Australia Obsessed W/ Pale Lagers?

[joecast]

so i just got a beer lovers box for my b-day and was pretty impressed with the fact that my wife bought me beer!!

its got 12 singles, some i havent tried, some i have never heard of. one thing i noticed after having a look at each bottle, they are all pale lager beers!! all 12! why???

of course it has the usual cascade/boags premium, crown, heineken, corona...etc. and a few other imports, but all pale lagers. weird i thought. why no porter, or stout? not even a pale ale? oh well, maybe it was the pale lager lovers box?

btw, this isnt a complaint. just wondering if anyone else here finds that lagers are more common in general?
joe

 

[Justin]

Yep Joe, the general aussie bloke doesn't like any flavour in his beers (this does not apply to anyone on this forum ). It seems the less malt and taste you can get in a beer the better is it received by the public. Breweries are in the business of selling beer and have to make the beer that people want to drink and pale lagers it is. The trick to these brews by the ways is adding discusting amounts of cane sugar instead of malt because it is cheaper.

Classic examples of this style are the lovely drops provided to us by Mr. Hahn Ice, Mr. Carlton Cold and Mr. Light Ice. Many of these beers are bittered up with the lovely Pride of Ringwood weed grown here in Tassie (I distance myself from this hop and any association with it). It's a grim state of affairs out there Joe, that's why we brew and that's why the imported beers are alot more fun.

We can only hope that we get more microbreweries and limited run beverages that the megabreweries seem to be branching out into a bit more now (Cascade Four Seasons/First Harvest, Boags Trad Ale/Honey Porter), they are not perfect by any means but a bit better anyway.

JD

 

[RobW]

Not sure the average bloke doesn't like flavour in his beer it's more a case of not getting the chance unless he's prepared to buy premium/imported products & most aren't because of the cost. Most people really enjoy quality beer when they taste it so it's to be hoped the trend continues. There'll always be megaswill driven by profit margins, all we can do is keep trying to steer drinkers in the other direction.

 

[Justin]

Yeah sorry, good point. However all my mates love the no-taste lagers, they pretty much drink beer because you drink beer, doesn't matter what it tastes like. I'm slowly converting them over but I don't want to give too much encouragement or they'll drink all my beer. How wonderful would it be to be able to sway the punters and brewers into a more flavoursome beer, I'm salivating at the possibility of being able to buy a half decent beer at my local pub with out the need to buy the premium or import (my local is particularly bad, oh how I wish I could change the boys ). We can only hope and dream.

Peace.

JD

 

[Murray]

I agree with you Justin. My father and his mates, having taken up the homebrew hobby a few years ago, are still in their quest to produce a beer with as little flavour as possible. Meh.

 

[Jovial_Monk]

If any of the "lagah drinkers" out there ever came across a real lager, they wouldn't like it.

When I take HB to a family gathering, only I drink it, the rest guzzle VB (Bitter? it should be called Victoria Mild!) and think Crown Lagah is the premium end of the market ("would you like a beer, Tom, I have some Crown lager") Sad but true.

How peoples perceptions can be changed? Dunno, in the face of the huge advertising campaigns




depressing, not?







Jovial Monk

 

[PostModern]

Hot climate, cold lager. Goes down easy and gets you pissed. I think its people with a palate that prefer bigger and better beers. That's not to say there are no decent pale lagers. Some nicely brewed HBs out there are lagers.

However, you can still enjoy an ale in Summer. Serve cold.

 

[Stratis]

Not sure the average bloke doesn't like flavour in his beer it's more a case of not getting the chance unless he's prepared to buy premium/imported products & most aren't because of the cost. Most people really enjoy quality beer when they taste it so it's to be hoped the trend continues. There'll always be megaswill driven by profit margins, all we can do is keep trying to steer drinkers in the other direction.

Your typical beer drinker gets offended by too much malt/hop character, in my experience. The less flavour the better. I've experimented at parties with my homebrew and the most popular batches by far have been my low gravity with virtually no hop character beers.

 

[Gout]

I have the same responce - apart from Stout where they love it strong and full on!

the lagers - if i brew malt water, where there is little flavour, or hops, just Alc they say mmmm this tastes great! ( i think ... hmmm there is no taste)

When i hand over a hoppy beer its - to bitter, or i can taste somthing strange, Or if its strong malt they make up other comments that i find funny.

I guess after drinking a heap of VB a malty HB would be rather strong in flavour. YUM!

 

[Jovial_Monk]

Hot climate - cold lager

They sit and drink tasteless crud for hours


You can convert your mates, just give them something a little hoppier & maltier (hard to do, not!) than VB or other swill, they gradually get to like it











Jovial Monk

 

[verynewtohomebrew]

I agree with Jason my mates all drink the most tasteless or non-offensive beers they can find ie Ice Carlton Cold etc etc

As soon as they drink some home brew they are always saying whats that smell or whats that funny after taste this beer has???

And my mate that brews HB always backs off his malt and hops to try and dull down the flavour - mmmm strange

 

[Murray]

The one thing I don't understand is their blind brand loyalty. I have quite a few friends that drink VB exclusively and swear the other megalager swill is rubbish. I have given them XXXXs etc without telling them and they never notice. Tell them what it is and they suddenly hate it.

 

[Jovial_Monk]

heh Murray

back a decade or three ago I was studying marketing as part of a business course

fellow students got visibly riled when the instructor said that blind taste tests always failed to find any difference between beers

Of course they don't! All mostly sugar and POR hops, k+k on a megascale

But, mind you, my HB i could pick out of thousands of glasses of swill, only one sniff needed






but then again, i only use malt and use a goodly amount of goodly hops!








JM

 

[joecast]

well, i have to admit to being one of the "unlearned" going back a few years, and only drinking beers that were unoffensive. hey, i used to hate that bitter (ie hop) flavor. now i go looking for it.
joe

 

[pioneergangsta]

Yep, i believe it true too!
Had a party the other day, and had a HB draught with a little extra malt, and a decently hopped german pilsener on tap. Now mind you the people I poured for were not big beer drinkers, BUT everyone preferred my HB lager to the other malt/hop beers. There was only one other brewer at the party who appreciated the nice malt flavours.
And i think it is one of the reasons why we brew, so we can create beers that are to our tastes, something we appreiciate...

Cheers

 

[deebee]

Interesting that my wife, who is a bit of a foody and loves exotic and unusual foods, hates beer and has never liked it. She eats all sorts of cuisine from the wierd end of Japanese food to peasant Thai cooking with insects. Don't get me wrong, she loves a t-bone and chips as well but she has eaten big fat raw bardi grubs, enjoys offal and will generally try anything. But beer makes her gag.

Recently I gave her a stout I made from a kit, some steeped grains, finishing hops and a good liquid yeast. She actually had more than one sip and admitted it "Didn't taste foul like other beer."

Yesterday I gave her a sip of some Weihenstephan Hefeweiss and she actually said it was nice. (Notice my stout wasn't "nice" but simply "not foul".)

She has been brought up to believe that beer tastes bad because she has only ever tasted bad beer. If she had grown up German or Czech she might be a beer drinker, but in Australia, she couldn't bring herself to drink it and, being a woman, she had alternatives - she likes wine and white spirits.

Blokes feel that they have to drink beer to be manly so, as teenagers, they force it down the gullet to impress their mates and eventually come to associate that flavour with being pissed. It kinda grows on you. (I didn't enjoy my first cigarette either but now they're like breast milk.)

I used to drink it and if it's served nearly freezing on a hot day when i really need a beer, i will still occasionally drink some megaswill though I would rather drink one of my bad batches of homebrew.

The ultimate test is to serve it at about 15C. Even the VB true believers will not be able to drink the whole can at that temp because all the flavours are present and it just tastes putrid. On the other hand a nice chewy stout served at 15C is a deep and enduring pleasure.

In the end, however, I have to say that I would rather drink with a megaswiller than a beer-******. It's only beer and there is, after all, no accounting for some people's tastes.

 

[joecast]

well, i think deebee has the answer.

i agree, what you grow up with (in most cases) is what you are going ot like. and sadly, most guys grow up drinking whatever happens to be cheap and get them drunk. see, its not our fault.

however, it is now our duty to show others the error of our ways. the next time some 15yr old asks you to buy them some beer, dont!!! but do tell them that vb is crap, that crown is crap. dont give them a beer, give them an education. and as well as not breaking the law, those little buggers will not bother you again!!
joe

 

[yankee brewer]

Hey deebee, WTF are "bardi grubs"??? I've never heard of such a thing. Then again, I'm not from your neck of the woods. Anyhoo, I thought I'd share one with you guys. Back in high school we used to dring whatever we could get our mits on. As I got a little older I found I preferred the imports. Then the microbrew revolution happened here in the States-- I found these too to be far preferable to the typical domestic swill. Then on Christmas my dad got me this contraption called "The Beer Machine". If your interested go to beermachine.com to see exactly what it is. I brewed the kit it came with that night and when it was fermmented out I stuck it in the fridge and drew a pint as soon as it got cold. It was brown-- no problem. It was cloudy-- a bit unusual but no big deal even though it did make me wonder. It had a very different aroma-- Smelled damned good to me but definitely unlike anything else I had ever smelled before and that caused me some concern because I thought perhaps I'd done something wrong. Oh well, down the hatch! KA BOOM!!!! What an explosion of flavor and complexity! Amazing! Astounding! Unexpected! My God, where have you been all my life??? I consumed the entire batch that night. The next day I went to the homebrew store to get a refill kit. I walked out of the store with a book, a lauter tun, a mash/ boil kettle, a racking cane, two 6.5 gallon carbouys, a bottle capper, a cajun cooker, etc. etc. and the ingredients for a 5 gallon batch of "Munich Dunkel" and "Trappist Ale". One lager and one ale. Both turned out magnificently. I've brewed all grain ever since my second batch. So if any of you out there think its difficult or whatever--- nah! Just do it. I do brew extract sometimes no biggie either.

Bottom line is, home brew is so off the charts with flavor etc. that nothing else even comes close. Sometimes people ask me when they find out I brew, "Is it any good?" I just smile and say, "My friend, you really can't even imagine. Your past experiences with beer can not possibly have prepared you for how good home brewed beer is." Then I invite them to come try some when they get their nerve up.

And by the way, it really is frightening to see how similar you Aussies are to us Yanks. Culture and all. Your average Joe Six Pack here in the States is so infused with Anhueser-Bush propoganda and so full of bland flavorless swill they can't see past the crap. Funny how they will eat these rich flavorfull foods like steak and pizza and piss and moan if they don't have the rich powerful flavor they desire, but when it comes to a beverage like beer-- they piss and moan if it isn't the most bland flavorless, bodiless, colorless piss on the planet. What is up with that???