Victoria Bitter

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

Ozswill Clash of the Heavyweights: VB vs Tooheys New. (Okay, this is a desperate attempt to make macro tasting more interesting - humour me.) Australia’s two best-selling beers sampled side by side in a sensational winner-takes-all swill-off. Appearance: poured simultaneously into identical glasses to ensure a level playing field. Both pale gold with 1cm heads that subside into thin coronas. New shows marginally better head retention but not enough to make a difference to the scoring. Neither looks inspiring. 2/5 for both. Aroma: VB smells more like a shandy than straight beer - sweet lemonade-like odour, with some pale malt, corn and boiled sweets. New smelled initially uric, with some biscuity malt and corn. New gets a marginal nod for having some genuine hop presence, albeit faint. VB 2/10, New 3/10. Palate: Thin-bodied and quenching, which is pretty much to style. They lose points for the abruptness of the finish. 3/5 Flavour: VB is over-sweet, presumably to hide the flavour of corn and cardboardly malt. There is a hint of fruit in there but it’s drowning. The finish is very restrained. New is more austere, with a flash of citric hops and an equally short finish. New at least tastes like beer. VB tastes plain peculiar. New 4/5, VB 2/5. Final score: New 6, VB 4. Thank Christ that’s over. I’m off for an Orval.

Yes indeed, as the name says, some bitterness. Not too much, but it can be noticed. Medium bodied, no other flavors, good or bad. Neutral is probably the word. Just a bit of fresh bitterness in the aftertaste. Not really good, but better as expected and certainly not bad for a standard lager.

Best Bloody Beer in the world! Dunno what you american fella’s are on about! A VB coldie in the hand is the only way to go. Best served off tap.

The beer easiest to get which is a problem when you want something better. Bland but drinkable on the hot occassion. Never let get warm

Can. Golden colour with a mostly lasting frothy and fizzy white head. Vegetal, corn oil, grainy, and fusel aroma. Dry, bland, cidery, grainy, and toasty flavour. Astringent, dry, thin, and light bodied. Flavourwise, pretty bland and innoffensive. But that aroma is pure poison.

Bottle. I drank many of these while visiting my Uncle Don in Sydney. I think that it is underrated as a solid lager. Pours a golden color with an inch high head. Nose is not great, but not terrible with corn and some straw. Nice hop bite and good carbonation flow nicely with the slightly sweet malty flavor. Sometimes when a beer sells at a high level, we tend to bash it... I think this is pretty good for a pale lager. Definitely better than most American pl’s.

Bottle. Chaz indeed brought this back from Taiwan, where he bought it in the basement of Taipei 101, the tallest building in the world...well, I dunno what the tallest building is anymore, it seems to depend on what country is adding an antenna at the top of their tallest structure for penile compensation or whatever. Yeah, so this beer was allright. Pale appearance. It seems to actually be off-balance in the malty direction, as it could have used a little bit more hops for a bitter. Not a very good finish, it really leaves you wondering where the beer was supposed to go.

Chaz brought this back from Taiwan of all places. This is a pretty poor represntation of a "bitter" if thats what it indeed is. I gather that this is the aussie version of budweiser or something.....not as skunky, a bit more of a malt backbone, but pretty unimpressive.....blech!