i did a Kit brew, canadian baverian larger with 500 grams of honey 1 Kg of brewing sugar No 2. tasted a bit like VB not as bitter though mates thought it did as well
Yeah, alright. A serious answer. If you're new to brewing, you're going to have a tough job. Not saying that it would be difficult for a beginner brewer to brew something on a par with or better than CD/VB/XXXX, but to brew something that tastes like the afore mentioned would be tough.
You could chose a lager kit (Morgans, Coopers, whatever), add to it half a kilo of light dried malt extract and half a kilo of dextrose. The tough part is you're going to need a lager yeast (I'd suggest Saflager) and you're going to have to brew it cold (below 15 degrees). Lagers are a lot harder to brew than an ale. Do a search. You'll find heaps of info on brewing lagers.
All said, if I went to the extra effort of brewing a lager and it came out tasting like the standard CD/VB/XXXX, I'd be wanting to punch someone.
I would suggest a can Draught kit (Morgans or Coopers etc) with a bag of Brew booster (500gm Dextrose, 250gm Light Dry Malt, and 250gm Maltodextrin). If they want higher alcahol content up the dextrose and light malt by an extra 250gm each. Yeast as supplied, this time of year sit it on the kitchen bench and let it rip.
Tell them it is beer, good beer, cold beer, free beer and they will be wrapped. Some may even come to realise that it is better than the CD/VB/XXXX that they are used to. Some may even become brewers themselves. Good luck.
apparently the morgans blue mountain lager is a top pick with the VB, carlton crowd. I've never made it, so I can't vouch for it. Probably a good time of year to brew it, get a saflager yeast packet and ditch the one that comes with the can, try to ferment at 10-12C if you can.
Cane sugar does play a role in most australian lagers, probably something like 250-500gm cane sugar, 500g dextrose added to the kit.
I nearly bought the XXXX Gold kit from Brewcraft, only because they came with a free pair of thongs. However when rational thought took over I bought a nice Pilsner instead. I don't think yellow thongs are that cool, especially in winter.