A Crown Lager used to be enough to make the bogan look sophisticated. The “golden microphone” was in the right hand whenever a birthday speech, awards speech, or other special occasion occurred. Crown was first released to the Australian public to commemorate the Queen’s visit in 1954, allowing the bogan’s ancestors to seem more classy for Her Highness. But globalisation (and, perhaps, republicanism) has meant that the new bogan needs more. It now wants to communicate its national sophistication by drinking beers from other countries.
Initially, the two main local brewers (Foster’s and Lion Nathan) were fearful. If the new bogan didn’t want to drink local beers as much, how would they make money? After much hand-wringing and whiteboard scribbling, an answer appeared. The approach was made: “Dear European brewery, can we please get permission to make beer in Australia, pay you so we can put your label on it, and sell it to our bogans?” If the price was right, the answer was often “Yes”. Or “Ja!”, as it were.
And so it happened. Soon the shelves of the local bottle shop were seeing more Carlsberg, Beck’s, Stella Artois, and Heineken than ever before. And cheaper than it previously was, too. Now the new bogan could get his hands on a slab of European beer for under $45, and gain all of the credibility that a slender green bottle could confer. New bogan males wanted to be him, bogan females wanted to be with him. One night he was trying to pick up at a backpackers bar, and his international style caught the eye of a German girl. He bought her a stylish beer, which she spat out on the first sip, exclaiming “Zis is not Beck’s!” Correct analysis, Gretchen, the primary thing it has in common with the original product is the logo. The bogan looked at Gretchen quizzically, wondering whether she was having trouble reading the English alphabet.
Meanwhile, Foster’s and Lion Nathan were laughing all the way to the bank. European beers were generally sold in 330ml bottles instead of the Aussie standard 375ml. This effectively meant that they’d moved from selling 375ml slabs of locally made beer for $35, to selling 330ml slabs of locally made beer for $45. The licence fees only took up a small slice of this massive bogan windfall. But the new bogan is blissfully happy. He is now a man of the world, even when not wearing his Bintang singlet.
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Remember when Heineken was available in a 500ml can? The Bogan stars has aligned…
Bogans are also often found in “Irish” pubs, being delighted to find the English barman has used the tap dribbles to form a shamrock in the top of their Guinness. This makes the bogan feel more authentically Irish, ignoring the fact that an English barman attempting the same touch in Ireland would be met with a Belfast kiss.
(Bogan One, feel free to tee off on the bogan’s love of theme pubs, though it is perhaps not what it was in the late 90s.)
Is it un-Australian to suggest the drinking beer from the bottle is a bogan trait? And the little wetsuits?
They are all shit beers anyway. Asahi is a big hit in the pseudo-metro establishments of cronulla. We can’t forget the sophistication one acquires with drinking “boutique” beers such as Bondi Blonde, Blue Tongue, Redback, Beez Neez (actually quite nice) and so on.
I had to laugh at a mate who bought a case of Monteiths to a backyard BBQ and talked it up all night, not realising it is one of ( in my opinion) the worst beers available from NZ.
Agreed Lee. Beez Neez is a fine drop.
The ultimate bogan party accessory these days must be the Heineken barrels.
Yeah since they stopped making them in tooheys new.
Never tried the tooheys New Kegs. I am sure it would shit all over the Majority of 5 litres that are available.
Actually, the Heineken Kegs still use beer brewed in The Netherlands.
It depends. Of the various bottle shops I’ve been in to, I’ve seen some selling the Heineken Kegs brewed on licence in Melbourne, and fewer selling the actual import kegs from the Netherlands.
Look carefully at the keg. An import will have the tell-tale white sticker of the importer (and is most likely labelled in Dutch).
I used to think I hated wheat beer. Turns out it was just because all I’d tried was Redback and Beez Neez. Eventually I tried a German unfiltered wheat beer. Now I make my own, because the prices for imported product from Germany are an insult (how does a markup of several hundred percent sound?)
Speaking of which, is there a TBL for calling oneself a “home brewer” but never using anything other than a Tooheys premix kit and a bag of sugar to push the alcohol?
I bought a six pack of Monteiths last night from a really nice beers store in Brisbane. They normally only stock actually good and international beers… Lee, you’re right. It ain’t great. Drinkable, yes. But so is XXXX Gold when it’s freezing on a hot day. So that’s not saying much.
Drinkable, yes but nearly any beer is! Even XXXX!
I have spent a lot of time in In Zid, and undertook a lot of painstaking research to find the beer for me when Im there and it turns out to be Speights Gold with Tui a close second.
Stick with VB Lee stands for Very Best
Sorry mate, I got converted to carlton draught a couple of years ago after being a devoutly religious VB drinker for 13 years. Only gives me half the hangover VB did!
When I used to travel to Melbourne for work, we used to stay in a little pub / motel on barkly st (brunswick?) and I was ever amused that this pub and its neighbouring pubs didn’t sell VB on tap!
Wow. Picking Carlton over VB is like choosing chlamydia over crabs; they’re both awful! And, for those who don’t know, Carlton and VB are in fact the same product ’till just before packaging, when a slightly different amount of caramel colourant and hop-extract is added to “differentiate”. Thinking there is ANY difference in mass produced lager is most definitely a TBL. As in a thing bogans like; like to talk about, yakking for hours about the relative merits of VB/Draught/MB/New etc. when it’s all the same stuff inside the bottle/can/glass/gut.
Speights Gold followed by Tui! Wow Lee, even Kiwis turn there nose up at those :) Did you try any Tasman brewery products? Tasman lager, Pilsner etc?
The Fev still favours the “golden microphone”, as seen at the Brownlow awards. Perhaps he’ll get up to speed when he comes to Brisbane, and necks a few Becks at The Normanby.
Becks is a good example, the Aussie incarnation tastes like a bowl of soggy chaff.
But you’ve seriously left Corona out of this piece?! Hopefully only because Corona gets its own entry… Surely there’s no drink more favoured by the nouveau-bogan: tasteless, overpriced, fake exotic. It’s like a Buddhist home furnishing but it’ll get you tipsy and racist on Australia day.
Rich, I could not agree more although Corona is one of few beers that is actually still imported. Funny thing having been to Mexico, it is the lowest, cheapest form of swill over there but bogans gladly fork out $50 a case in Australia.
I am anything but a beer connoisseur but I can easily detect the difference between locally made “import” beers and the actual thing. Becks and Heinekin are the two most obvious. In Sydney if you know the right places there are many bottle shops that still import these beers of their own accord and sell them for a mere $5 a carton. A price I gladly pay when I am in the mood for one of these European beers.
Lastly, I still believe that Crown, as mentioned, is the ultimate bogan beer in the “premium” category
*A mere $5 EXTRA!. Sorry folks
Actually, the imported Heineken and Becks that you see at shops in Australia isn’t from the country of origin. Usually it’s made under license (same as in Australia) from somewhere like Turkey or Greece. That’s why it’s cheaper.
The reason it tastes different is because it’s been sitting in a shipping container in 50+ degree heat for months and months. In the vast majority of cases, the beer is affected by heat and out of code. That’s why the best before dates are (illegally) scratched off the cartons and stubbies by the importer.
It always perplexes me when people complain about the taste of locally made Heineken and Becks. Do you really think they are quality checked by the respective parent companies on a regular basis? There’s no way Heineken or Becks would allow it to be brewed and sold with their name on it unless it met VERY high standards set by them.
It’s also funny when people say “the water’s different, so it’s a different beer.” The water that goes into any beer in the world (large-scale) has its mineral content adjusted to match the water quality of Burton-on-Trent in the UK. Actually, the quality that Burton-on-Trent USED to be (today it’s heavily polluted …). It’s called burtonisation.
I can talk all day about this!
Simple fact – marketing is powerful. People are sheep.
Hence, Corona …
the Stella i buy is from Belgium, the Becks from Germany and the Grolsch and Heineken from Holland.. I check the labels, not sure where you’re buying yours from.
i know Asahi is Thailand, Sapporo cans from Canada, and Sapporo bottles are turkey now i think. i’ve spent a bit of time in Japan and i do think you can tell the difference (you can get Sapporo from Sapporo in Melbourne if you know where to look)
I do agree that the local made stuff is OK, but to be honest I won’t pay premium prices in pubs or clubs for it.
Sapporo bottles are now made by Coopers in Adelaide. (Locally made, but by a locally owned brewery)
Since moving to Australia almost a year ago, I found the taste of my favorite beer had changed but wondered if it was simply my tastebuds after being scorched by an Aussie summer. But I was confident the difference in tatse was real.
I found a shop that sells Beck’s with a sticker placed on each bottle claiming it to be ‘imported’. Well naturally . Or maybe not so naturally as I later learned that Beck’s is also brewed in SA.
HOWEVER, after holding 2 bottles side by side, one imported from Germany and the other from SA, the difference was revealed. There is an extra ingredient in the SA brew. Yeast.
Both bottles contain water, malted barley and hops, but only the SA bottle contains yeast on the label. This would certainly explain the taste, as well as the hangover effects, as I’ve always found pure Beck’s to give no hangover, but the imposter can make no such claims.
Hear hear – Ive always thought that there was some sort of moratorium on no additives allowed in beer in most of the decent beer brewing countries
pretty sure that is not the case in Aust! – ever found a can of VB in the back of the pantry and found it tasted as equally vile as a fresh one??
Wow, so there’s an extra word printed on the label, big difference…
You do realise every beer in existance is brewed with yeast right? Otherwise you have raw, unfermented beer, which tastes more like mollases than beer.
Indeed evansams – I’ve seen many an imported can or bottle of the foreign brews with the Aussie importers little white sticker – business’ in Melbourne generally – put over the use by/or code date. As for Corona – Euro medieval monks brewing beer 800 years ago realised that UV light damages beer so green or brown bottles were produced to filter UV light – thus take it straight from the monks NEVER drink a beer that comes in a clear glass bottle.
Becks mixed with Jägermeister in a 500ml can marketed as ‘The BierMeister’ The label – A little picture of a curvy, hotted up Gretchen wearing a skimpy German-style outfit and a tattoo of a snake on her thigh, holdin’ a couple of BierMeisters.
Get down to your local club this weekend because we’ll be giving out BierMeister coasters and bar mats. There’ll be some purty young things handing out lanyards with miniature plastic beer mugs on them and you can have a taste of some BierMeister (and maybe the purty young things if you and your mates charm ’em right)
I see your point but I would hardly associate Jagermeister with bogans. When I think bogan spirits I think Woodstock, Jim Beam and Bundaberg “rum”
Keep drinkin’ your Jager bombs CB, no one will think you’re a bogan.
I think we are all just different levels of bogan! haha
Oh and I don’t drink red bull so any Jager consumption is purely straight
I would tend to disagree with that, the New Age Bogan here loves the Jagermeister. Personally I think it tastes like shit.
I agree with you Lee – It is a sure sign of a new age bogan to point out traits of the traditional bogan as part of his denial post. The new age bogan loves Jagerbombs.
This website is helping me realise the pent up bogan within. The cover bands, the “boutique beers”, and in my younger days, even the arbitrary theft! Hell, I’ve even been known to down a big can of Mother (admittedly on night shifts).
On the other side, I have no interest in buddist iconography, boost juice, contiki tours, music festivals or the Melbourne Cup. I dislike tramp stamps, Christian Audigier and inflicting on innocent children the lifetime need to have to spell their name to others. I’m also polite, quiet and like to fly under the radar.
So where does this put me? Am I half a bogan? Are we all just a little bit bogan? I’m confused, cause since moving to Brisbane I’ve been complaining about its infestation with bogans, and it turns out I may be one of them.
You’re fine buddy.
It’s the awarness that saves you.
Just to try and remove your confusion, Thats what happens when you cross the border.. Ahaha. Werent you warned? Sounds like you have contracted Boganitis.
calling brisbane brizzvegas is a pretty good indication of your boganinity
Brisb-anus, however, is fine.
i agree with this one to a certain point. the vast majority of bogans i know drink woodstocks, jim beam cans (white eggs), rum cans (black eggs) southo and coke cans or UDL’s / cruisers / pulse cans etc (ironically these are the same guys that won’t drink out of a shoe or a goon bag.. probably because they never went to uni games i guess). my opinion is that a bogan thinks the alcoholic beverage of their choice says something about themselves as a person. i guess these ‘foreign’ beers are giving them a false sense of superiority. i think it is this attitude that makes them a bogan. i’ll happily drink a slab of VB tinnies if thats what the host has on offer, as i would all the aforementioned beers. who really cares? it’s the motive behind why they are drinking that particular drink that makes them a bogan.
Why are these bogan drinks all so sweet? You haven’t said so, but these are drunk by men- Brendan Nelson’s ‘ute men’ to be precise. These were all ‘ladies’ (well, scrags) drinks in the seventies.
I dont know anyone that drinks “sutho” anymore, usually it’s the girls that drink UDL’s, cruisers, smirnoff mixers and the like but there is a few blokes I know that are partial to a cruiser. They dont go without a ribbing about it either!
it’s reverse snobbery. the BMW driver looks down on the SS Commodore and vice versa.
funny – there’s another blog about beer on ‘Things Australians Love’ site.
they’re popping up all over the place like Aussies overseas!
Strange days indeed. Is it now impossible to distinguish between a bogan and a ” non-bogan”? With each piece of rhetoric from these geniuses, it appears to become virtually impossible.
Australians are the bogans of the world Wolfgang.
A sweet piece of logic here, it effectively means don’t waste your energy trying to differentiate if you are or aren’t a bogan, because no matter who you are, as an Australian there is a little bogan somewhere deep down inside you, it’s a dark shadow from your years in suburbs.
I think a little too much may be being made of the fact that overseas brewing companies are choosing to now ‘outsource’ their operations in this country. This wouldn’t have been an Australian-led decision, it must have been initiated by the overseas companies themselves.
As I understand it, the Australian brewers are contractually required to produce the beer under strict instructions from the head company, and I’m sure there would be company representatives sent/stationed to ensure that these standards are being met – anything less would be more than the reputation of the company would be worth.
I also believe the quality of Australia’s water, raw ingredients and food handling standards would have to be on a par with pretty much anywhere else in the world.
Yep, the whole romanticism of drinking an imported product becomes largely lost but the actual final product shouldn’t really be affected in any significant way. I seriously doubt there would be any discernable difference in taste or quality.
…unless it’s been outsourced to Carlton United Breweries. Ugh.
While your argument about our water and raw ingredients is justified, there definitely is a taste difference and I hate to say but the genuine article is much, much better
I would have to disagree with the water comment. While ground bore water, desalinated water and recycled sewage water are all great….I think I prefer the fresh mountain water available in many parts of Europe. Are you guys kidding me? Sure the water in Aus is better than that in Bali though!
Italian beer still tastes like XXXX! That’s why they drink Fosters
Efes Pilsener (Turkish) is still good though
The “genuine” article is usually from Turkey, Greece or Uzbekistan. It tastes different because it’s close to a year out of code and has been sitting in a 50+ degree shipping container for months, cooking the beer.
when Lions Nathan or CUB makes a low carb version of one of these beers people are going to lose their fuckin’ SHIT.
callin’ it right now
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Wow, seems like you cant drink beer unless your a bogan. Did anyone mention XXXX, maybe I can drink that and be safe?
Oh, I saw the funniest ad for Fosters in L.A last week! Look it up on youtube. Fosters, Aussie for beer, or something like that. Hilarious!
Stick to Chimay, Duvel, Leffe and others of that ilk no bogan would ever drink them
hi all,
Check out the link… Nuff said.
story/0,27574,26339190-421,00.html
Matty,
Go with something like Cascade light, bogans won’ t drink light (poofter beer) and they hate Tasmania because that is not cool and worldly. XXXX is just shit and even bogans know that. Also good call on the low carb import MC.
Fortunately I know of a bottle shop not far from here that sells import Heineken. Which is great because that locally-made stuff tastes like shit!
Coronas with lemon a great pastime but does anyone know that the only reason the mexicans put lemon in their beers is to keep the flys out
Tastes alright with lime aswell. The bogans like the “Matador” too, a corona with half a shot of tequila and lime.
The Mexican swill Corona goes down like the alcoholic equivalent of a Solo on a hot day though.
Seems every country exports its worst beer. Think Fosters.
But where does all this leave my beloved Coopers?
Aah yes Coopers. I am partial to the ‘sparkling’ but a lot of people think you are a poof when you ask for this. Classic!
Ahh yes, Coopers Sparkling, the ultimate poof’s drink from the golden time for gays everywhere… 1862. Is that an eastern states thing? In SA, Sparkling is considered a bit more upmarket than Pales (~$5 more/carton), although the bogan loves that it “gets ya sh!t faced quicker, mate!”.
A bloke asked me what I drank one day I replied “coopers sparkling”. I think it was the “sparkling” bit that made him automatically think, then comment on it being for poofters and so on.
The pale is sold on tap everywhere here and people drink it thinking it’s a “boutique” beer and have no idea that the sparkling even exists so yes, I guess it is an eastern states thing.
lol check this,
Picking on warrnambool is like picking on the slow kid in class. Try harder Chris.
Real Japan-brewed Asahi Super Dry is impossible to get here in Australia. It is all made in Thailand, Canada or UK.
Shame because its a great beer. The non-Japanese product is rubbish.
James Squire Amber. Very fine brew . Never seen a bogan drink it.
It’s probably been said before but who has time to read these days… The thing that moves me to buy these ‘local imports’ has nothing to do with looking sophisticated (that’s more of a ‘douchebag’ thing anyway) it’s that the typical cheap Australian beer – I’m talking about Tooheys New, VB, XXXX etc. taste like a billion arses. Why spend $35 on a slab of VB when you can spend $5 extra and get a slab of Carlsberg and not have to endure the fecal after taste. It might be brewed here but I’ve spent a bit of time overseas and I think the taste is pretty spot on – with the exception of Stella Artois which is actually a lot better in Australia.
Obviously it’s a massive generalisation for the sake of comedy but the biggest bogans I have every met have been VB swilling, Southern Cross Tattoo having tards. Just sayin’…
“Fecal after taste” Anyone remember paying $20 for 6 of Becks, Carlberg or a Heini’ whan they come from Germany, Denmark & Holland?
Chalk & cheese. Or Beer & horse Piss. A different beast.
Same price but shipped across the world.
If you like proper euro beer go for Lowenbrau which is less than a box of pox VB & comes from Munich.
Don’t knock Orangeboom os Amsterdam either.
I’ll take a chep Aldi euro lager over the chemical beer they make here.
BS Phil. Asahi is pretty much the same whether it’s made in Japan the UK or Thailand. I’ve drunk plenty of it all over the world and the Thai stuff I’ve got in the fridge is as good as the Japanese real deal.
It’s a bit like V8 supercars. Bogans like that as well thinking they are watching people race the same cars they own despite the fact they are completely made from scratch to look like a Commodore or Falcon with not a single part in common their boganmobile
could this be why I can’t stand the taste of “European” beers? Maybe I should go to Europe and actually try their beers…
Corona is actually one of Mexico’s best selling beers and the most popular imported beer in the USA. The stooges of TBL and elitist tards that comment in support of them are merely trying to be funny about anything main stream and not “bogan” at all.
Corona is a great beer on a hot day and $8 more than VB most weeks.
The fact that the TBL keyboard and book heroes refuse to identify themselves is testament to their intestinal fortitude. No doubt afraid of a good shoe in; which is so “bogan” will be their obvious retort).
What an odd tantrum. We didn’t mention Corona in the entry at all, because it’s not produced in Australia (refer to the title of the entry for why we see this as a relevant criterion in this instance). Don’t let anything that we did or didn’t say get in the way, though. TBL
Many, many, Mexican beers are better than Corona. My personal favourite is Dos Equis. Being the biggest seller does not mean the best. After all, a lot of Phil Collins records were sold over the years.
My two cents? No beer should need a slab of lime or lemon in it to make it drinkable.
what the hell do American’s know about beer??
Of course the true bogan is less concerned about which beer is better and more about being able to proudly attest to doing the yardie on their 21st before accepting the 2 foot long engraved mirrored key from their equally proud bogan dad. Admiration during this particularly pleasant bit of boganiscing over past exploits is given to the one who drank it the fastest.. and kept it down. Preferably with minimal spillage onto their John Deere tank-top.
Sapporo which was an authentic Japanese beer brewed in Canada is now an authentic Japanese beer brewed by Coopers in Adelaide, so although it’s locally made, it’s locally made by the last Australian owned major beer company.
In most cases, the locally brewed version will actually be superior to the ‘real’ thing being sold in small bottle shops that has been privately imported. When it comes to beer, rule number one is always ‘the Fresher the Better’.
The locally licensed version might not be exactly the same, but it is usually very close. But the trump card will be the fact that you are drinking it much closer to when it is produced than any imported genuine article. The ‘genuine’ bottle of Becks, after being brewed, has probably been sitting in a warehouse in Germany for a week, before being loaded into a metal shipping container and trucked to a port (likely not a port in Germany either), then sitting on a port (in the sun) before being loaded onto a ship, and spending 6 weeks at sea (still in a non air-conditioned metal container), then spending another week on a dock here (still in big hot metal box) before being shipped to a wholesaler here, and then maybe within a week or 2 sent to your local seller of ‘genuine’ boutique beer.
So when people say they can tell the difference, they are right. But what you are really tasting is the taste of 3 month old, heat and sun affected beer that has spent most of it’s life in a 60’C metal box at sea, not the taste of ‘genuine’ Becks, Nastro Azzurro or Stella.
Some (ok, all) people are so desperate to be perceived as an ‘anti bogan hipster’ that they end up making complete fools of themselves by (as a few people have stated above) claiming that they like the taste of spoilt beer, because unless you are getting your Peroni air couriered directly to you from Italy, that is all you are drinking. 1 week old beats 10 week old, no matter where it was produced.
Buy Coopers people, support an actual Australian company and one that doesn’t use tons of nasty chemical additives to get products on the shelves pronto. And no I don’t work there….
I noticed even Morretti – the great Italian lager has a licensed local slop being made here now – always check the bottle for the fully imported or local manufacture info and use by date. It can be tricky though to do so in bars, as staff look at you with stunned look if as to see label before they open it – so best opt the Coopers in bars!