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Tasty Little Creature

Posted on: Tuesday, 22 November 2005, 15:00 CST

By HOLLOWAY, Bruce

AUSTRALIA brews something like 1.3 billion litres of beer a year.

Most of it is every bit as ordinary as our own mainstream industrial beer, but there is the odd gem which takes you completely by surprise.

If you don't mind paying an arm and a leg, one of the best transtasman efforts around is Little Creatures Pale Ale, from a small independent brewery of the same name in Freemantle.

Lion Nathan has recently begun marketing Little Creatures Pale Ale here, quality-wise it's up there with the Coopers and Malt Shovel Brewery range.

Unfortunately, at $18.99 a six pack it's almost cheaper to fly to Western Australia for a sample than buy it here, but if you appreciate good beer, it's worth a punt at the Hamilton Wine Company.

The beer is cloudy gold, aromatic (jasmine) with good bitterness, not too heavily carbonated and has strong fruity esters (compounds) that give more than a hint of grapefruit. Its character is primarily driven by the use of fresh whole hop flowers containing the oils and acids which add to the beer's flavour experience. The beer is bottle conditioned (live yeast are present in the bottle) rather than pasteurised, and this is where the name comes from. "Little creatures" are the yeast, though there is not enough of it to frighten timid drinkers.

Not a beer for everyone, though anybody who reads this far down is likely to enjoy it.

Late last year, Little Creatures' Pale Ale was named Beer of the Year by the British Broadcasting Corporation's Good Food magazine. New Zealand is the beer's second export market.

* On top pale ales, be sure to try Obsession, the latest hop explosion on the guest tap at the Cock & Bull.

It marks the 10th anniversary of the chain.

* You may have spotted the news item last week where a German company has come up with a novel way of beating bans on smoking in pubs.

It has put the nicotine in the beer, with its NicoShot lager containing 6.3 per cent alcohol -- and 3mg of nicotine alkaloids per 250ml can.

Marketers describe the beer as having "cigarette satisfaction in a beer without the smoke".

It sounds ideal for the smoking recidivists who like to hang out at Kelly Browne's Bar in Cambridge.

The drink is a nicotine replacement therapy similar to nicotine gum, which can relieve smokers' cravings while they quit cigarettes, with three cans the equivalent of a smoking packet of cigarettes.

But here's one unanswered question: if the head gives off a nicotine vapour, would it be in breach of our smokefree laws?

* In one of the most surprising beer advertising campaigns ever, US brewer Anheuser Busch recently appealed to drinkers on the basis its new Budweiser Select has no aftertaste.

It's hard to disagree with the claim. But it speaks volumes about international beer marketing that the company believes telling people its beer has less taste will encourage them to drink it.

Source: Waikato Times

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