The first stop in our Tasmanian tour was the Cascade Brewery in South Hobart. Neither of us drinks much, or in my case not at all. Still, we weren't here for the brewery; we were here because it was opposite the starting point of a tour that we took, and because it has a very decent cafe looking out over a very attractive garden.

The brewery is the oldest continuously operating one in Australia, though despite the date shown on this building the actual date of establishment was closer to 1831 or 1832. Prior to that the founders of the brewery had been operating a sawmill on the site which did indeed date back to about 1824.

I'd love to say that the brewery is still in Australian hands but that has not been the case for quite some time. It was bought by the Foster's Group (which used to be an Australian company) which was bought by the British/South African multinational SAB Miller, which was in turn bought by Belgian based (or New York-based, depending on how you want to look at it) Anheuser-Busch InBev.

Such is the way of the world. Too many people fail to realise that if you want to maintain a high standard of living you need to own the businesses that provide that standard of living. The Chinese understand this very well. Many Australians and Americans are too busy selling their shareholdings so that they can take a meagre profit and buy a flat screen TV to fully appreciate the concept. 30 to 50 years from now, I assure you they will, or certainly their children will be the beneficiaries of those choices.

So when you next sample Cascade brew, be sure to raise your glass in the direction of Belgium, not Tasmania.