The Increasingly Mis-named Range Of Aussie Beers

[Steve]

Come to think of it - ive never poured a Coopers Sparkling Ale that actually sparkled!
Cheers
Steve

 

[brettprevans]

"I would doubt anyone is going to really fuss over the distinction between shiraz and chablis"...

kidding arent you. completely differant styles.

I would say that they ARE making claims on the bottle about it being something it isn't. And not in the "Champagne" vs "Methode Champagnois" style claim... more like "shiraz" vs "chablis" style of claim.

Not a basd point. problem is that the marketing depts woudlnt have a clue about any of it and probably half it half of one and hald of the other. all their beers seem to have mixed style and method together to get something stupid.

 

[jonocarroll]

They all have 'beer' written on the label. It seems that's as detailed a description as is needed.

+1

I'd doubt you could buy salted peanuts and complain that they aren't salty enough, and therefore aren't really 'salted peanuts'. If the contents says the words 'peanuts' and 'salt' they can probably get away with it. They could probably even use a potassium salt if they wanted.

Likewise, as long as the word 'beer' is on the bottle somewhere, it's probably good enough. If challenged, they can say that it has yeast, without needing to say it was ale or lager. I would love to see someone march into a brewery waving a style-guidlines book shouting "25 IBUs? This beer has 5 IBUs too many!!! Shut this abomination down!!"

 

[Jakechan]

I think perhaps you missed the emphasis on using this compliance as a valuable marketing tool. Hell, Becks claims to adhere;


and I doubt they do it 'for the wellbeing of their customers.'

Nope, didnt miss it at all. A happy customer is a spendy customer!

 

[caleb]

kidding arent you. completely differant styles.

Yes... almost as different as "bitter" vs "lager"

 

[Adamt]

The names on the beers: "Victoria Bitter", "Pure Blonde", etc. are just names, trademarked names. They don't have to describe anything about the product.

As peas_and_corn said, the description on the side of the all of these bottles is "BEER". That is the description of the product, and without any purity law/whatever, that is enough of a description.

 

[buttersd70]

**GROAN** h34r:

I don't feel the need to elaborate beyond this.

 

[SpillsMostOfIt]

That list includes some of what I believe to be the most awfulest beers on the planet. To illustrate the point I am going to make though, I will focus on Victoria Bitter - perhaps the worstest.

Fosters reckon it dates back to the 1890s. I think this predates the BJCP style guidelines by a decade or more. Why do you not complain about the BJCP's inability to describe long-extant beer styles, rather than complain that a beer over one hundred years old doesn't fit into a BJCP category?

They also reckon it is a Full Strength Bitter Lager. Interestingly, they don't claim it tastes nice.

http://www.fosters.com.au/enjoy/beer/victoria_bitter.htm

 

[Goofinder]

Yep, as has been said, the words on the labels are brand names, not a style description. I guess we're stuck with them because there's only a limited number of words out there that are associated with 'beeriness'.

Come to think of it - ive never poured a Coopers Sparkling Ale that actually sparkled!

:icon_offtopic: Reminds me of the time when I walked into a bar on Swan St in Richmond, looked at what was on tap then asked for a pint of Sparkling and a mineral water for the Mrs. Next thing I knew, the bartender was trying to open a bottle of champagne! :huh:

 

[eamonnfoley]

1) Ok, the BJCP are not laws that are enforced
2) But how can you call yourself a brewery if you dont pay any homage to them? Not professional at all. Its shows they are 100% in it for the profit, and don't care about the product

 

[danbeer]

:icon_offtopic: Reminds me of the time when I walked into a bar on Swan St in Richmond, looked at what was on tap then asked for a pint of Sparkling and a mineral water for the Mrs. Next thing I knew, the bartender was trying to open a bottle of champagne! :huh:

hehe..

I once did get a pint of champaigne at a car launch party.

Ended up v.messy....

 

[Fents]

Not professional at all. Its shows they are 100% in it for the profit, and don't care about the product

we have a winner.

 

[Wolfy]

2) But how can you call yourself a brewery if you dont pay any homage to them? Not professional at all. Its shows they are 100% in it for the profit, and don't care about the product

Welcome to the world of big-business.
Micro/craft/home brewers are no doubt different (and what you'd call 'professional') since many of them will do it for the love/enjoyment/fun rather than to make as many $ as quickly, easily and cheaply as possible.

 

[mikem108]

I'm sure they would argue that they are brand names- just as 'Pizza Hut' is rarely situated inside a hut.

Nor do they serve what most Italians would refer to as Pizza

 

[rclemmett]

I agree with the OP.............. But............. Where would one draw the line with names. A kolsch cannot be a kolsch unless brewed in or near cologne. A dortmunder cannot be a dortmunder unless brewed in or near dortmund. If we strictly adhered to such rules it would be silly.

Tooheys Old, is anybody silly enough to believe it is an old ale because of its name?

BJCP GUIDELINES are great but if you brew a good beer is it no longer a good beer because it doesn't fit in to any category, or should it have specialty beer written on the label?????????????

 

[Sammus]

haha this thread is funny.

I would love to see someone march into a brewery waving a style-guidlines book shouting "25 IBUs? This beer has 5 IBUs too many!!! Shut this abomination down!!"

:lol: classic.

 

[caleb]

OK, just to clarify my original post.

*It was nothing to do with the BJCP. Nor am I implying they are a "law" in any way.
*It is nothing to do with a "place of origin" label like champagne from Champagne, or dortmunder from Dortmunder.
*It is not about salt peanuts not being salty enough, or KFC actually being made from rats, or Pizza Hut not being sold out of a wooden shack, or anything else.
*It WOULD be relevant if your salt peanuts contained brazil nuts, or a pizza marketed as "pepperoni" contained nothing but vegetables.

"Well Pepperoni^tm is our most popular pizza, but we see the Pepperoni^tm label as a brand name rather than a description, and we've reformulated it as mushroom, tomato and capsicum, but no salami type meats, in order to capture a bigger share of the growing vegetarian market segment."

Sounds f*&*%$# idiotic, right...

Basically, it is about 16 different lager beers, NONE of which are labelled as "lager". All of which are labelled something else, usually a well known style of beer from England or Europe. Names like "Bitter" or "Pale Ale" have been used long before the BJCP came along.

Now, unsuprisingly, in their country of origin, they seem to manage to use the names fairly reasonably. I can pick pretty much any English beer labelled "Bitter" off the shelf and expect to get....da da da da daaaa.... a bitter style, top fermented ale. Sure, there'll be differences - I expect that. Some might not even comply with the BJCP guidelines... But I guarantee that NONE of them would contain lager. I wouldn't expect Fuller's to suddenly start bottling a pale lager style beer in the Fuller's ESB bottles and simply claim "Well Fuller's ESB is just a brand name, we've reformulated the beer but want to keep the well known label."

Nor would I expect a "Leffe Blonde" to suddenly contain a pale lager either, while some Belgian advertising exec explains "Leffe Blonde was our best selling brand, but we thought a pale lager would appeal to a greater marketing demographic, so we've repackaged it as a lager, with the same familiar 'Leffe Blonde' label our existing fans know and love".

There would be an out-cry if this was to happen in Europe. So why is it perfectly OK in Australia. (well, I have my theories....)

 

[eamonnfoley]

Welcome to the world of big-business.
Micro/craft/home brewers are no doubt different (and what you'd call 'professional') since many of them will do it for the love/enjoyment/fun rather than to make as many $ as quickly, easily and cheaply as possible.

Although in other industries the quality of the product is important. Therefore it comes down to the customer, and they don't mind crap beer here in Australia it seems. This is a cultural problem that needs to be addressed. In wine terms that would equate to drinking goon bags?!

 

[eamonnfoley]

I agree with the OP.............. But............. Where would one draw the line with names. A kolsch cannot be a kolsch unless brewed in or near cologne. A dortmunder cannot be a dortmunder unless brewed in or near dortmund. If we strictly adhered to such rules it would be silly.

Tooheys Old, is anybody silly enough to believe it is an old ale because of its name?

BJCP GUIDELINES are great but if you brew a good beer is it no longer a good beer because it doesn't fit in to any category, or should it have specialty beer written on the label?????????????

I dont think its silly. If they want to reserve/trademark the names so that they mean something, I think that is fantastic - adds a mystique to the beer.

 

[jonocarroll]

"Well Pepperoni^tm is our most popular pizza, but we see the Pepperoni^tm label as a brand name rather than a description, and we've reformulated it as mushroom, tomato and capsicum, but no salami type meats, in order to capture a bigger share of the growing vegetarian market segment."

Sounds f*&*%$# idiotic, right...

Wrong.

What you've just done is illustrated the difference between your beer example and your pizza example; You've assumed that vegetarians know the ingredients of their pizza, and take an interest. Imagine a world where you have 'mega-chew' pizzas - bland, boring, and you don't really know the ingredients (let's assume it's all mushed up on top of the pizza). THEN you could in theory have a Pepperoni^tm without any pepperoni at all, and people who don't care would be just as happy.

Anyone who doesn't care what ingredients go into their beer (ale or lager yeast) will be perfectly happy to call VB a 'bitter' beer.

AMIRITE?