What's YOUR favourite beer?

[MattyD]

[Tannin]

Great beers evolve over time and become popular because they combine a particular set of ingredients in a particular way. Then the company sells the name and the recipe to some other company, but two things change:

1: the ingredients are never quite the same. The local brewer will be getting a different variety of hops, or barley grown in a cooler climate or on different soil or with a longer growing season ..... any of dozens of different things that change the flavour. Here in Ballarat when I worked for CUB, we made Carlton Draught for sale on-tap in western Victoria. The experts there swore blind that the CD we brewed in Ballarat was noticably better than the CD coming out of Abbotsford, even though it was brewed using the exact same ingredients (bulk buy for both breweries - same farms, same everything) and very similar equipment in the exact same way. I'm not entirely sure that my opinion is too useful (I'm not a big drinker) but they were the experts and I believed them. The beer was different. The reason? Different water.

2: the local marketing scumbags fiddle with the recipe to make it "more suitable for the local market" - i.e., more like whatever swill it is that the locals usually drink. This is why US brewed under licence Fosters is so bad - they changed the recipe to make it taste more like American beer. (As if Fosters isn't a poor enough beer already!)

PS: we made Carlton Draft in Ballarat, but the Ballarat Bitter was brewed in Melbourne. Go figure!

[tcnthat]

Boags premium if I am In Oz, Heineken if I am OS. But that said I am partial to beer and will go for almost any port in a storm. (no pun intended)

[ronrat]

Beer Lao
Chang
Singha Light
Bintang
Cascade Light
Tiger Lite
Tiger


and most beers with a Czech history. Polish beers can be ok as are german and some Belgian.

The James Squires and Little Creatures stuff is ok as well.

[watt price tully]

I rarely drink these days however:

Use to love VB but find it too acidic these days.

Asian beers - I like Asanti or ashanti or something like that

I had another Japanese beer I can't recall the name of (but cost a fortune when I was paying for my daughters 20th a while back for a group of us & her boyfriend kept ordering these - mind you when he builds me the wood fired oven in the backyard all will be forgiven)!!

Carona

I've got a bottle of Blue Tongue beer in the fridge for the last few months that I should try - mate says it's good!

[pietillidie]

^Was that Japanese beer Suntory Premium?

[pietillidie]

[5150]

[stoliboy]

Coopers: Pale Ale and Sparkling
Carlsberg
Tuborg
Kronenberg
Bruges Zot
Palm
Kwak
Tsingtao
Tiger
Halida
Beer Lao
VB

[luvdids]

When I do drink beer, it's usually Carlton Draught. If I'm out and that's not available, I'll generally have Stella Artois (I think mainly because I then go on with the "stelllla stellllla" from seinfeld!) but there's been no love for Stella??

[HAL]

How does it taste?

[tcnthat]

[punkologist]

[punkologist]

I have quite a few favourites, it varies depending on my mood or the weather or what is available.

I will only drink VB or Carlton draft as an absolute last resort when there is nothing else available. Terrible, terrible beer.

Lately I have been into:
Mountain Goat Steam Ale
James Squire pale ale or golden ale.
Mornington Peninsula amber ale
Fat Yak (available in more places than the above)
Little Creatures
Mclaren Vale Ale
Tiger beer is a favourite too, especially when I'm in Asia.

[punkologist]