Xxxx gold clone

[TheWiggman]

Pretty sure tetra hops aren't used in Gold. Isomerised hop extract would be used like other mega breweries for their staple lagers. It may not be about the hops but if they were altered I think the devotees would be up in arms.

 

[BrewedCrudeandBitter]

There was an article on brewsnews.com about gold last year where they talked about when XXXX started an adertising compaign about XXXX being all natural and they had to start using actual hops but all the pub owners complained because it killed the head retention. So they went back to tetra hops and dropped the advertising.

 

[BrewedCrudeandBitter]

Found it: http://www.brewsnews.com.au/2014/04/brewers-association-says-beer-has-an-image-problem-rest-of-the-world-says-duh/

Unfortunately, adjunct sugars make up such a part of XXXX Gold that without the foam-positive characteristics of the ‘non natural’ tetra hops, the beer wouldn’t keep its head. Publicans and consumers were soon complaining that XXXX Gold was going flat and Lion had to retreat and go back to using tetra hops and the campaign was quickly forgotten about, though without any fanfare. When I asked about the campaign the following year I was advised:

XXXX is no longer promoting the Natural Beer Promise due to the issues with the removal of the tetra hop from XXXX GOLD to meet the standard resulting in bad head retention. Also, low carb beers actually don’t meet the promise as they have an enzyme added to break down the carbs so low carbs beers cannot claim to be naturally brewed.

 

[TheWiggman]

Interesting. Off to confuse myself trying to work out the characteristic differences between tetra and isomerised hop extract...