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Carlton Draught wasn't a bad beer in the 1970s (and yes I used to brew my own AG in the 70s). It was very hoppy - I'd say around 30 IBU and was very very pale compared to the standard yellow of nowadays. Then it disappeared for a while, replaced in QLD with Fosters Draught. That failed so they revived CD with a different recipe around the mid 80s.

View attachment 46133

Note the rather VB and Melbourne Bitter Font (lettering I mean) and the sidebasher tap.

This didn't take off too well so once again it got reinvented around 8 years ago with the new Clydesdales theme and the "Brewery Fresh" concept. It's a nowhere beer AFAIK. at least VB is monumentally soapy and dreadful, Melbourne Bitter has some hop character and malt sweetness - my choice of mega if I have to resort to it. But Carlton Draught is just a nothing beer in flavour.

It's actually my preferred choice when I have to pick a mega swill

If I can't have a Cooper's PA
 
Take your VB... bump it up from 18 IBUs to ~25ish with tetrahop = MB
 
Again not to be argumentatve but i think you'll find most beer consumers care exactly what they like their beer to taste like. If its it not xxxx gold, its shit. If its not vb, its shit. If its not carlton cold, its shit. The same old (and very true) scenario, taste is subjective.

I would disagree here. I doubt many people would be able to pick the beer they have sworn allegiance to in a blind tasting (talking megaswill lagers here, with the exception of TEDs as they have a disticnt rankness no other beer has on the planet)

People enjoy familiarity. They want to know what they get when they hand their money over. It's like McDonalds. People go there because they can order a big mac meal and down it all within 10 minutes. It's easier than choosing something you've never tasted before and you may be dissapointed after handing over your hard earned cash

So as creatures of habit people buy the same thing all the time because they know what they are getting. This leads to product allegiance. It's more of a mental thing when people say "If its not vb, its shit. If its not carlton cold, its shit... ect". They all taste pretty much the same (unless you were doing back to back tastings)

Fair deuce if a megaswill drinker called LCPA shit because it would be so far removed from their normal beer style that it probably would hurt their taste buds (and wallet too)

Haha after all that I'm just happy there are lots of different beer styles out there for me to try because that's what I like :icon_cheers:
 
Carlton Draught has been being brewed for a long time... it used to be just the draught beer from the Carlton Brewery... I think it was first officially called "Carlton Draught" when a version was first brewed at the Darwin Brewery in the 50's

However, Bribie's potted history is I think only really accurate for his part of the world - CD has most certainly been in continuous production for my entire life and has never since I have worked there been worse that the 3rd most popular CUB beer, its currently 1st or 2nd so the marketing douchebags, as annoying as they are, seem to be getting it right ATM... It might have been different for Bribie and the folks up in the North, but in Victoria at least, Carlton was simply "the" beer on tap. It was the first beer I ever had (in the pub with my uncles, 11 years old, shandy), and I don't recall any of the local pubs having anything on tap other than Carlton Draught - it wasn't even branded, there was just a blue and white CUB logo on the tap or nothing at all.

The made from beer, Big ad, flash dance etc etc adds are all just guff from the marketing department - They are just meant to be clever ads to get your attention. I'm sorry for all the homebrew and craft brew lovers out there, but diverting people's attention away from better tasting beers is not on the agenda - its simply not important enough. There might come a time when they do care about more flavoursome beer... but that will be at the point where they start trying to sell it, not trying ot distract you from buying it.

What the marketing department actually wants you to do is

A - not drink wine
B - not drink Tooheys
C - buy a Carlton Draught

That's it - all the other stuff is in your imagination... the place where as craft/homebrew beer lovers, you put so much more importance on it than someone like CUB ever will, until it becomes a financial imperative, and its not.
 
You'd have to think that the marketing department(s) are failing miserably then, with the declining volume of beer per capita being comsumed.
Probably doesn't help with seeming all marketing departments portraying beer drinkers as a) bogans, b)brain dead morons, and c) exclusively male.
 
Carlton Draught has been being brewed for a long time... it used to be just the draught beer from the Carlton Brewery... I think it was first officially called "Carlton Draught" when a version was first brewed at the Darwin Brewery in the 50's

However, Bribie's potted history is I think only really accurate for his part of the world - CD has most certainly been in continuous production for my entire life and has never since I have worked there been worse that the 3rd most popular CUB beer, its currently 1st or 2nd so the marketing douchebags, as annoying as they are, seem to be getting it right ATM... It might have been different for Bribie and the folks up in the North, but in Victoria at least, Carlton was simply "the" beer on tap. It was the first beer I ever had (in the pub with my uncles, 11 years old, shandy), and I don't recall any of the local pubs having anything on tap other than Carlton Draught - it wasn't even branded, there was just a blue and white CUB logo on the tap or nothing at all.

The made from beer, Big ad, flash dance etc etc adds are all just guff from the marketing department - They are just meant to be clever ads to get your attention. I'm sorry for all the homebrew and craft brew lovers out there, but diverting people's attention away from better tasting beers is not on the agenda - its simply not important enough. There might come a time when they do care about more flavoursome beer... but that will be at the point where they start trying to sell it, not trying ot distract you from buying it.

What the marketing department actually wants you to do is

A - not drink wine
B - not drink Tooheys
C - buy a Carlton Draught

That's it - all the other stuff is in your imagination... the place where as craft/homebrew beer lovers, you put so much more importance on it than someone like CUB ever will, until it becomes a financial imperative, and its not.

Damn your mythbusting and damn your impudence. CUB will never penetrate my aluminium headgear.
 
You'd have to think that the marketing department(s) are failing miserably then, with the declining volume of beer per capita being comsumed.
Probably doesn't help with seeming all marketing departments portraying beer drinkers as a) bogans, b)brain dead morons, and c) exclusively male.

I agree. I think the marketing departments are far too concerned with grabbing a bigger share of a shrinking pie, its working for now, the companies are making more money... but I think there needs to be some long term work done by all breweries (principally the megas of course) to reverse the decline of beer. Mega beer, boring beer, craft beer, imported beer - everything gets better for everyone if more people are buying beer instead of something else.

From a brewer's perspective, the most truly horrible thing to behold is someone drinking a glass of wine (RTD, cider, scotch etc too, but mainly wine) - because even from a CUB perspective, its got to be better to see someone drinking a TED than a Chardonnay... at least there's hope that the next thing they buy will be a Carlton, or a Coopers or a Mt Goat etc etc. As long as its not a damn Sav Blanc ALL brewers win.

That's my hope - that there will be some sort of campaign by the brewers big and small to bump the popularity of beer as a class of drink. Winkle's, bogans/braindead comments are really relevant there I think. Grow the whole market, then there is a bigger pie for everyone to grab their share from.

Mind you - it also might not hurt for craft breweries to stop painting the big breweries as the enemy. Sure pinching existing beer drinkers from the megas is plucking the low hanging fruit; and of course that's what they are going to do ... but one day the craft beer market too will mature, and suddenly it might seem like a good idea to have put some effort into behaving like the small breweries would like the big breweries to behave, instead of in a market share grabbing free for all which at the end of the day is just exactly what the big brewers do to each other.
 
I'm sorry for all the homebrew and craft brew lovers out there, but diverting people's attention away from better tasting beers is not on the agenda - its simply not important enough.
Since I actually understand the meaning of the word 'argue', I'm happy to be argumentative, so:

Sorry, TB, but the 'tasty vs less-tasty' beer thing was introduced by someone more aligned with your position than an "anti" one. The issue is that these ads are designed to stop you thinking that beer can be anything other than CD - and, yes you're right, they aren't worried about Murrays but they sure as shit would be worried about Tooheys. I mentioned ingredients in my initial post not because I believe CUB should be making different beers (though it would be nice) but more as a pointer towards how people think of beer and how CUB would like them to keep thinking that way. The thinking behind the ads is an attempt to return to the times when (as you mention above) people did think of beer and CD as being interchangeable. Your position that the ads are simple whimsy is pretty unsustainable - they are pointed and not even subtly so.
 
It is true that Carlton Draught is made from beer



They keg it straight from the urinal :)
 
Since I actually understand the meaning of the word 'argue', I'm happy to be argumentative, so:

Sorry, TB, but the 'tasty vs less-tasty' beer thing was introduced by someone more aligned with your position than an "anti" one. The issue is that these ads are designed to stop you thinking that beer can be anything other than CD - and, yes you're right, they aren't worried about Murrays but they sure as shit would be worried about Tooheys. I mentioned ingredients in my initial post not because I believe CUB should be making different beers (though it would be nice) but more as a pointer towards how people think of beer and how CUB would like them to keep thinking that way. The thinking behind the ads is an attempt to return to the times when (as you mention above) people did think of beer and CD as being interchangeable. Your position that the ads are simple whimsy is pretty unsustainable - they are pointed and not even subtly so.

Fair points, I don't disagree with any of them. I think your interpretation of the ads is damn near bang on.

My main point is the aim of the advertising - and you are of course correct, while they are whimsical, they are well designed and pointed... directly at Tooheys. But what I mainly wanted to point out, is that they aren't designed to distract people from "better" tasting beer (given that people here would presumably not define other mega lagers as "better") just other beer in general.

I suppose that serves a sub purpose of distracting you from craft beer too.... but it's merely a happy coincidence for the marketing people, not some sort of a plot to blot out the craft brewers. It simply a case of "its not all about you people.." Craft breweries might cop collateral damage in this sort of fracas, but they aren't important enough to actually be targets in and of themselves. At the end of the day, the Romans aren't actually frightened of the Judean Popular People's Front at all.
 
Yes it was a bit different in Queensland. Carlton were always on the back foot here with probably only three blue pubs to ten red pubs in the larger regional towns, as they were an interloper after taking over Queensland Breweries (Bulimba) and I guess the QLD version of Carlton Draught was just a continuation of Bulimba on tap.

XXXX made all the running initially with Lite (later Gold) etc and CUB seemed to be casting around for products that would maintain market share in Brisbane, particularly when Alan Bond amalgamated XXXX Tooheys and Swan, and Tooheys New etc started to appear in QLD pubs. CUB didn't really approach equal market share until they took full control of Bernie Power's brewery at Yatala and could pump VB etc into the local market. They had that false start with Fosters on tap but I can definitely remember when they brought out the Maroon label Carlton Draught again, probably 1985 ish???? Back in the 70s it was white and blue label. I bought a slab, thinking "hey, nice to see this back again". It was actually in longneck stubbies, or mid-neck whatever you would call them as opposed to the squat stubbies of the other CUB brands and it was obviously being positioned as a little bit premium-ish.
 
Fair points, I don't disagree with any of them. I think your interpretation of the ads is damn near bang on.

My main point is the aim of the advertising - and you are of course correct, while they are whimsical, they are well designed and pointed... directly at Tooheys. But what I mainly wanted to point out, is that they aren't designed to distract people from "better" tasting beer (given that people here would presumably not define other mega lagers as "better") just other beer in general.

I suppose that serves a sub purpose of distracting you from craft beer too.... but it's merely a happy coincidence for the marketing people, not some sort of a plot to blot out the craft brewers. It simply a case of "its not all about you people.." Craft breweries might cop collateral damage in this sort of fracas, but they aren't important enough to actually be targets in and of themselves. At the end of the day, the Romans aren't actually frightened of the Judean Popular People's Front at all.

I agree with most of the points above.

So the big boys create the perception that it doesn't matter about what beer is made of and taste is not a big factor. Then they stitch up the taps with contacts that effectively stops people from trying other beers.

They are clinging onto an eroding position and they know it. Which is why fat yak etc are coming onto taps now.
 
So the big boys create the perception that it doesn't matter about what beer is made of and taste is not a big factor. Then they stitch up the taps with contacts that effectively stops people from trying other beers.

They are clinging onto an eroding position and they know it. Which is why fat yak etc are coming onto taps now.
No, it is getting into more and more pubs now only because it is getting closer to the beers it is supposedly an alternative to with every passing day. Uh, and the Foster's Group wanting it in bars probably has no small amount of influence...
 
Fair points, I don't disagree with any of them. I think your interpretation of the ads is damn near bang on.

Careful TB or bum will call you a 'dickhead' for not staunchly arguing against everything everyone has got to say. And I for one know how much sleep can be lost once bum gives his enlightened opinion on your character.
 
I won't call TB a dickhead because he isn't a dickhead.
 

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