Bul

[cdbrown]

http://www.watoday.com.au/executive-style/...1103-17d82.html

I bet they'll still be priced as an import and not taste like the original...

 

[kevin_smevin]

http://www.watoday.com.au/executive-style/...1103-17d82.html

I bet they'll still be priced as an import and not taste like the original...

I'll certainly agree with the price. Someone was telling me the other day that for peroni they will be importing the same malt and before each batch can be released, a sample has to be sent back (to Italy i pressume) to get the ok. I dont know how much truth there is in this but would be interesting if its true. As far as maintaining a brand image its a good idea

 

[sinkas]

yeh man exotic ingredients, bring em on,
and they couldnt afford a 1st gen clone of the yeast, dem paw biatches

 

[MarkBastard]

I have no problems with BUL I just have problems with the price.

Like, imported beers at $60 a carton makes sense. If they brew them locally to 'save money' ie increase profits they've taken away the thing that made them expensive in the first place.

It's not ethical.

But then again who gives a crap, the person that drinks them should know better and if they weren't around they'd be drinking crownies anyway.

 

[Bribie G]

At least we get a fairly faithful version of BUL beers in Australia, by contrast in the UK when they started brewing Fosters locally the first thing they did was drop it to 4% ABV - it tastes nothing like an Australian beer and I expect they would use English or Euro hops as well. The awful UK versions of Heineken etc are also gruesome. If M^B is correct and the only people drinking Peroni and Grolsch around the bars are just posers then they will be none the wiser about being ripped off.

However I can see the brewers getting into a spot of trouble entirely of their own making. By expanding their portfolio into exotic stuff in the hope of attracting a more sophisticated drinker they are actually exposing more and more people - especially younger drinkers - to different styles and tastes. For example in Chinatown on Saturday night you'll never see a VB or a Crownie on the outdoor dining tables - it's nearly always a Fat Yak or a JS plus of course the usual Blond Blonde Dry BBllloonde etc etc, but tastes are certainly on the change.
Away from the restaurant and at Dans the new drinkers are twigging that a carton of Oettinger or Konig Pils or Bitburger is only half of a BUL.

These beers are not imported by the Breweries, they are imported by Coles and Woolies etc (not exclusively, I bought a carton of Urquell for $40 from an independant in Sydney last year) so the Breweries betta watch their backs.

 

[MarkBastard]

To be honest the majors are excellent at marketing and distribution, and brewing good beer isn't really that hard. With that in mind if 'craft style beer' does become more popular the majors will just make more of it and sell more of it. I don't see them losing in this really. James Squire / Fat Yak etc will just grow. They can bring out more and more business units at arms length that pretend to be independent.

 

[Goofinder]

I'll certainly agree with the price. Someone was telling me the other day that for peroni they will be importing the same malt and before each batch can be released, a sample has to be sent back (to Italy i pressume) to get the ok. I dont know how much truth there is in this but would be interesting if its true. As far as maintaining a brand image its a good idea

That's pretty much what the guy from Bluetongue said at ANHC so it should be accurate. From memory they do Peroni, Grolsch and something else there. I think they also have the licence for Urquell or one of the other Czech lagers and the process required to do it to spec is too much so they aren't brewing it yet.

 

[manticle]

If BUL stuff costs just as much to make as to import then I'm not sure I understand the point.

Brew here but import the ingredients and justify the same price to the consumer or allow someone else to brew and import and distribute said product?

It stands to reason brewing here must be more profitable otherwise it simply wouldn't happen.

There are much better imports than most of the BUL styles anyway and I'd rather pay premium prices for what I actually consider premium beer (then work out how to make it myself - a challenge I don't always succeed in which means I buy more).

@yumyumyum: stands to reason that even importing raw ingredients and sending a sample (six pack? Carton?) would be way cheaper than importing hecalitres of produced, packaged beverage so I reckon it's still a scam based on image - style over substance one more time.

 

[Shed101]

At least we get a fairly faithful version of BUL beers in Australia, by contrast in the UK when they started brewing Fosters locally the first thing they did was drop it to 4% ABV - it tastes nothing like an Australian beer and I expect they would use English or Euro hops as well. The awful UK versions of Heineken etc are also gruesome.

They've learnt their lesson on this one, though. For the last few years at least they've scrapped the low strength version of these beers and only sell the Export strength versions.


More scary, though, is the fact that Paul Gloster is a dead ringer for Andy Muirhead (the bloke from ABC's Collectors who's being investigated for accessing child porn).

 

[cdbrown]

I'd much rather drink the UK fosters than the Aussie one because it does taste different.

I just find it very annoying when the sale price is still at the premium import rate when it's made here. They might use some special imported ingredients but you know damn well they are substituting as much as they can with a local equivalent in order to reduce the cost. In doing so the taste of the beer changes. I quite like grolsch so will see where this goes.