Australia: Tasmanian businesswoman to invent paper from beer

A Tasmanian businesswoman who earned world headlines making paper from kangaroo dung has turned her creative attention to beer. Mrs. Joanna Gair, from the Burnie-based Creative Paper Tasmania, in week 49 added Genuine Premium Beer Paper to her list of unusual artistic accomplishments.

The paper made from the same malt husks used in the brewing process is stocked at the Boag's Centre for Beer Lovers in Launceston.

Marketing director Lyndon Adams is claiming a world first. "Creative Paper has applied traditional techniques of hand paper-making to produce what we believe is the first ever beer-based paper," he said.

Mrs Gair, who sent Crown Princess Mary of Denmark a gift of "roo poo" paper during her Australian tour in March, approached Boag's with the idea earlier last month. The result is a high quality paper similar to traditional Italian masters paper, she said.

"You can lick it if you like but it won't get you drunk," she said. Malt husks made a welcome change from the year's earlier excrement endeavours, in which Mrs Gair's Burnie studio was flooded with kangaroo and elephant poo.

Ms Gair started a statewide appeal for roo and wallaby poo in February, then in August took a shipment of elephant poo from Dubbo's Western Plains Zoo in NSW. She has also been making paper from poppy stalks left over from manufacturing processes at Tasmanian Alkaloids.

"We've now made drug paper, booze paper and crap paper," she said. Mrs Gair, who one day hopes to design a roast dinner "in A4 format", gained a reputation as being somewhat of an eccentric in a former life in Scotland.

There, she made paper from thistles, cat fur balls and cigarette butts. "I like to challenge people's perceptions of what paper is all about," she said. "It doesn't have to be something just to write on, it can be fun and exciting and different".

09 December, 2005