Look at a pristine mountain stream and what do you see? Unspoilt nature; a place for quiet reflection; a spot for a picnic? Yes, but what about beer …

Hobart's Cascade Brewery is just south of the city, tucked in under the towering east face of Mount Wellington. Rivulets cascading down precipitous slopes sporadically part the forested mountain. Much of Tasmania's rain has its origins in Antarctica and it is claimed that even today the water from these streams is fit for drinking.

Peter Degraves, an Englishman, built the Cascade Brewery on part of an extensive land grant that rose toward the lower reaches of the mountain. In 1831, Degraves had not long been released from jail and during his five-year stint the man had plenty of time to deduce that the alcohol available in the fledgling colony was shite.

Degraves, who retained ownership of a company operating a sawmill on the land, took advantage of the stream grooving through his grant (beer is 80 percent water) and expanded into brewing within a year of his release. Free convict labour was quite an asset for entrepreneurs and clearly an aid to industrial expediency. On the mainland it didn't take long for his beer, brewed from cool mountain water, to be considered a quality brew. Sales were brisk.

The Cascade Brewery Company claims to be the oldest brewery operating in Australia and the nation's oldest manufacturing enterprise. Two different years are commemorated on the main building's stately facade: 1824 (when the site operated solely as a sawmill) and 1927. The brewery has a flourmill design and the numbers mark the years the two stages of the building were completed. The workers refer to the grand building as "the castle". It is one of the most recognisable in Hobart.

In June 2007, Cascade celebrated its 175th anniversary. Four thousand people attended the open day, but in case you didn't make it, there are daily two-hour tours. The tour begins in a modern, light-filled restaurant that merges seamlessly into a bar (more about that later). Beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows is a carefully tended garden that is popular with brides.

In the next 1.5 hours we will be taken through much of the brewing process, from the barley to malting and brewing to bottling, by our wonderfully cheerful guide, Nick James. Cascade produces about six million litres of beer a year or about 15 percent of the Australian market. It is the only brewery that has a malting process on site. Seventy percent of the hops grown in Australia come from just down the road in Bushy Park.

You can learn a lot about beer here, including the arresting snippet that making good beer is a more complex process than wine making. Nick also teaches us that if you are going to plunge into home brew, don't mess around with bottles. Beer tastes much better from a keg. But if you insist on drinking from a bottle, Nick says it will, like wine, taste much better if poured into a glass first.

We are also told not to mention the 'B' word. Tasmania once had a great divide: a division of considerable enmity that split that state into north and south. Southerners only drank Cascade while northerners considered Boags, brewed in Launceston, their beer of choice.

Yet even Boags aficionados might be hard pressed not to partake in the free beer that is an essential part of this tour. Those beautifully twinned words have been a significant part of life at Cascade. Once the workers had 10-minute breaks at 10am/12pm/2pm/4pm when they were allowed to swill as much beer as they could. During the Depression of the 1930s, the head brewer granted free beer to the unemployed. Men would queue each afternoon and were allowed just one fill of their glass. According to Nick, one fella lined up with a jam jar that held the equivalent of seven litres: you can only hope he was hired for his ingenuity.

The tour ends in the bar. Industrial-size pipes rise up through the floor and it looks for all the world like the beer is being pumped straight out of the brewery, but it's part of an appealing show: there are kegs underneath rather than great vats of beer. There is also a stuffed thylacine. While it looks disturbingly real, it was made for a beer commercial.

At the start of the tour we have been given tokens for three drinks. For those of you thinking about employing some of the ingenuity of the fella who turned up with his seven-litre jam jar, you are going to be a little disappointed, for drinks are served in 7oz glasses. But if you take the morning tour, you can shuffle off to the restaurant for lunch, where hearty meals are matched to the extensive variety of Cascade brews.

Details:
Cascade Brewery has two tours daily. Adults $18. Children $7 (children under five are unable to attend due to safety reasons). Bookings are essential. See their website details: www.cascadebrewery.com.au

For more information on Tasmania: www.discovertasmania.com

The proof of a quality pale ale is of course in the tasting! All kinds of wine and beer tours and tastings can be booked around the country, using Ninemsn's activities pages.

YOUR SAY: Have you ever gone on a beer making tour or course? What did you think of it, and what great tips did you learn? Tell us below!