Crown Lager

Crown Lager (abv 4.9%) is often described as Australia's original premium beer. However, the only thing premium about the product is the packaging and its price tag! The beer is basically Fosters lager repackaged into a fancy bottle. For a long time it was the beer of choice for corrupt policemen and everyday business men as they made their way to the Chinese restaurant for lunch. It was the Australian Chinese restaurants equivalent to Cobra and Kingfisher in the UK curry house. Crown Lager (known colloquially as a "crownie") was originally brewed in 1919 as "Fosters Crown Lager" and was initially only available to visiting dignitaries that visited Australia. During the first royal visit of Queen Elizabeth II to Australia in 1954 Fosters marked the occasion releasing Crown Lager to the general Australian public . Crown lager is highly recognisable by its uniquely shaped bottle and by its 1954-trademarked logo that has only changed four times in the history of the beer and despite that its utter crap, remains one of Australia's most popular premium lagers. You can find more infor at the Fosters website here: http://fosters.com.au/enjoy/beer/crown_lager.htm

Fosters Lager 2

OK, I have blogged about Fosters before. It was way back in January which was one of my first posts on this blog. Since then nothing has changed, Fosters is still a bland cold wet beer sold and marketed as being Australian. So why did I decide to have a pint? The answer is because the pub looked dodgy. It was a hot day after work and I decided to grab a pint with a few colleagues. As our offices had recently relocated we have slowly been working our way around the local bars to get a feel for what is 'out there'. Deux Beers in Clerkenwell (just off Hatton Garden) was the venue. Upon walking into the bar I could tell the beer would be bad. Firstly the place was not exactly clean, secondly the two ales on pump were Black Sheep bitter and Greene King IPA. Now Green King IPA is a beer that doesnt move that fast. Black Sheep bitter is from Yorkshire and basically is not going to be fresh at the best of times, let alone on a week where the temp has averaged 20 degrees plus. So I went for teh cheap lager to cool me down and offer me refreshment. Meanwhile my fool hearty colleagues went for the ales and promplty returned them as they were off. Point made I enjoyed my Pint! Oh and Fosters have a new website! here

Fosters Lager

Ok, I won’t even bother to justify this one. Basically Fosters is a generic mega swill lager that tastes pretty much average. The only thing here that scores some points with me are that the brand identifies with Australia and that it was served by a guy with a keg on his back! (see the pic!)

This pint was consumed at the “Crusty Demons” unleashed tour and cost me £3.20 and came in a plastic cup and was dispensed from a guy with a keg on his back. The beer was luke warm, over carbonated and had a head on it that looked like an ice cream. Basically this beer is Pi$$.
On the other hand crusty demons were awesome and put on a really good show. I can’t believe how far freestyle mx has come and tricks that were impossible a few years ago such as backflips are common place now. Check out the video below!

Carlton Dry

Carlton Dry (4.5% abv) is the latest low carb offering from the Fosters group. It tends to follow the American formula of high carbonation and very little taste and is what most people would describe as a lawnmower beer (ie. a beer that is cold and wet and goes well after a morning of mowing the lawns!). This trend in Australian brewing towards low carb beer is a little concerning as several brands have jumped on the bandwagon producing bland flavourless liquid and pricing it marginally cheaper than existing products to gain following presumably before jacking the price up. It seems like its the cold filtered/ice trend all over again and that Carlton dry is the new carlton cold ( a terrible and equally poor beer). I guess as Tooheys Extra Dry's market share has risen to close to that of Tohheys New, Carlton and United breweries have jumped on the bandwagon with their own offering. I wont bore you too much with my rant, but you can check out what the marketers have to say here:http://www.fosters.com.au/enjoy/beer/carltondry.htm

And what is it with 355mL bottles? The accepted Australian standard for the size of a stubby is 375mL. 355mL is just plain ripping people off by 20mL or more than the equivalent of a whole beer over the course of a carton (24 beers). Shame. Shame. Shame....

Bank Holiday

I am back at work now after spending the bank holiday weekend in a lazy fashion. Luckily it is ticker Tuesday and I can fill you in on what I have been up too. On Friday evening I managed to get down the Roebuck in Chiswick for pint of Adnam's bitter (which was a little plain) and a pint of Erdinger. I decided to go for the proper real keg as I have yet to have a decent pint of ale there on cask. After this I enjoyed an awesome ribeye steak down the road at The High Street Brasserie. I am going to rave about this steak for a bit as it was pretty awesome. Probably over 400 grams worth with the marrowed bone still attached. I enjoyed it rare as all good steak must be enjoyed! (BTW I washed this down with two pints of Staropramen) I am a little bit ashamed with the after dinner activities which saw me drinking pints of Foster's lager in Belushi's at Hammersmith - a circus of a venue with maybe just a smidge more class than a Walkabout, but not much more. The Fosters was cold and refreshing though and certainly suited to the warm evening.

Saturday evening I nicked down the Parr's Head for a Thai feed and had an excellent pint of Hancocks HB, which tastes pretty similar to Fuller's London Pride (I had the two back to back and I couldn't discern between the two). After dinner I managed to crack open a bottle of T.E.A from the Hog's Back brewery. It was a little disappointing, but it did have a nice solid yeast cake which fell into my glass during pouring. The positive of the solidarity was that I could remove it easily with a spoon!

Sunday was another lazy day and I managed to read a whole book from cover to cover. I didn't end up drinking any beer at all, but did enjoy half of a very nice bottle of Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc at Gordon Ramsey's Boxwood Cafe. I highly recommend the Veal and Fois Gras burger which really is something special. The crispy pigs trotter entree I had was a little bit too oily and the gingerbread cheesecake I had for desert were a little bit disappointing but overall it's a good place to go for a meal if you are interested in eating in overpriced restaurants (as I am!).

I managed to get one beer in yesterday (Monday) which was freebie sent to me by Nicky who does PR for Marston's. This was Wychwood Beewyched (5% abv) which is a honey laced ale that has a soft honey aroma and avoids the excessive dryness that most braggot (beer brewed with honey) suffers from. I actually enjoyed this beer and would probably drink it again if I was forced to!

So maybe I didn't really get the most drinking out of the long weekendas I could have, but I needed a break and there is more to life than beer - OK well not much more.

Beamish Stout

After a leaving the Blarney area we decided to head into Cork to have a look around. Putting it bluntly, Cork is a little bit dull, very grey and not worth getting out of the car for! we headed down for the coast then and pulled into a little town with nothing but a caravan park and a pub called The Speckled Door. A quick glance over the taps at the bar showed all the usual suspects and one I had yet to come across - Beamish Stout. The initial taste is a dry, but hop laden stout - more in tune with a London porter than other Irish dry stouts and the beer is also more 'real' and not so 'creamy' even though the beer was dispensed through a nitrokeg system. Overall it is probably one of my favourite Irish stouts as it has a fresh, roasty, but still hoppy taste.

Beamish has been brewed in County Cork since 1792 and has produced their stout ever since. The brewery was acquired by Scottish and Newcastle earlier this year, and now produces Beamish Red, Fosters, Miller and Kronenbourg in addition to its flagship stout. Website: http://www.beamish.ie

CAMEL

In these troubling economic times people are looking to save on costs. Due to the success of consumer groups like CAMRA, pubs which have been serving cheap cooking lager for decades are being forced to replace their best sellers with quality real ale.

My observations have been that cheap lager still out sells real ale by about 10 pints to 1, and the low cost and high sales of these products in supermarkets is another testament to their popularity. This raises the question is CAMRA too powerful?

I will not raise the issue of beer and social class again, but generally it's accepted that whilst CAMRA insists that it represents the working class, it's members are on the whole middle class readers of the Daily Mail. CAMRA also has no interest in lager whatsoever, even if it is high quality lager such as Moravka. So who is going to protect the interests of the low income earners, and lager fans alike? My solution is a rival consumer group called;

CAMEL - Campaign for (Cheap) Economic Lager

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This group will lobby on behalf of Carling, Fosters and Carlsburg. It will aim to get Victoria Bitter and Tooheys New on tap in every pub in England. It will be bounded by no social class, or newspaper! Readers of The Sun and News of the World will be most welcomed, and Jeremy Clarkson has agreed to be our president.

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I think the motto will be "A man's not a CAMEL".
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This post is not intended to be serious and is purely fiction, but I guess most people could tell that.

Canterbury Jack

I have not tried this beer, but was drawn to make comment on it by an advertisement on the back of a recent CAMRA publication. Who is this beer marketed at?
Taking the ad at face value it could be assumed that it is being marketed as a chav beer. Two old geezers dressed up in very chav hoodie get up with two (chav) dogs that would not be out of place on any estate. So by placing this ad on the back of a CAMRA publication which is 'very' middle class are they inadvertently saying 'drink this beer and you can be a chav too?' Sounds very appealing to my middle class sensibilities - NOT

I really just don't get it. To further make the beer appear to be more chav like (my observations over the last few years have noted that cheap lager and cider are the beverages of choice for chavs), they describe the beer as "Lighter in Alcohol and colour, with a dry citrus flavour. It's ale that's like well wicked, innit". They could be describing cheap lager (like Fosters Citrus Twist).

Why don't they just advertise how the beer tastes: "Shepherd Neame - common as muck"

Bavaria Holland

It was warm over the weekend. I was thirsty and my stingy Australian ways got the better of me again. As per usual I was in Tesco picking up a few bits and pieces (the story of my life it seems) when I spotted what looked a little to good to be true. Six bottles of Bavaria (5% abv) for a whole £2. Bargain! I picked up the six pack and threw it into the basket thinking I was getting some choice German lager dirt cheap. That was the first mistake - upon getting home I realise that the beer is actually made in Holland. Alarm bells start going off in my mind, something was amiss. I put these thoughts behind me as I read the label. The beer is the second most recognised brand in Holland (I assume Heineken is #1). I'm thinking to myself, the Dutch make good beer it can't be too bad...... an hour later the beer is chilled, I pop off the cap and all my fears are realised. The beer is rubbish! To make matters worse, according to the label the brewery has been in production for close to three hundred years, surely enough to learn how to make a decent beer! I dont really see the point of any brewery making ordinary beer for export to the UK when there are already plenty of crap beers available. Surely brewing something nice would actually lead to return sales and maximise profits??
Ok, maybe I am being a little harsh. The beer was ok by generic lager standards, I just think I was in the mindset of comparing it to a nice Bavarian Pilsner or Helles. If you see the beer for what it is, cheap lager it's actually not to bad. It was a warm day and it went down rather nicely!
But the point I am trying to make is that a can of Fosters or Carling would also acive the same thing for around the same price. Overall this beer falls somewhere between regular cheap beer and Biere Speciale (another cheap import) Website: http://www.bavaria.com/

Heineken

Ok I have to apologise for another sub standard Euro Lager! Again this one was a gift from our house guests and it would be rude of me not to indulge! This can came in a wifebeating 500mL!
Heineken is a mass produced Dutch euro-lager mega swill that comes in a green can. Every person who has been exposed to any form of advertising will know the brand and along with Fosters and Budweiser is probably the world’s most famous beer brand.
The brewery describes their lager as:

100% Barley malt, choice hops and pure water give this brew unsurpassed clarity.

Which is more than a little surprising?
Here are what some other punters have to say!

This beer reminds of the crowd at a sporting event... "Over rated, over rated..." OK beer at best, not so OK when you consider the price. Terrible aftertaste, reminiscent of Coors Light

And

Everyone knows this one, and in the bottles it tastes too apple-ish and light - not to mention its easy to look like a DB with it in front of you. However, I had it on tap for the first time due to a tasty price and I was pleasantly surprised. Still pretty watery, but highly drinkable.

And

From the bottle. Really nasty beer. Clear urine color. No real aroma. Tastes very bitter but yet with no real flavor to back it up. Not much to say about it, its just bad. I’d rather drink Michelob Ultra to be honest....

I could continue but I have already made my point!

San Miguel

Again another Barcelona beer! I did try and get through a few…
San Miguel is the Spanish mega swill and is often sold on the international market as a premium beer. The beer is ok, if not a little unremarkable and as a lot of lagers tend to be: Very Bland!
This one did the trick though and got me a little bit more lubricated so I could get stuck into things a bit more why eating my Paela!
I haven’t really got a lot to say about this one – it doesn’t even have an offensive name! Anyhow what kind of trip to Spain would it have been if I didn't sample this beer (even though it is Spains answer to Carling and Fosters).

Becks Vier

Later in the week after the Ealing Beer Festival I was in my local, The Old Parrs Head W14 for dinner (they have an excellent Thai kitchen) when I noticed a new addition to the draught beer selection - Beck's Vier (4.0% abv) (named after German for four). Now come the question - What is the difference between Becks Vier and just regular ordinary Becks? Apparently from the label 1% abv, however upon tasting I noticed that the beer is a lot softer than standard becks with a more hoppy fresher taste.
Apparently Vier was initially tried as a lower alcohol alternative in 50 pubs and bars across the UK and was a roaring success. This led to a UK wide release in April 2006 in both draught and can forms. The launch was backed by a massive £4 million marketing campaign promoting the beer as a 'premium' or top shelf alternative to standard lagers such as Fosters and Carling. The advertising claims that Vier has the same colour and taste as the original, but with a lower alcohol level to appeal to UK session drinkers.
Overall I found the beer to be acceptable however slightly flat, but still leagues ahead of the usual suspects available. I think it will be interesting to see how the Vier brand fairs against its competition! Website: http://www.becks.co.uk

Oakham Ales Bishops Farewell

After leaving The Bridge House, we decided to ditch the Maida Vale and Canalside walk and head around past Sheldon Square, through Paddington to The Victoria. From there we could pick up the around Hyde Park walk. Anyhow we made it to The Victoria no dramas. The beer festival was still running and the most sensible option seemed to be Bishop's Farewell (4.6% abv) from Oakham Ales. Two Oakham beers in two days!

Anyhow the Bishop's Farewell was in very good condition. It's a pale fruity bitter with spicy hop character and was smashed down quite rapidly. At this stage we considered dumping the pub crawl and heading out to the Guy Fawkes display at Alexander Palace - which was supposed to have a German Beer Festival going on. A quick call on my handy to Rich (who was there) and the idea was off. The beer festival was a few trestle tables and a keg of Paulaner which is kind of lame. And it was pissing down raining. We decided to move on and try and find The Archery Tavern the next stop on our crawl, but after a good 15 minutes of searching we discovered that it had closed down and a pretentious French restaurant now stands in its skeleton. Faced with a serious thirst and with the gates at Hyde Park being locked, we decided to cut crawls again and head towards Edgeware Rd and pick up the Marylebone walk. A ten minute walk saw us in The Wargrave Arms - a dive of a Young's pub. We had a pint of ordinary there. Then headed to a BYO Persian restaurant just around the corner for a recharge. A couple of pint bottles of Budvar sorted us out with our special bread, hummus and lamb koftis with rice. This place got pretty busy as we went to leave and some ethnic looking guy tried to pick a fight with me as I was walking out. Luckily for the other guy, Chris noticed what was happening and pulled me away and said that beer was more important - which it was! We walked down a street a bit to the next pub from the book - The Windsor Castle. A quick look around this odd pub and we walked out again. It is full of collectibles and was patronised by weird looking locals - not my bag to drink with a bunch of stamp collectors. We powered on through to the next pub which was The Beehive. This place was a little scary too, although I managed to have a pint of past its best TT Landlord. There were a bunch of soccer lads drinking Fosters at the bar - and a Polish girl behind the bar who was making me feel increasingly more uncomfortable by giving me the seductive eye. We walked on to the next pub which the name of escapes me - it had been converted into a Gastro anyway so we gave it a miss. Powering through the rest of the walk the rest of the pubs had either closed down or were closed for the night. Slightly disappointing, but I guess that life!

Oakham website

Fullers Honeydew

Every now and then Mrs CB likes to pop into a cocktail bar for a sugar/spirit inspired swill. Being the nice husband I am, I always accommodate these requests as she more than puts up with - quote "old man pubs". One such establishment Vesbar is like an oasis of uber coolness in the desert of crap that is Goldhawk Road W12. After sorting out the Mrs with her drink I browsed down the taps looking for an at least half acceptable beer. The usual suspects are there, Carling, Fosters, Stella, Guinness, then there are some slightly more interesting options Fruli, Leffe and Fullers Organic HoneyDew. I opted to go for the Fullers as well basically Strawberries have no place in beer (really they don't) and Leffe sold draught in the UK tastes like sucking on a clove.

To be honest Honeydew (5% abv) is not really much better. The beer is served at lager temps and is sickly sweet. I am assuming that they make a nice pale coloured bitterless ale and then pasteurize the beer, add some honey and then send it out to the great unwashed. The beer is pretty bland besides its cloying sweetness, however I am glad that they don't ferment the honey as braggot (fermented wort and honey) is just a massive excuse for a hangover. Fullers have also adapted the additional marketing ploy of offering this beer with "Ice and a Slice" to compete with the success of Irish style ciders - a trend I was offered when ordering a pint of Discovery earlier in the year. Anyhow, you can read Fullers marketing material here.

Batemans XB Best Bitter

I squeezed into the newly refurbished Old Fire Station on Saturday evening before heading out to dinner with some friends. This is more of a bar than a pub and claims to have the best international beer selection in Hammersmith. I am not going to dispute this, but having megaswill from all corners of the globe is not really what I had in mind! Pre-refurb they used to have Warsteiner (Germany) and Steinlager (Kiwiland) on draught, but now they have Amstel, Heineken, Sagres and Fosters! The only ale they had on was Batemans XB Best Bitter (3.7% abv) which is a fairly standard best bitter that is really nothing to get excited about. I probably should not have ordered the bitter, as a quick look around revealed a predominately cheap lager loving clientèle. But as luck has it, the Polish guy behind the bar had to duck downstairs and put a new barrel on! So at least the beer was fresh and was actually in good condition. The beer is a deep copper colour and is dry, but moderately hoppy. It tastes a little boring, kind of like Young's ordinary did before they moved production. I probably wouldn't order it again, and I probably will not be heading back to the Old Fire Station in a hurry! Website

Penny Black Porter

Penny Black is a 4.5% abv porter from the Hampshire Brewery, which I suppose is in Hampshire! This was the first hand pulled beer (besides the fosters, but that doesn’t count!) I have had this year and I drank it at “The Willow Walk” near Victoria train station. The beer was exceptionally tasty; however it wasn’t as robust as say a Fuller’s London porter but still exceeded itself in what has become one of my favourite beer styles. It was however a really smooth beer and definitely a good session ale that I could not find much information on. This is from the Hampshire brewery website;

Penny Black Porter
4.5% abv
Mellow and enticing aroma of black and
roasted malts, balanced by a clean bitterness and smooth full palate.
Available: December, January and February

The pub itself was nothing to comment on and was nothing more than a glorified drinking factory, but that is what you expect when you give your patronage to a J.D Wetherspoons tied house. One thing that ’spoons pubs do have going for them though is (a) they are really cheap, and (b) they have a good variety of regional ales. I lucked out last night and had a relatively fresh pint but I have had some very dodgy pints in my time from ‘spoons pubs.
The reason I was near Victoria station was that I went to see the London West End production of “Wicked” with our house guests. The production was ok as far as musicals go, so you may want to check it out.

Marstons Pedigree

Ok, Ok, I may have sunk to new lows! This beer was terrible, and I knew it would be before I ordered this pint and the only saving grace was that it was included with the Curry I bought with it!
Where: is the Shakespeares Head (JD Weatherspoons tied house) on the Kingsway near Holborn tube station. What: Curry Club on Thursday nights and; Why: is because we (Rich and I) were damn hungry and needed a cheap feed before finding a nice pub to have a few “good” pints. Pedigree (4.5% abv) is a special bitter from Burton on Trent and beers from this region especially the IPA’s are awesome beers due to the water conditions. This is due to the hardness of the water in the area which allows really bitter beer to taste really good. For some reason, Pedigree is a good beer close to home – or so I hear, but for some reason it does not seem to travel well, especially to London and especially to JD Weatherspoons tied houses. Let me say that I finished the beer, and let me say next time I go to curry club I will probably have a Fosters! BTW I have had Pedigree in a bottle and it is ok, its just the casks that do not seem to travel.
Here is some independent stuff I found on the web about Marstons Pedigree;

Marston's have recently completed a £1M expansion at their brewery in Burton - this means that more of their beer can be brewed in the now famous Burton Union Sets. The hard Burton water helps to make this fine bitter world famous. Pedigree is a pleasing session pint. The primary aroma is of the Maris Otter malt, with a characteristic sulphurous, eggy hint, though this is less noticeable than in the draught version. The Fuggles and Goldings hops push through powerfully in the flavour and last well into the finish. The flavour is not overpowering, however, and is tempered by a hint of syrupy sweetness, lending a richness to the brew. This is a good session bottle, but make sure you try the draught version too.