‘‘Thomas Palmer finished his sentence in Australia, and went into the shipbuilding trade while he was serving it. He and his close friend John Boston … had little experience of business, but they possessed a singular advantage: the only encyclopaedia in the colony. With it they taught themselves to make beer.’’

The Fatal Shore
Robert Hughes
(John Boston is one of the two convict brewers who today have beers named after them. The other is James Squire, who doesn’t seem to rate a mention in The Fatal Shore.)