Answers for Aaron

I met another beer guy in the restaurant on the weekend and he had an enquiry about a Mexican beer called Mexican Bohemia. I hadn’t heard of it and so I promised that I would set my dogs on to it and chase down the details. More than that, I promised that I would get word out to my American blog mates and see if I could get the REAL scoop on this brew. Isn’t the internet thingy great!?!

The source and supplier websites all talk about what a highly sought after and multi-award winning beer Mexican Bohemia is and I never expected anything other than that and so we shall move on. A few beer blogger sites have some glowing remarks to recommend it and others tell me which beers they prefer to this one.

All the comments seem to suggest that the beers best feature is its ‘European-ness’ and the fact that it has been around for a hundred years. Apparently imported into Australia since at least January 08, it has been available only in Mexican restaurants and occasionally through some retailers. I imagine most have steered clear due to the saturation of the Mex beer market by Corona and Sol and, more recently, by Dos Equis.

So the cry for help goes out to my North American bretheren – and any Mexicans who may have stumbled across the worldwide beery phenomenon that is Beer Blokes. What is the true story of his fabled brew? Who drinks it and when?

Thanks for your interest, Aaron. The beer world is getting smaller and smaller and the answers should come in shortly. Otherwise we’ll both have to go with company line that it is a truly international standard Pilsner style but ‘rich in hops and corn’ and ‘a delight to drink’.

Cheers,
Prof. Pilsner

Beer-trothal

I had a comment posted a week back seeking counsel on an important and delicate issue;

Dear Professor,

I’m getting married next month and I must choose between having Beck’s or James Boag’s Premium as the wedding beer.

Any thoughts?

Thank You, Jason the Architect.

Jason is both blessed and cursed in the same way that many of his predecessors were sublimely oblivious. Going back ten and twenty years when most of our crew were getting hitched, not only were we not given a choice but we didn’t realise that there was a choice. Well, apart from one.

At a wedding you had VB as the table beer in 750ml longnecks and the bridal party had Crown Lagers – sorry, Crownies – during the photo session and in the back room while the guests were being seated. We never drank anything much other than VB and that was just the way it was.

Today the bride and groom are more likely to be offered a choice but for many the choice will be ‘Boring Mainstream Lager A’ or ‘Boring Mainstream Lager B’ or, in Jason’s case ‘Mainstream Lager A’ or ‘Mainstream Lager But Imported A’.

It got me to thinking about what factors come into play when choosing a beer and what that choice says about you and and how you feel about your guests. I suggested to Jason that careful consideration needed to be given as to what your choice of beer says to your guests about what you think of them. So many guests today will be armed with the knowledge that there is more to beer than standard golden mainstream lagers and who know that there is not really a difference between Carlton Draught and Toohey’s New other than the state of origin.

The reality is that most guests will not see a mainstream beer on their table as a slight by you, but that would not have made for a very interesting post, so let’s just pretend that they will all assume that they have offended your family name if they were to be served Carlton Cold. By the way, please, please, please don’t serve Carlton Cold. Even as a joke.

So what does Beck’s ‘say’ to your guests and what is Mr Boag’s reply? The import probably hints at certain perceived levels of quality. Plus, every man and his dog have seen their series of TV advertisements on high rotation lately and will at least know the brand, unlike the wedding guests of a decade back. (That’s a rather sad realisation isn’t it?)

The Beck’s beer with its precision German engineering and inoffensive profile suggests that; “Your company on our special day is thought of highly, we value your friendship and trust you all enough that you will not buy us cheap and shitty gifts from shops whose names end in ‘R US’ or ‘A-RAMA’, that this is our special day and we choose to share it with you even if we think your partner is a bit dodgy and we are betting your relationship won’t see Christmas and that we wish for you to be a part of our lives when we are married”.

James Boag’s Premium Lager is a local version, clean and crisp, easy drinking without being bland – interesting enough to be enjoyable to those with a bit of beer nous but not too ‘boutique’ to make the semi-bogans wish they’d smuggled in some VBs under the corduroy sports jacket that they consider falls well within the definition of ‘Lounge Suit’. It says pretty much exactly the same as what the Beck’s says, but says ‘mate’ at the end.

Cheers,
Prof. Pilsner

Buying Beer

Swords Select

In my travels I always try to buy some beer. Why not? So it seems only fair that, in the course of writing this beer based blog, that I pass on some of the things that I learn along the way. And so to a trip to the market to buy some beer.

I know that most people go to the market to buy fresh fruit and veg, or to haggle over some prawns or a lamb chop – I know I love to – or to buy some eco-friendly hippie footwear or a budgie but you can also pick up some good beer in some markets. I discovered this quite recently when the bro’ in law introduced me to an erstwhile unknown corner of Melbourne’s Queen Victoria Market. Unknown to me, that is. Mrs Pilsner had been working in the city until recently and walked to the market once every week for four years and never told me about this stall!!

I’ll deal with her later.

The stall at the iconic ‘Queen Vic’ is Swords Select and a cosier, more inviting and well stocked purveyor of craft and international beers you could not hope to find. Local small, independent breweries from Victoria as well as interstate are all given the shelf space and the product knowledge that they deserve and which they sadly miss at the main liquor retailers and the best of the ‘weird and wonderful’ from around the globe are all on show as well.

Swords Select is an environmentally friendly retailer. “Pardon, a what?” I hear you ask. They specialise in one litre, reusable and refundable glass swing top bottles. Buy the wine you like and return the bottle for refilling. Three bucks back to you and the earth gets a helping hand as well. They’ll even serve you if you DON’T wear hippie sandals. But the beer selection is what really caught my eye. I didn’t even realise that they sold wine until I jumped on to their website. Good website, too. Here’s how to get there. Swords select

Plenty of different breweries are represented and a beer each week is available to sample. Sometimes they’ll let you have a sample even if you say that you’ve already had it before and you know what it tastes like. Or maybe that’s just because I’m nice. The environmental-friendliness continues with the provision of reserved six-pack boxes so that you can take your booty home and not kill the dolphins. Plus it encourages you to buy six at a time. I usually get two six-packs so that one of my arms doesn’t end up longer than the other.

It also has the added bonus of giving me some beers that I would not normally be able to get and then tell you lot all about them. While picking up some ‘specials’ last Sunday, I got talking to Mary at Swords about the drawbacks of beer reviews. We both agreed that they just don’t really nail the guts of the beer they review because it is near impossible to convey the conviviality – the occasion, the friends, the timing and the ‘special something’ that can turn a beer into an experience.

In future posts, I will attempt to redress this issue and right some wrongs. I will also even up some scores with reviewers who have talked me into racing out for something that was not only disappointing, but nothing like what was promised. My reviews will be more like ‘road tests’ rather than recommendations. Look out for them – you can’t miss them, there the ones with pictures of boobies scattered amongst the wordy bits.

If you get the chance, get to Swords Select, tell them you read about them on Beer Blokes and treat yourself to some friendly, knowledgeable and value for money advice and some really good beers.

Cheers,
Prof. Pilsner

The Media the Beer and the Bullshit –Part One

Hopping Mad

My interest was pricked by the promo for A Current Affair to be aired in Melbourne that Wednesday night. The all-too-serious voice over boomed out a warning to potential viewers that the show would expose the most heinous of corporate crimes, a well organised and overtly dishonest campaign aimed at misleading and ripping off the consumer. Bring it on, I says.

The bit that made me take notice was the self righteous condemnation of the evil doers responsible for this latest big business scam- the beer brewers – ripping off the poor old average aussie working-and-drinking average man. And how were they conning the drinker, you ask? Well, here’s the bit that really paled my ale.

I watched and waited to hear the apparently damning evidence against the breweries. ‘Hopping Mad’ was the headline – at least they are edu-ma-cated enough to research that hops are an ingredient of beer. This made their witty pun all the more attention grabbing. You see, it appears, according to A Current Affair, that those nasty money grubbing liars down at Foster’s and Lion Nathan – that’s Carlton and Toohey’s – are tricking the drinker into paying top dollar for IMPORTED BEERS that are really made HERE IN AUSTRALIA! (Cue dramatic music) DAH – DAH – DAH – DAHH!!!

Now I don’t think that I am an especially smart sort of bloke, and I don’t have any inside brewing information that the average bloke doesn’t have access to, but I knew that many ‘international‘ beers have been brewed under licence in many countries for about ten years. I just assumed that everyone else knew it, too. The report featured sound grabs from ’average’ drinkin’ blokes standing around the barbie and in the pub. I tell you, average is a generous label. These plonkers were dumber than a bag full of hammers. A Current Affair must have had a shed full of leftovers from the last dole bludger expose.

For a start, I can’t imagine any of these mental microbes being able to spell UK, let alone know of, or drink beer from there. They looked like VB and XXXX kind of guys. And I reckon that they might have struggled to spell those, too. But let’s give them a break and pretend that they have actually ever bought a Stella Artois or a Beck’s or a Guinness, a Kingfisher or a Carlsberg.

The first complaint against Big Brewer was that he was pretending that these beers were imported. But were they really being deceptive? The bit on the label that says Made Under Licence; right next to the bit that says MADE IN AUSTRALIA. Wasn’t that just a bit of a give away? "There it is in the FINE print", said the earnest reporter, as if there should be a law that states the country of origin must be in bold font at least twice the size of the brand name. "They’re trying to fool us", said Braniac #3. That wouldn’t be a three point play. On and on these whingers went, lamenting the fact that we are led to believe that "they’re from Europe", plodded Dufus #2. "They taste watery, like they’ve been topped up." What!?

Complaining about the brewers 'charging full import prices for stuff made with Sydney water’ these people need to ‘do a Kylie’ and take a step back in time. The primary reason that international beers like those listed above are being advertised, marketed and sold to Australian drinkers is that the licence brewing has made them cheaper!* Fair dinkum, how about complaining about the fact that you have to fork out the best part of forty bucks for a slab of VB! It’s VB, people! Or close to sixty dollars for Corona! CORONA! It’s Mexican for snake’s water! Wake up.

‘Ads say that these beers are from Europe etc, etc ‘, the reporter continued. No, they don’t. They say that they are European beers. Do we really believe that Lebanese cucumbers can only come from Lebanon? Does Chinese five spice become Wyong five spice if it is made by Masterfoods in NSW? Brewers have developed the technology to produce beer to almost the same taste using local water and highly developed yeast strains so that a Beck’s brewed in Pyrmont, NSW is a pretty good copy of the Beck’s brewed in Bremen, Germany. I stress that this is not always the case, but how many drinkers could honestly say they can taste the difference anyway?

Will ACA now run a similar story telling the Brits that Foster’s Lager has been brewed in Great Britain since around 1980 – no, they won’t, because CUB at the time spent a kabillion dollars and twenty cents on equipment to filter and adjust the water so that Foster’s tastes just like the one at home and took a yeast sample handcuffed to the executives wrist on the plane over there so that the strain would be pure and genuine. And because the poms know that the stuff is brewed over there, too. And they don’t care because it is cheaper than it was when it was shipped from Aus.

And let’s see if next week ACA can expose the fact that the Australian drinker forks over a ton of tax for every slab that he carries home – and we’re still better off than many European countries in this regard. In the mean time run some stories about all the blokes and blokettes who drink beer and DON’T drive home and DON’T beat their kids or who CAN find and keep a job and stop creating stories – in particular, anti beer stories – for the benefit of the four people who can’t exercise basic compulsion control or who don’t know how to read a beer label or who can’t remember how much imported beer used to cost? Hmmm?

*I am researching the price movements of local and imported beers over the past decade – vey slack of me to go in with all guns blazing and not be fully armed – but what the hey?