A Look at Lagers
If you are mad about Madri, crazy about CruzCampo or even if you don’t give an Estrella Damm, you should read on and consider the facts about our lager scene. Years ago, dinosaurs like me drank Skol 2.8% or Harp 4.3% because we knew no better and it made a change from the ubiquitous Highgate Mild, but in these more enlightened times the choice is phenomenal with a slew of continental lagers hitting the bar top. Alas they hide a secret that the advertisers are careful to conceal – there is definitely a con in continental !
The perpetrators are everywhere – with the monster mega brewers taking the lead as usual. Now the term lager means store in German as that is what they used to do – store the beer in cold cellars for weeks before drinking; Budvar in Chechia kept their beers for 90 days, and Pilsner Urquell for 44 days, but modern brewing techniques can make a lager in just 7 days; so why bother waiting, just ramp up the advertising budget and sell the stuff quick. What we need is a gimmick – think of beers you might have tried on holiday and make them available here in the UK, only don’t import them as that costs money, so brew them here but market them as if they come from another country. Brilliant! What could possibly go wrong ?
Well here is an example; AB Inbev bought out Beck’s Brewery in Bremen in 2008 and in 2012 started brewing it (as Beck’s German beer) in St. Louis Missouri. Most customers missed the fact that the gravity had been reduced from 5% to 4% but they were concerned enough about the beers provenance that they collectively sued the company, and won, and that little labelling blunder cost AB Inbev a cool 20 million dollars. The fact that AB Inbev printed ‘brewed in the US’ on the packing crates didn’t wash – it wasn’t on the bottles !
A contender for the top 10 lager sales must be Madri, a completely made up brand that harkens to the Spanish capital but its pedigree is somewhat blotted by the fact it is brewed in Tadcaster by Molson Coors (those nice people who closed the Burton Brewing Museum) and at 150,000 hectolitres is way outselling Beck’s. It sadly is not the only brand being economical with the truth: ‘Amstel’, ‘Fosters’, ‘Birra Moretti’, ‘Red Stripe Jamaican’ and ‘CruzCampo’ are all brewed in Manchester by Heineken. ‘Carlsberg’ and ‘San Miguel’ brewed in Northampton (Carlsberg); ‘Beck’s’, American ‘Budweiser’, & ‘Stella Artois’ in Magor, Wales (AB Inbev); and ‘Kronenburg’ is brewed in some brewery owned by Carlsberg Marstons Brewing Co. (probably Banks’s but not certain). ‘Estrella Damm’, -
Cruzcampo is available as ‘Cruzcampo Glacial’ 5% and ‘Cruzcampo Especial’ 5.4% in Spain, but it is roundly mocked by the locals as ‘tourist rubbish’, yet here Heineken have adapted this beer for the British palate with less alcohol -
So far as I can see, if you want a real imported lager you have to order something like ‘Budvar’ 5%, ‘Pilsner Urquell’ 4.4% or ‘Peroni’ 4.7% or how about a trip down to Lidl and a case of ‘Perlebacher’ Pilsner 4.5% for a real German taste? Prosit !
The above article represents a personal opinion and in no way states the policy aims or objectives of the Friends of Highgate Brewery or Campaign for Real Ale.
RN