MYLOGO

In 1914, Grant Hay traveled to America by steamship to San Francisco on board the USS American, meeting Tooheys Brewery manager Arnold Resch. The two agreed to inspect the major American breweries of Milwaukee, including the Valentin Blatz Brewing Company, Joseph Schlitz Brewing Company, and the Miller Brewing Company and Anheuser-Busch brewing company in St Louis. He then sailed to London to inspect the Courage Brewery plant and its Hotels; and flew to Zurich and met with Dr Leopold Nathan, a Swiss chemist, who had invented a new brewing system. He then drove to Munich and attended Oktoberfest in the company of the Reinheitsgebot before the outbreak of war and returned to Australia.

 

At age 40, in 1918, Grant Hay married Margaret Glover, cousin of Australian landscape artist John Glover. The family owned 'Kilby Park' is a one hundred acre dairy farm and thoroughbred racehorse stud at Kew, Victoria. By age fifty, Grant Hay was already one of Victoria's wealthiest hop merchants when the Victorian beer wars began in 1925. Carlton & United Breweries had grown into Australia's largest brewer and began to use monopolistic practices of lowering the cost of supply to hop growers, including Grant Hay's 'Kentdale' hops from the Derwent Valley.

 

On April 4, 1927 Grant Hay wired a cable to Dr Leopold Nathan in Zurich, Switzerland for the order of the first Swiss Nathan Brewing System to be shipped to Melbourne and to be accompanied by Master Swiss Brewer, Heinrich Walter Haenggi of Zurich. Grant Hay proceeded to buy up five industrial sites adjoining his Church Street property. He then ordered a consignment of three thousand units of Purified gin to be shipped from British Army headquarters in Lahore and resold the rebottled gin to American bootleggers in prohibition controlled Chicago, netting Coulson Hay & Co. a million pounds. The brewery was cleared for construction on August 13, 1927.

During World War II, Grant Hay negotiated the supply of Richmond Beer to Australian troops in North Africa and American troops stationed at Sandown Racecourse, 

By Easter of 1928, the construction of the Richmond Brewery was completed. The brewery began its first run of Richmond Lager and Bitter Beer on April 24, 1928 with 1056 bottles of output per week which continued to grow to 2400 per week by 1929. He then followed Courage Brewery's example by purchasing his own pubs and hotel outlets across Australia, exclusively serving Richmond beer. 

The Richmond Brewery was a remarkable success: by 1940 shipments of Richmond Lager were eagerly consumed in Melbourne, Perth, Sydney, Brisbane and Adelaide. Exports to India and Brazil soon followed, with the bottle labels Richmond Pilsener, Lager Bitter and Stout all sporting the illustrated Tiger's head logo, designed by Mrs. Grant Hay.

The Richmond Brewery Company's headquarters were located at 654 Church Street, Richmond and had offices at 26 Hunter Street and Sussex Street, Sydney, 86 King Street, Perth and 5 Cliff Street, Freemantle. There were one hundred and thirty five full time staff and the company owned and operated twenty-eight hotels and pubs across Australia.

He resigned from the ministry in April 1891 and remained a private member until he lost his seat at the next election. He argued persistently for the duty-free import of goods which could not be produced locally. 

In June 1904 he was returned to the Legislative Council as member for North Melbourne. His parliamentary energies were concentrated on the improvement of education, public health and military training; he denounced dependence on London's money lending market, and politically-motivated railway development, and French imperialism in the New Hebrides; he opposed plural voting, property qualification and income tax. He resigned in May 1907.

He has more than ten years experience instructing and briefing senior legal counsel in Victoria, including Robert Richter QC, Michael Wright QC, Stuart Morris QC and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Victoria and Lieutenant-Governor of Victoria, Marilyn Warren AC, QC. Grant Hay is the great-grandson of the former late Australian Federation politician and Munro Government Cabinet Minister, Francis Stuart MLA, MLC. He is a political supporter of the Australian Republican Movement (ARM), acting Chair of The New Republicans and 'Renew Australia' Charter for a third major political party in Australia, drafted by the former late Prime Minister of Australia, Malcolm Fraser AC, CH, GCL.

Grant Hay owns the rights to a number of original works through his Melbourne TV production company. He is an advocate of Australian screen diversity and equality for women in film and board member of Studio Australia, a public-private partnership venture in Ballina, New South Wales.