VB which is probably Australia’s most iconic beer’s has brought back a bit of its rich past with the launch of a special edition 1958 style can. Now the can design and 1958 were significant as it was the first time a can was used to hold beer. Sure it wasn’t the smooth thin aluminium we know today it was a fairly crude steel can where the drinker had to puncture the can before being able to taste the refreshing taste. Now for can collectors you need to keep your eyes out, as this isn’t the last of VB’s heritage cans, over the next 12 months Carlton and United plan to bring out a few more commemorative cans to celebrate the beer can.  For those wondering, the beer in the can is the current 2011 VB as fresh and as crisp as ever.  Look out for it in your local bottle shop and keep a couple as reminders of the simpler times.

Hahn Super Dry has a incredible new ad. Its been dubbed, by Hahn, “the most epic beer comercial ever”.  Well to say the least this ad has to be right up there with the best. It show an interesting production line including even a ferret checking the beers coming out of the production line- now that is hard to top!   The ad has been pretty successful for the huge Lion Nathan brewer with it uploaded to just about everywhere  it has had over a million visitors to You Tube alone in only a week.

Shipstone’s Crew Fine Amber Ale is another one of Aldi Supermarkets great beer lines and is sold in 330ml bottles either in 6 packs or slabs of 24. This 5.0 alc/vol ale is very nutty and somewhat fruity and has great taste with some real delecate flavors and great value at a fraction of the cost of a similar beer with a known name.  The beer is brewed using  super alpha hops which leaves the beer with a nice bitterness complementing the fruit and malt. The beer we get in Australia Aldi Supermarkets is sourced from New Zealand, and i’m not sure if a similar product is sold in Aldi stores around the world- we would love to hear from you if you know.

Brewed in South Australia by Coopers the Coopers Premium Light is a all malt light beer which has a very refreshing crisp taste and is one of the best light beers on the Australia market at the moment. Unlike the US beer market where light refers to the low carb qualities of the beer, in Australia light refers to a lower level of Alcohol, in this case the beer is 2.9%  instead of the usual 4-5% in average normal strenght beers.  The beer is available in can, bottle and in draft form although not readily available. Coopers have made great inroads with their Sparkling and Pale Ale into pubs around Australia and with a few more people catching onto the Premium Light as a genuine competitor (and in my eyes winner) to the Cascade Premium and Hahn Light and Boags Light. With its great malty taste ans crispness I’m sure we are going to see a lot more of it.  If you have tried the Coopers Premium Light we would love to hear from you on your thoughts!

We came across this unique label from a beer that was brewed in the late 196o’s and early 70′s Australia’s Carlton and United breweries. The Carlton Pilsener was brewed at the CUB in Melbourne Australia and was marketed as a lighter style of beer “Light in Colour and Light In taste, A bubbling aide to light conversation”. The beer was sold in steel cans and a 26lf bottle, as trends changed and newer recipes came onto the market the Pilseber was pulled from market during the mid 1970′s who knows- it might pop it’s head back one day as one of the breweries special runs. Over the past few years they have brought back a few of the favorite old names for a short while like Abbots and Richmond Lager a few months back.

Since 2008 Fosters has been releasing a special limited edition version of their Crown Lager. Known as Crown Lager Ambassador Reserve, the pricey beer comes in a special box with each hand crafted bottle numbered in a similar way to some of the more collectible wines are sold. 5000 bottles were made in 2008 and 6000 of the 2009 vintage beer have been released today. The very first bottle of the 2008 vintage was given to the Queen as a present on the anniversary of her coronation, so if you don’t want to pony up the coin for a bottle you may need to pop past her place and ask nicely for a taste. The 2008 Vintage sold for around 60 bux a bottle, it may seam a bit rich for a 750ml bottle of beer but we have noticed a bottle of the 2008 stuff on eBay already up to 100 dollars, so it may be a good investment. Check out the Crown Lager site below for the full story on how this beer is put together.

http://www.crownbeverages.com.au/

Back in May nearly 2000 people including some of Australia’s best known celebrities turned up in the streets of the historic gold town of Ballarat in Victoria to star in what is probably Australia’s biggest ever beer commercial. The shoot took two day and took over Lydiard and Sturt Street in Ballarat’s centre. The ad featured a parade with plenty of Australianisms, brass bands, cricketers, rugby and footy stars even a streaker all for one of Australia’s most popular beers VB. VB or Victoria Bitter is brewed by the huge Fosters Group and is Australia’s biggest selling beer and found on tap in most pubs around Australia. In recent years Australian’s started trying some of the more boutique beers and many imported brands, but VB has remained strong. A short while back the brand was grown to include a lower alcohol version called VB Gold and there are stories doing the rounds of a new low carb version not far away. The new VB commercial has just hit the Australian airwaves- take a look at our YouTube version and be on the lookout for someone famous.

Virgin Blonde Beer was introduced onto the Australian market a few months ago and is the first of what is hoped to be a range of beers by …… using organic products with no nasty chemicals or synthetic products. This tasty blonde dosen even have extra sugar added to the brew it uses just barley, yeast, New Zealand grown hops and water- Nothing else.  Brewed by the Steel River Brewery in Mayfield, New South Wales, which is near Newcastle north of Sydney. This beer contains 4.0% alcohol volume and is very refreshing and lets not forget dosent’ contain any of those nasties so many other beers contain with all the big words like Polyvinylpolypyrrolidinone or Rhoiso-alpha acids or Di-Ammonium Phosphate – their names alone are bad for you.

Recently Australia’s Carlton & United released a limited run of 5000 slabs of Richmond Lager. The lager is one of the heritage brands they are bringing back in limited editions.  The beer has a 4.5% alcohol volume and has a good hoppy flavor with a slight bitterness similar to VB one of the breweries more popular brands.  The original Richmond Lager was produced by the Richmond NS Brewing Company which dissapeard in 1962 to become part of the CUB group of companies after the death of Grant Hay who owned the brewery and about a 6% share of the Victorian beer market.  The original brewery was located in Church Street Richmond one of the inner suburbs of Melbourne. Reports show that when the brewery was closed down by CUB in April of 62 the workers were treated to half an hour’s free beer at the brewery owned Prince Alfred Hotel in Church Street as a parting gift- barely enough to drown their sorrows.  Richmond NS Brewing was known for using only natural ingredients with no flavoring or perservatives. – Do some hunting and look for a the Richmond Tiger next time you are at the bottleshop- before it becomes extinct again.

This is one of the best beer ads we have seen for a while. Its advertising the beautiful Boags Draught from Tasmania Australia. Tasmania has some of the most pristine waters and wilderness in the world, im not sure this hole is one of them though, and im pretty sure its not the one they use to make their beautiful crystal clear beers, we believe it was shot near Norfolk to the west of Devonport.  Sit back and enjoy, the soundtrack is pretty cool to it is sung by a guy called Elliot Wheeler. Look out for the giant teddy bear on the car roof.

The Japanese Stag

In Australia if your beer is not made by the Fosters Group it is probably made by Lion Nathan (see full product list below), Together they control over 90% of Australian beer market either via their own Australian brands or imports they either distribute or brew under licence. The Australian Beer industry grew out of several regional breweries that still hold a bit of dominance in their respective states today. In New South they love Tooheys or Hahn, XXXX in Queensland, Swan or Emu in WA, Boags in the top of Tasmania and West End or Southwark in South Australia. Victoria has always had a love of Fosters owned Carlton or VB despite a push by Lion Nathan to penetrate the Victorian market like Fosters did with VB and Carlton across Australia in the 1990′s. Currently Lion Nathan is 46% owned by Japanese brewer Kirin and according to this News.com.au report that may soon change as Kirin has launched a takeover bid of the company putting many of the brand names of Australia’s beer industry under Japanese control. According to the article, some of Australia’s beer drinkers have vowed to switch to switch to Carlton if sale goes ahead (nobody tell them Fosters is 19% owned by Asahi). We recon if the sale forces a beer to come out of Lion Nathan’s factory that tastes like Kirin we would be happy to see the sale go ahead.

http://www.news.com.au/business/story/0,27753,25378814-462,00.html

Major Australian beer brands owned by Lion Nathan

Tooheys

* Tooheys New
* Tooheys New White Stag
* Tooheys Extra Dry
* Tooheys Extra Dry Platinum
* Tooheys Old
* Tooheys Red
* Tooheys Gold
* Tooheys Blue
* Tooheys Pils
* Tooheys Maxim
* Tooheys Blue Ice

XXXX

* XXXX Gold
* XXXX Bitter
* XXXX Special Brew
* XXXX Light
* XXXX Draught

Hahn

* Hahn Super Dry
* Hahn Premium Light
* Hahn Premium
* Hahn Pale Ale
* Hahn Ice

James Squire

* James Squire Amber Ale
* James Squire Golden Ale
* James Squire India Pale Ale
* James Squire Pilsener
* James Squire Porter
* James Squire Craft Beers

J. Boag & Son

* James Boag’s Premium
* James Boag’s Premium Light
* Boag’s Draught
* Boag’s Draught Light
* St George
* Classic Blonde
* Wizard Smiths’s Ale
* Strongarm
* XXX Ale
* Tasman Bitter
* Tasman Gold
* Hammer n Tongs

West End

* West End Draught
* West End Export
* West End Gold
* West End Light

Southwark

* Southwark Bitter
* Southwark Premium
* Southwark Stout

Swan Brewery

* Swan Draught
* Swan Stout

Emu Brewery

* Emu Bitter
* Emu Export
* Emu Draft

For wine and New Zealand brands check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lion_Nathan

Victoria Bitter or VB is about as Aussie as kangaroos and koalas, but it has raised criticism lately for trying to commercialize another great Aussie tradition, Anzac Day. The VB Raise a Glass Campaign aims to donate $1 from slabs of VB sold during the promotion, as well as funds from 1500 kegs donated to pubs and clubs, the money raised is to be divided between the Legacy family support charity and the Returned and Services League. A bunch of ad’s have been created featuring stories from Australia’s armed forces to promote the campaign but the campaign has come under fire as some people recon you shouldn’t commercialise Anazc Day in this way. The RSL don’t seem to mind and seeing they will be getting a good bit of coin for their cause we recon its an OK idea too. What do you recon cheap marketing stunt or good corporate citizens? drop us a comment below.

Full Story http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/business/story/0,,25355793-36418,00.html

At Beer Deluxe in Melbourne’s arts and leisure precinct we found a very tasty beer with a very interesting but tragic story behind it. The beer was an ESB beer brewed by what was regarded as one of Victoria Australia’s best microbreweries Hargraves Hill. Hargraves Hill brewery was relatively new and was located at Steels Creek in the Yarra Valley but was completely destroyed by the horrific fires which swept Victoria in February killing over 200 people. The ESB or Extra Special Beer was a absolute classic and we were hoping that they would rebuild and start producing this fine beer at their brewery again soon. But after a bit of a chat with the bar staff we found that some of the local breweries are helping out letting the guys brew their beers on their premises, while they take on the hard task of rebuilding.  So look out for the Hargraves Hill ESB you won’t only be drinking one of the best beers we have tasted in quieta a while, but supporting a great brewery that nature destroyed its facilities but not its spirit.

For More Information: http://hargreaveshill.com.au/

On a warm summers evening in the beautiful city of Geelong in Australia last night there was a strange sighting of what some people are saying is a UFB an unidentified flying beer.  Fortunately they came in peace and there are no reports of probing or cows being taken. The giant Carlton Draught beer was one of the highlights of the Skandia Geelong Week, a huge weekend of sailing and family events to celebrate Australia Day. The beer is actually a hot air balloon and is part of Carlton’s fantastic Skytroop advertising campaign we featured a few months back – take a look at the cool ad.   After the traditional fireworks at the end of the evening the giant yellow beer started to glow in the distance attracting the attention of the thousands of spectators. Unfortunately it wasn’t full of delicious beer but it sure did the job and made your mouth water for some of the tasty golden brew. 

for more information on Geelong – the home of hoppsy Visit www.intown.com.au

The 45th annual Schutzenfest in Adelaide Australia is about to kick of this Friday offering the Southern Hemisphere’s largest folk festival attracting 10s of thousands to a weekend of German inspired fun for all. The Schutzenfest celebrates traditions which date back to medieval times, its basically a shooting festival with heaps of beer and German delicacies, not forgetting plenty of entertainment including German bands, dance and song.  Run by the South Australian German Association the event is one of the best on Australia’s event calendar.  This years festival will feature over 40 stalls, the famous Strong Arm Beer Stein Lifting Competition will be back and there will be plenty of ice cold beers.  As for  the shooting, well its nothing to worry about around all the beer (and the people drinking it) its more a carnival style shooting arcade and at the end of the weekend a King and Queen Shoot are both crowned.  So head on down to Bonython Park in Adelaide for some beer, plenty of Oompah music and maybe a shot or two.

For more information: http://www.saadv.com.au