I just got off the phone with a friend. âWhat do you count as an Australian beer?â I asked him. âAnything, but itâs gotta be coldâ came the reply without a moment’s hesitation. So there you have it folks, straight from source.
Itâs no secret that Australians love drinking beer. Bring to mind any quintessential Australian scene, i.e friends around a barbecue, surfing in the sunshine, backyard cricket, and youâd be hard pressed not to add beer into the setting. So why do Australians love beer so much? And what actually counts as Australian beer?
But how did it get here?
Beer came to Australia at the same time as Captain Cook. Brought over on the first fleet, beer reached our shore and thereâs been no looking back. It was first promoted as a healthy alternative to the rum the convict hooligans were quite fond of guzzling (is it just me or does anyone else have the term âsome things never changeâ spring to mind).
Fast forward to present day, and you will find beer making up 48% of alcohol consumed in Australia, followed by wine at 29% and spirits at 21%.
Beers for here
Australia is a big country. Even in our present day it can seem daunting to attempt to travel the 5000kms from east to west, and thatâs aided by our modern modes of transport. So rewind to early settlement dates and it would have seemed near impossible.
This induced a sense of âlocalismâ, with people establishing relationships with the only beers they could access, beers brewed in their local region.
Think Western Australiaâs love affair with Emu Export, South Australiaâs partnership with Coopers, Victorians fiercely proud of their VB, and Byron Bay residents of New South Wales not batting an eyelid as they pledge their allegiance to Stone and Wood.
Whatâs the magic ingredient?
James Squire successfully cultivated the first crop of hops in 1804. Since then Australia has moved forward in leaps and bounds, producing many of the ingredients needed to make the delicious beverage so many of us enjoy today.
An Australian beer doesnât need to have all ingredients produced in Australia. Many breweries make the most of globalisation and source different hops and malts from around the world, aiding in creating vastly different flavours and styles.
Contextual Cerveza
Australian Beer is, quite simply, beer made and enjoyed in Australia. It gets hot here. As a generalisation we tend to spend a lot of time in the sun. We donât ask for much when it comes to good beer. Give us something cold, something thirst quenching and easy drinking, and you can be pretty assured that youâve jumped through the necessary hops⌠I mean hoops. See what I did there.
Australianâs love beer that fits in with their culture. Pale ales and the beach compliment each other like fish does chips. Mid strength lagers fit perfectly into the Sunny Queensland scene, easy like a Sunday morning picnic.
We canât not speak about the Friday- arvo-knock-off beer. A category all of itâs own, the Friday-arvo-knock-off beer is epitome of Australian beer. Flavour, colour, percentage, are irrelevant factors.
What constitutes a Friday-arvo-knock-off beer is a beer drunk whilst savouring the anticipation in the air of the impending weekend, of good times spent with friends in the sunshine.
Beers that are brewed with a lighthearted Australian lifestyle in mind are the beers that Australians love.
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