What's The Deal With James Squire

[peas_and_corn]

Wait... so James Squire wasn't started by a guy called James Squire??

That makes me a sad panda

 

[rimrunner]

yeah that kinda bums me out too. i know it's advertising and streatching the truth but blatant fabrication?



i'm going to get into hot water for this but i used to drink tasman bitter a lot. i thought it was a pretty good beer for the coin and was a good consolation prize for not having strongarm which i think should be the benchmark for lager beers. which is to say it's what lagers should be at a minimum. you can call me on it, it's what i reckon it's not neccesarily right.

anywho long story coming to a close i had some tasman recently and it was piss. it was no where near what it used to be and funnily enough it had different labeling and yet still sported it's gold medals won some years ago now. why? did i hear that boags got baought out recently? i'm pretty sure tasman was a homebrand made by boags.

you can say i can't say boo about it since i can't brew coffe but i can tell that one thing wasn't what it used to be. and it's not "when i was a kid" stuff either this is over 2 years tops.

 

[redbeard]

Just to go more OT, ive had a couple of LC Pale pint bottles tonight. The best before date is Jan09 but to my taste tonight its lacking the hoppy punch I remember. Not sure if its my taste buds or a 'refined' recipe or both ... will have to hope the Aust on sat still has a keg of lcpa

 

[AlphaOne]

i havn't read this whole thread, but we have recently had JS golden ale on tap at the brewhouse, and its rubbish! When it was first released it had mountains of hoppy passionfruit flavours, great. Now it lacks any real character at all, very dissapointed.

on another note, Highwayman is great at both the JS brewhouses in Melbourne, i think one of them won gold.
(also... the craic stout was lousy)

 

[SpillsMostOfIt]

i havn't read this whole thread, but we have recently had JS golden ale on tap at the brewhouse, and its rubbish! When it was first released it had mountains of hoppy passionfruit flavours, great. Now it lacks any real character at all, very dissapointed.

on another note, Highwayman is great at both the JS brewhouses in Melbourne, i think one of them won gold.
(also... the craic stout was lousy)

A couple of weeks ago I stopped off at the Portland and had one pot each of their Golden and Amber Ales. The former used to be one of my favourite purchased beers. I was very disappointed in both - they seem to be suffering from the global hop shortage and (if I am to be trusted, which I clearly am not) the yeast character could have been different from the glory days...

 

[Thirsty Boy]

I have a soft spot for JS beer ... they were hitting their straps as I was really starting to get my beer palate up to speed. I haven't enjoyed them as much recently, but to be perfectly honest put it down mostly to my changing palate. Never did like the Pilsner though... not a clean crisp version and thats what I want in a Pils.

I've noticed differences here and there, mainly the fact that I don't think that any of the beers have ever had the same zing when bottled as they do on tap, but where it was in draft beer I put it down to handling/lines/storage etc as well as the fact that I fairly frequently drink at the "brewhouses" and at least some of their stuff is brewed locally, so you can't expect it to be the "same"

Still, even though I am less enthusiastic about those beers than I used to be... I think that they are all still good beers, some are really good.

On a sort of on topic /sort of off note... I'm not familiar with the run of LN infrastructure. What breweries do they have?? from the conversation in this thread... Obviously Lidcombe is their BIG plant and the Malt shovel is their smaller operation... but do they have mid sized plants (say equivalent to CUB's Cascade) or tiny tiny truly micro operations??

Must try that pilsner again... bad beers don't win the world beer cup.

Thirsty

 

[Tim F]

Quantas is serving tins of JS golden ale in flight and I sunk a few flying home yesterday. Gotta say it was a lovely beer and tasting very fresh. It was almost identical to a very basic pils & crystal ale I made recently with Amarillo and a bit of Cascade. I actually like JS beers - the best australian semi-mainstream beer imo. I could drink the golden and amber ales all day.

 

[the_fuzz]

On a sort of on topic /sort of off note... I'm not familiar with the run of LN infrastructure. What breweries do they have?? from the conversation in this thread... Obviously Lidcombe is their BIG plant and the Malt shovel is their smaller operation... but do they have mid sized plants (say equivalent to CUB's Cascade) or tiny tiny truly micro operations??

Multiple plants - QLD, SA, WA, NSW

QLD is bigger than Lidcombe based on volume output

 

[Inge]

Isn't there some kind of worldwide hop shortage driving the cost of hops up? Would probably explain the loss in hop flavour in the last year or so. Using less to maintain profit.

 

[schooey]

I may be way off, but don't LN now own Bluetongue and are building another plant at Warnervale?

 

[DJR]

I may be way off, but don't LN now own Bluetongue and are building another plant at Warnervale?

CCA (CocaCola Amatil) now own Bluetongue and are probably ramping up production. They also import Urquell and a couple of other things.

 

[schooey]

Ah ok, thanks.I knew that they had been taken over, just couldn't remember who it was..

 

[Murcluf]

My experiences with JS Golden Ale is the first time I tired it was about 12 to 18 months ago and I was very impressed, then about 6 months ago I had another and it was ok, had one about 2 weeks age and it was horrid first thought it might drity taps or something like that it was aweful, dead flat, tasteless and dull smelling beer. Mind you each time I have had it, it has been from different pubs so I thought it may be a environmental issue. But two day after I last tried it Iwas at another pub and a mate had one and he said it was aweful. I used to think JS was quality but now I just aviod it like megaswell won't waste my money.