A former James Boag electrician has forked out $1,300 for a carton of beer he will never drink, snapping up the last carton of Boag’s XXX Ale (Red) brewed in Tasmania.
Sam Cox, who worked at the Launceston brewery for 14 years, bought the final carton and can of locally brewed Boag’s Red at a Boag’s Alumni Day, outbidding the band performing at the event.
“When I heard that they were going to put their whole set’s worth of money on the carton, I walked up to them and I said: ‘Going to have to have deep pockets, boys,'” he told ABC Northern Tasmania.
Cox said a carton usually cost about $75 at the bottle shop.
“I’ve always been a fairly strong believer in Boag’s Red, love the brand, great drop,” he said.
“Being the last carton, I had to have it.”
The case has “last Tassie carton” printed on its side and comes with a certificate of authenticity.
Cox has no plans to drink the beer, instead intending to display it in his lounge room.
He believes the carton has already increased in value but said it meant more to him than money.
“I won’t be getting rid of it,” he said.
“It would have to be a ridiculous amount of money … it’d have to be over $10,000.”
Parent company Lion moved production of James Boag to the mainland in 2024, but beer for the Tasmanian market continued to be brewed in Launceston.
In June, Lion announced the brewery would close, citing a long-term decline in Australia’s beer market that had left the site running at around one-fifth of its capacity and made operations unviable.
The brewery bottled its final beers last month and shut this month.
Cox also marked the occasion with a new tattoo featuring the James Boag logo against a Cradle Mountain backdrop, the brewery’s years of operation and a tribute to “the final 44” workers.
“We’re like a little family,” he said.
