Melbourne Bitter

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

Can. Amberish colour with a short head. Aroma of malt, caramel and hops. The flavour is sweet with bit toastish malt, bitter hops and some caramel. Pretty simple brew.

Bottle -- Yellowy amber with medium frothy head with next to no retention. A little lacing. Aroma is a little yeasty, a little malty and a little hoppy (perhaps), but mainly very nondescript. Palate is pure water. Flavour is thin with an unpleasently metalic bitter edge. There’s also something quite nasty in there that I can’t identity. The smell of this stuff remnds me going to the footy when I was 9 and being wedged in between drunk old men in the outer. Ick.

800mL bottle brought back from Australia by a friend’s son-in-law. Pours pale blond. Small fizzy white head. Aroma was pretty typical pale lager - grains, sweet malts, and almost a metallic twang. My first sip brought forth notions of a malt liquor until I noticed it was around 4% alcohol. Those fears relaxed a bit as I got further into it. Cereal notes, flowery hop bitterness and soft malts. Body is light and spritzy. Carbonation there but not intrusive. Ends the same way it began. While I appreciate the new beer and the effort to bring it back, the overall experience was rather dull.

One of my favourite Australian beers, goes down nice on a hot day, love a cold one with a BBQ.

Good sessional beer watching the cricket or footy. Nothing like a Melbourne straight out the esky on a hot summer’s day. There are better beers but there are also a lot worse!! Not as sweet as VB.

On tap at the Soffitel Wentworth Hotel Bar. Pours what I refer to as "Standard Oz." This means pale yellow with a poofy, yet fleeting white head. Lager yeast aroma is discernable, but the palate is a bit fizzier than VB. Many of the coastal places I visited served this beer in giant liter bottles. On tap just about everywhere in Sydney.

Standard CUB vat pale lager, maybe a little drier, a little bitterer. If yanks start with 100% and poms with 0, what are Aussies left to do?

Much better than VB, used to be cheaper too. Good beer for a session at home in front of the footy or take it to a party and steal better (more expensive) beers from the fridge.