FWIS3

Rommie wrote:I always thought of it more as VB down in Melbourne and XXXX further up the coast. Is that true or am I making it up?

Curiously the Aussie beers I've seen most on the international market are Cooper's, and to a lesser extent Toohey's (which was my sister's favorite when she lived over there, in its extra dry variety at least). I think the former is actually a rather less well known beer in Australia itself.

Queensland was usually the XXXX state.
VB in its peak had pretty much most of Australia.
Thats been in decline for some time now.
I used to like VB but now that its changed I'm not really interested.
Especially when its almost as expensive as premium beers.

We can get Coopers here but not the Pale Ale which I like.
I got to drinking that when I had to travel to Adelaide to maintain some of their equipment.
Ah, fun times.

Ah ok, interesting, didn't know that Cooper's was an Adelaide beer.

VB and I have an odd relationship since I had what must've been a "bad" one in NZ, which made my stomach very queasy, and I couldn't drink any beer for several months afterwards because after half a bottle I thought I'd throw up (so I switched to cider ). I've had one or two in the occasional ~5 years since but my stomach will still feel odd after the one beer, though granted that may well just be psychological by this point. Never had an anti-beer stretch like that since.

Sunburnt beer or you may be attributing it to the beer when it was something else.
I did the same years ago and couldn't eat steak because I got sick shortly after eating a steal at my Aunts.
No one else got sick however and for lunch I'd had KFC. Me and KFC have had a love hate/throw up relationship for years.

My memories of VB and XXXX were similar to Rommie, about the regional thing. In Melbourne I was trying different types: VB, MB, Toohey's, Coopers, etc. Don't remember what I was drinking, while in Sydney, in Cairns it was mostly XXXX (because Queenslanders can't spell beer). Here XXXX has been available before, currently the lcbo is only showing VB, under Aussie beers and it is being discontinued. I guess once stock is sold out, something else may become available. I'm not sure if Foster's is still being sold under licence by Molson's.

Carling - O'Keefe, I remember them. My dad would occasionally buy Red Cap ale or Old Vienna (OV). My first/second year of university, I'd order Black Label in the pub as it usually was guaranteed to be cold. It was one of the last ones still available in "stubby" bottles, long necks were being introduced around that time. Molson would later bring back Black Label in a huge ad campaign. IIRC, Carlsberg was being brewed under licence by Carling-O'Keefe at the time, too. An aussie brewery bought C-O'K, it later got flipped to Molson, some of the licences went to Labatt's. I know Carlsberg moved it's licensing deal from C-O'K to Labatt's, later to Moosehead, now imported from Denmark.

Awesome beer is awesome- I'm sure we all have friends who have tried homebrew, but my friend in the dept just became the first guy I know to actually sell his beer to a restaurant! One next door to our campus is stocking it beginning Monday.

I feel so hipster. I can now be all "oh, I liked Browerij t'Pomp before it went commercial!"

I have a few beers to try again. As parts of gifts, I received once again the four pack of "Historic Scottish Ales", added to this for this year were single bottles of "Bah, Humbug" ale, "Winter Welcome" ale, "Christmas Ale" and "Banana Bread" beer by various UK breweries.

So far, I have had the "Bah Humbug", "Banana Bread" and "Froach" (a Heather ale) and have enjoyed them.

Sounds lovely. I want to get back into the fun of brewing beer once I'm settled back into Australia.

Parrothead wrote:I have a few beers to try again. As parts of gifts, I received once again the four pack of "Historic Scottish Ales", added to this for this year were single bottles of "Bah, Humbug" ale, "Winter Welcome" ale, "Christmas Ale" and "Banana Bread" beer by various UK breweries.

So far, I have had the "Bah Humbug", "Banana Bread" and "Froach" (a Heather ale) and have enjoyed them.

The gift of beer. Yes.

Mmmmmm Beer. There's a brew pub here that offers "brewing experiences." You and several buddies go in and brew a keg of beer of your choice. You come back a few weeks later and do the bottling. I had one of Mrs. T's designers make us custom label logos. Back in the summer we made a Double IPA that turned out to be fabulous. We just bottled a Porter that I hope gets a little more complex as it ages. You get to do as much as you want, no prep, no equipment to purchase, no clean up, pretty much guaranteed to come out with a great beer. Great learning experience. Great beer.

SciFi Chick wrote:Sounds lovely. I want to get back into the fun of brewing beer once I'm settled back into Australia.

I thought y'all were done with drinking?

It's hard not to drink here and in Oz it was never an issue.
But we will be non drinkers on the boat (except when eating sashimi) and even now we have almost given up drinking here other than special occassions or once in a while.

Had the Christmas Ale on Saturday night, it was fabulous!

Honey beer... nice, light... very tasty...

Carry on.

brite wrote:Honey beer... nice, light... very tasty...

Carry on.

Don't we call that Mead?

Beer's bad for you, unless it's Venezuelan Polar Beer

Beer is proof that god exists and he wants us to be happy.

Then explain Bud Light! lol

Thumper wrote:

brite wrote:Honey beer... nice, light... very tasty...

Carry on.

Don't we call that Mead?

No... Mead is honey wine... BIG difference...

Yeast eats honey, poops alcohol, sounds the same to me.

There's no hops in mead. Beer has hops in it which gives it that bitter/grassy taste.

She's right. Hops make it beer.
We made beer once without hops but technically its barely wine.
Or you can call it Bud, Fosters etc lol

it wasn't that bad but I used honey rather than sugar so it was more barely honey mead than beer.

Never liked barley wine much myself.

Beer on the other hand... feel obliged to mention in this thread, went to the most amazing beer hall I've ever been to this weekend, on a trip to Salzburg. They have a beer hall in town called the Augustiner brauhaus, originally set up by monks but not a bit more commercial, really nice beer of course but man, this place was huge and awesome! Several rooms with tables (some rooms you could still smoke in), big tables where strangers sit together, to get a beer you'd grab a glass and wash it yourself- either in .5L or 1L increments of course- and pay a guy at a counter, then show your receipt to the guys who'd pour your stein straight from the tankard. And you could bring your own food, or buy some from the various vendors there- there was some fried fast food type stuff, but I got a plate of pork knuckle meat and sour potatoes on the side.

Damn, those Austrians know how to do things- pity we couldn't hold a FWIS Fry there!

Okay, here's a rudown of the ales I've had, that were gifted:

Samuel Smith's "Winter Welcome Ale" - An ale with 6% abv, hint of spices and a bit of a hoppy finish. Enjoyed it.

Wychwood breweries "Bah, Humbug Christmas Cheer" - again an ale with a hint of spices with a nice finish.

Shepherd Neame Ltd - "Christmas Ale" - 7% abv - note of spices and a hoppy finish.

Wells and Young's "Banana Bread Beer" - had this one with some fresh baked banana bread on the side. Nice taste, bananas infused into the beer at some point, enjoyed the flavour.

I'll definately keep an eye out for these UK brews, next fall winter in our lcbo outlets.

Sigma_Orionis wrote:Beer's bad for you, unless it's Venezuelan Polar Beer

Back when I made a couple of business trips to Venezuela in the early/mid 90s I had more than a couple of Polars. They tasted pretty good, particularly after visiting a non-air-conditioned quartz growing plant.

Of course the Bulgarians that ran the plant followed them up with vodka chasers (their definition of a chaser was about 100 ml), but that's a different part of the story.

very very nice - even better come summer