Carlton Cold

Brewed by Carlton & United Breweries (CUB)
Style: Pale Lager
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

Bottled. Pretty much a VB that’s had a bit of the crap filtered out - improves it marginally, but not much. Same ol’ carboard and metal flavour with cigarettes sneaking out as it warms - I swear, I saw the little buggers!

This really was terrible. Aroma is minimal with maybe 5 or 6 corn on the cobs kickin about. Taste is also corn but like horrible, i mean hard to drink terrible. This probably is the worst beer iv ever had.

Finally got the nerves in order and bought a stubby of this, all in all hoping it was a little less offensive than the ’Cold’ I remember from a decade ago. Problem is, I didn’t know good beer back then and would pretty much down anything that had an alcohol percentage on its label, yet this one still made me question having another. Poured from the bottle into a tallboy glass. Clear medium-gold body with very fine carbonation rising up to an unexpectedly big (albeit certainly artificial) fluffy white head that managed to stick around. Piercing mineral-like and gassy, soggy cardboard aroma with thankfully little else. Detergent-like and initially sour in the mouth, very light bodied and bubbly in carbonation. Almost flavourless, so I had to rely on its mouth-feel and this dropped quickly, beginning clean, crisp, then soapy, gluggy, harsh in the back and generally plastic across the tongue. All this in only one beer was just too much. This was woeful, especially once it began to warm, which obviously means its just another ’straight from the fridge, in the bottle, down the gullet beer’ that seems to just pigeonhole most of the Aussie Macro’s pale lagers. This wasn’t good ten years ago and it’s questionable whether its even ’beer’ now. Hard one to finish. (375mL bottle, BBE 02/06)

Clear fluorescent yellow color, short dying head. Aroma is like corona, like a tequila mix drink, with a hint of lemon. Probably quite nice in summer when it’s very hot, but I visited Sydney in Ozzie Winter.

The clear, labelless bottle was considered revolutionary when this was launched in 1993. Which once again shows where all the creativity at CUB is directed. There’s nothing revolutionary about the contents. Pale gold, fluffy 1.5cm head, moderate length. Standard CUB lager aroma - pea soup and wet cardboard. Skinny body, even by CUB standards. Flavour is just as thin - corn and sugar. The hops provide a mild sensation in the finish but scant taste. One of the poorer CUB lagers.

Bottle, in GB. Light golden with white head, almost lasting, OK lacings. Aroma moderate malty, light/moderate hoppy. Flavor moderate sweet, light bitter, vaerage duration. Light body, watery, soft carbonated.

Pale golden, clear, medium head. I wouldn’t go so far as calling this "foul", but it is pretty boring. Sweet malt is really all you get for flavour (the same as all corn-adjunct, over-processed pale lagers on the market). I wouldn’t choose to drink it again if an alternative were available, but I wouldn’t turn it down if the beerfridge was empty on a Friday night. This is my standard review for all "two-star-or-less" piss.

Bottled. With a bottle that looks like a Corona clone at least you could hope for something tasteless. Nah, instead they packed this golden coloured, headless beer with rotten pea soup flavour in a sea of saccharine sweetness. Of course there were no hops or malt. It is actually hard to imagine a beer tasting much more awful...