Australian and New Zealand beer
Calton Cold, Steinlager, James Squire, Hahn Premium, Fosters & more
Travel to Australia and New Zealand to tour the Cascade Brewery in Hobart, the James Boags brewhouse in Launceston and the Speights site in Dunedin.
Over the course of the years, Australia has managed to perfect two complete hoodwinkings of the British public. The first, perpetuated by Neighbours, is that it’s sunny all the time. Nonsense, as anyone currently shivering to death in the southern states will testify.
The second is that Fosters is Australia’s beer, even though everyone back home drinks it very begrudgingly. Of course, once you get here, it’s nowhere to be seen and generally treated like a massive joke. The main tap beers are Toohey’s New, VB and Carlton Cold, of which everyone tends to have their favourite, and XXXX in Queensland.
In New Zealand, it’s usually Tui, Lion Red or Export Gold, but in both countries you can get some excellent beers for a few extra cents. James Squire, Hahn Premium, Cascade, James Boag’s, Steinlager and Speights are just a few of them.
Whilst, of course, sitting in a pub drinking these fine ales is a perfectly laudable pastime, you can claim some spurious educational value by doing much the same after a tour of the breweries.
For a small island, Tasmania excels itself on the singing juice front, as it’s home to both Cascade and James Boag’s. Both breweries are open for tours and rampant product ingestion. The 120-year-old Boag site in Launceston (www.boags.com.au/ (03) 6332 6300) costs $18 for a well-run trip round. Down on the south of the lady beard-shaped island, the Cascade Brewery (www.cascadebrewery.com.au/ (03) 6224 1117) proudly claims to be the oldest in the country, and you can wander round.
If you’re not heading to Tassie, then there are other alternatives in Melbourne (Carlton Brewhouse - www.fostersgroup.com/ 03 9420 6800), Brisbane (XXXX Alehouse - www.xxxx.com.au/alehouse/ 07 3361 7597) or Dunedin (Speights Brewery Heritage - www.speights.co.nz/alehouse.cfm/ 03 477 7697)
Guinness
As with every country in the world, Australia and New Zealand are rammed full of Irish pubs. Of course, many of these are about as Irish as a teetotaler with absolutely no interest in Scottish football, but that doesn’t mean you can’t get a decent pint of the black stuff.
Sydney, as anyone who has paid a visit to Bondi will have duly noticed, is teeming with the green army, and that means plenty of like-minded drinking establishments. Amongst the most popular are the Cock And Bull (Ebley St, Bondi Junction) and Scruffy Murphy’s (corner of George and Goulborn St, CBD) and the Porterhouse (Riley St, Surry Hills).
