Australian Beers

Some of the recent posts on this board got me thinking about Aussie beers. I spent six months over there in the early 90s in New South Wales and I drank a ton of beer. In fact, I brought home a can of Coopers liquid malt which got me started in brewing. Just trying to think back about the beers I drank and what might still be popular over there.

IN NSW, VB was by far the most popular. It is also what all the girls drank so I thought it was too light and tended to avoid it.

Tooheys made a bunch of decent beers--Tooheys Red, Ale, gold.

There was a pilsner called Reschs or something like that that was pretty smooth and good on draft. On more than one occasion I had young bartenders give me a strange look when I drank it because they said it was an old person's beer--not even sure what that means.

Drank lots of Coopers stubbies, but it wasn't on draft as much--I recall it was the goto beer to get good and loaded on.

There was a good wheat beer called Redback with a cool spider on the label, and it was somewhat unusual to have a wheat beer available back then.

There was a great brew pub in Sydney called the Pumphouse--they made a beer called Thunderbolt Ale that was 7.5% and just knocked your socks off. it had a really good grainy/fruit balance with a serious bite.

Up north everyone drank XXXX, which I don't recall being all that good.

That's all I can remember. Nobody drank fosters and there was very little dark beer.

Anyone had any of the above? There is at least one person here from Oz...

i've had a few australian beers, a friend of my dads is frmo there and will mail back beer when he goes. can't say i've been too impressed with any of them, coopers sparkling ale is a good lighter beer though. most recent i had was a couple months ago, a stout from someone with name recognition, but it wasnt all that great. to each their own though.

I would like to offer my two cents on this thread. I'm not Australian but my wife is and I lived there in Victoria for about a year. One of my favorite beers was Victora Bitter which was everywhere in Melbourne. Another one I liked was Crown lager and a brand made in Tasmania called Cascade (like the hops!!) which was crisp and dry like a pale ale.

Two things that I found interesting about the pub culture there is that when you would go to a pub or hotel as they call them you would order a pot of beer, not a pint. And you wouldn't order it by brand name for the most part. They would just bring you what they had on tap. They are nowhere near as brand and choice obsessive as we are here in the United States. At the pubs there is at most 2 brands on tap a couple different choices for bottles for the most part. There isn't that micro-brew sort of awareness as it is here in my opinion. One of my favorite hotels was a place called the Builder's Arm's which was located in Fitzroy and they had Gelong Bitter on tap. After a real hot day spending it in a real hot kitchen where I worked, nothing on this planet tasted better! The pots were only 10 oz and I believe they served them in that size so you could drink it all before it got warm. So you just kept ordering more pots!

My impression of beer in Australia was that they mostly drank lagers instead of heavy ales and stouts and the reason for that once again is that it just really gets hot there in the summer and the lagers are just more thirst quenching.

And that's fair dinkum if you ask me!

Well, as an Aussie, you have hit it right on the head, No body drinks Fosters, but the poms think we do. still yet to figure out why. Because i'm from the North, I was brought up knowing both type of beer, XXXX gold and XXXX heavy. I have since travelled a bit and discovered other/proper beers. Yep we mostly drink lagers, lighter coloured ales etc. Altho we all drink Ginusss? or Kilkenny on St Pats day. There are some really good little breweries around , the one that makes "little Creatures" is a class brewery, I heard that he has been bought out by a commercial brewery once or twice, and keeps re-inventing the brewery.
Um I'm not sure if we brew differently over here but I will say that I hadn't heard of "Racking to secondary" before joining this forum. Not in my small circle of homebrewers anyway. Does everyone do it over there?

Alx Rains said:

Um I'm not sure if we brew differently over here but I will say that I hadn't heard of "Racking to secondary" before joining this forum. Not in my small circle of homebrewers anyway. Does everyone do it over there?

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of course!

Um ........Why?

Secondaries let your beer clear/mature a little further before bottling/kegging.

Back on topic James Boag’s Premium is one that sounds good to me but i've never tried.

There are lots of good micro brewed beers in Australia, and the list is contantly growing. But they make up a tiny proportion of the market, and you won't easily stumble upon them by walking into the local "hotel".

The beer market in Australia is really a duopoly with the big 2 of Lion Nathan (Tooheys brands) and Carlton and United (Victoria Bitter, Fosters) dominating the market. To such an extent that the third largest brewer, Coopers, has only about 2% market share.

Getting craft brewed beer distributed in the wide brown land is no easy task. Some are trying though, as shown in this article from yesterday's Melbourne Age.

Mate I live in freo W.A little creatures is great thay have a 1 way mirror in the loo so you can watch them brewen will you pee

I lived in NSW for awhile and i rember Vitamin b was popular but I liked tooheys new the best,I have a red back t shirt just cus i liked the logo but i dont remeber weather the beer was good or not,probally cus drinking it dulled my memory,I didnt really care for 4 X either. they did have alot of diffrent beers seemed like every town had its own. they also have a good rum called bundenberg with a polar bear on it,I always thought that was funny coming from alaska.but when i visited the factory they said they people associated rum with the tropics and they wanted it to be associated with being cool ......or somthing like that still didnt make any sense,but it was a cool factory and they gave me a free drink so "GOOD ON YA"

I have been tinking of getting a cooper's bitter can, to start off brewing with, it seems to be promising.

I actually picked up some foster's yesterday out of curiosity. I got a can of Foster's Special Bitter, and it was actually pretty good (for a canned bear haha)

been in Oz for the last 5 weeks or so, tried a fair few different brews. some good, some not so good. my favourites have been coopers: Pale Ale, Stout. Boags. Tooheys Old. Squires (MSB): Golden Ale, Rum Barrelled Porter and Amber Ale. Also LOVED Blue Tongues Ginger beer - delicious -will try make something similar when I get back to brewing whenever that may be.
Didn't like VB or XXXX so much, although Carlton Draught was not too bad either.

I've been enjoying a new Aussie import for a few months, now, though its getting hard to find (its getting a tad too popular and they keep selling out). Guess I may have to find a recipe and do it myself!! Anyone else here a fan of Bushman's Lager?

Howdy guys, i was in australia about 8 years ago and we drank a lot of Hahn premium and victoria bitter any idea of some good recipes that will get me a beer close to that. its kind of my goal to make autralian "clone" beers Thanks

C

In Tasmania I would recommend Cascade Draught. A good main stay of a beer - not much hops though but very drinkable chilled on a hot day.

www.cascade.com.au

Cascade do a large range of different beers and have four seasonal ones also.

My wife drinks Cascade Premium Light which is very drinkable (2.8% and nice and hoppy).

There are a few micro breweries here. Morilla Estate have just started producing Moo Beer which is very nice.

In the north of the island Boags is the main brewery. I find that my tummy is ot good the next day (I am being polite here in case there are ladies present!) even I if have just four or five of them. Boags Ar$e is the nickname for it.

If people are looking for recipes for Australian Beers then check out : http://www.thbs.intas.net/ ...this is my local home brew shop and it is very good (luckily because the nearest one that I know of is four hours drive away!)

Keep your bubbles moving...

Not Australian but I'd love to go there! My local beer store Shep's carries a ton of beers from all over the world. They have Cooper's Pale Ale, Stout, and I think Vintage Ale? Also - James Boag Premium is a good summer time everyday drinker. Light, crisp and has some sort of rasberry essence - it is most assuredly NOT a flavored beer though. Good stuff.

Damn 33 - Never had "Boag's Ass" the day after. Guess I just haven't had enough of just Boags in one sitting. I'll give it a go with twelve of them and see what happens. A scientific experiment is in order!

Fuggles said:

Damn 33 - Never had "Boag's Ass" the day after. Guess I just haven't had enough of just Boags in one sitting. I'll give it a go with twelve of them and see what happens. A scientific experiment is in order!

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...it may be a combination of drinking mainly Cascade Draught and then moving on to the Boags. I think the stomach must be trained to deal with Cascade I used to drink a reasonable amount of Guiness (>7 pints) and never had an issue with it. Also drank tons of ales from the pumps and nothing compares to the Boags effect.


Good luck with the experiment. Let me know how you get on!

Cascade Stout would stand up against any.

Possibly Australias most underated beer.

G'day Mates! Checked out that website with the beer kits and didnt find what I was looking for. Over the 5 months I spent in Aussie (more specifically NSW in Newcastle) I enjoyed plenty of beers but a few specifically:

Tooheys New
Carlton Draught
Beez Kneez

Anyway if anyone knows of any kits for these beers or recipe clones they would be greatly appreciated, cheers!