in Sydney Australian subsidiaries of foreign companies 2009 mergers and acquisitions