I would rather drink the sweet sherry than Castelmaine XXXX if given the choice. With the exception of Swan Lager and West End Bitter, 4X is Straya’s third greatest insult to the drinking man. Note I didn’t even mention Fosters which gives you some idea of what utter piss 4X is.
They tried to launch that in the UK when I was first living in London (so 85/86).
It was gopping.
The original Queensland XXXX (pre-1986) was OK. Once it was produced under licence elsewhere, it was utter piss (including the shite served around the rest of Straya).
Before my time in Straya. I was first there in 1994. No fucker in Port Douglas was drinking 4X, they were all on Carlton Cold or Crownies.
The whole market changed in the late 80s. It used to be more regional. Local brews were local. That changed for the worse IMO when they decided that everywhere needed the same availability. Larger breweries (Lion Nathan, Carlton-United, InBev, SABMiller, etc) used their influence to distribute far and wide.
The only saving grace was the development of the Craft Brewing scene. It added a more local feel to pubs that had been lost.
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I remember getting ‘depth charges’ (big tinnies) of Fosters which were far superior to the stuff brewed under licence over here…
Maybe early 80s? All a bit fuzzy to be honest.
Worked perfectly then
This is true, I could remember stuff back then, but I didn’t have as much to remember, and the brain cells weren’t so damaged!
Big call. But it’s true that the original Fosters up till the mid 80s was quite decent and a competitor for Crown.
This is true. The craft brewing side of things really kicked off in Melbourne in the late 1990s AFAIAC. Beechworth, Mountain Goat, James Squire (the original not the rebranded shite from NSW) etc made a big difference. It was largely bottled though as there was very little change in the variety available on tap even up until we left 10 years ago.
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Luckily, nearly every pub nowadays has a couple of hand pumps dedicated to "local"ish brewers. Melbourne and Adelaide have especially ripe hunting grounds.
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I’ve not been to Adelaide since 2008. Things like Mountain Goat and Fat Yak were common enough on draft in Melbourne though. It is still 99% CUB in Melbourne and Lion Nathan in Sydney though. Could murder for a pint of Resch’s in the Coogee Bay Hotel now that I think of it (and a dip in Coogee).
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I remember the days of driving around rural NSW (normally the Hunter Valley) and drinking Tooths and Tooheys Old.
I loved Melbourne Bitter (rather than VB).
My beer tastes were distinctly old skool when in the Eastern states.
In Adelaide, it was all about Coopers (and still is. Mostly) until the advent of micros.
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My first visit to Adelaide my colleagues put me on Southwark. I had two, then told them to fuck off and went on the Cascade pale. I could not believe how awful the Southwark was.
I started drink Southwark (The Green Death) when I was about 15. It was a good brew but, like the whole Ford vs Holden wankfest, it became a victim of it’s success. The West End Brewery, being a much bigger company, bought it out and turned it into a West End Draught-a-like. Only worse. The better brew became the West End version natch.
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I’ve been reminiscing about some of the pish that masqueraded as beer when I was growing up in Ireland. Harp Lager, possibly tasted at its best as it hit the back of the urinal. Tuborg was a tasteless mystery, so it was onto the Guinness at an early age, interspersed with short efforts at drinking Smithwicks which is an undeniably odd pint, but is better than Bass. Did like a pint of Murphys in Cork though.
Anne bought a couple of bottles of Bass last week - not bad actually.
The version available in Ireland is, or was in the 1980’s, a very different brew to that which you get in the UK. I’ve not tried it for 30 + years though so it may be much changed.
Ha Ha. I started on the Guinness (brewed in Manilla) when I was 16. After having tasted the stuff in the UK in 1975/76. Very Strayan Long Neck bottles and 5.4%. I was “a hero amongst men”, or so I thought.
Lovely stuff but very different to Dublin.