A sweet, malty nose and caramel, bronze colour. Smooth and well balanced. If this had more alcohol, it'd be a five-star beer.

POST SCRIPT: We inadvertently retasted this. The only explanation we can offer for the two tastings resulting in such widely differing scores and comments is that the “retasting” bottle must have been stored very poorly. Or perhaps it's just a bad batch? Or maybe the beer is wildly variable?

Retasting: 16.9.06
Best-before 11/06. Traditional pale ale colour: deep copper. "Brewed to the same family recipe since 1868," claims the label. This sounds implausible, if possible (OK, so it was late in the night when we tasted this one). We reckon it must have been a pretty basic recipe, as we think that this beer is "a bit light on", thin and lacking maltiness.

Two stars.

Guest Reviewer Gav: "This is one I could drink a few of."
Geoff: "Fairly shit."
Oliver: "Fairly flimsy."
"You've got a fairly average beer and they've hopped it up to try and make it special."

We weren't very impressed. "Very f---ing ordinary." "An unbalanced f--k-up of a beer." Guest taster GR: "I don't really like this one."

Oliver: An OK beer. I've always thought Carlsberg was overrated, and this has confirmed my opinion. Better than the last beer we tasted in this session (Dreher Classic). Pale

They say: We are the only brewer we know that grows its own hops to guarantee the quality of our beer.
We say: What about the Red Hill Brewery on the Mornington Peninsula in Australia?
Geoff: I wouldn't drink six of them. (???)
Comes in a pint bottle, which is possibly this beer's best feature.

Re-reviewed on 25.10.08, with the same conclusion being drawn. Maltier than the other Eastern European beers tasted on this day.

Bubblegum nose. Bubblegum taste. Good head. A very good beer. Geoff: "Apple nose.

A bit one-dimensional. Guest Taster Gav: "Weak." Soviet slops ... if that's your beer, can I taste your vodka? "The Great Beers of Hungary would be a very thin volume."

Lovely, fruity nose. Long-lasting head. Beautiful. Strong, but with a well-balanced maltiness. Don't drink too cold.

Brewed to the reinheitsgebolt. Best-before date of 29.10.05. Guest Reviewer Gav: "A bit frisky smelling." Pale, with a thin head.
Oliver: "Is this Denmark's VB?"
Geoff: "Yes."
Geoff's wife, Lisa: "Just a dirty lager."
Sold in Australia as a "premium beer", but there's nothing premium, about it. It's a disgrace, both of a beer and of a claim.

Slightly hazy. Geoff: "A bloody good beer." Guest reviewer Peter Nicholas: "I don't mind this." Best-before date was 14.5.05, a week before this tasting, so we assume this beer is not at its freshest best. Geoff: A rich combination of maltiness and bitterness. Guest Reviewer Gav: Excellent. Geoff's colleague Marcus Dempsey rates this a five-star beer. He tasted it on a stinking-hot day, and presumably drank a fresher sample. We may have to revisit this beer.

Lovely looking beer. Dark copper colour. Tight head. Clings to glass. But the taste is ordinary. There's not much good about it. This is no cask-conditioned ale. It's a fat blonde English chick in a short skirt. A fat slag of a beer. A shit beer. A crap beer.

“The Best Beer in America,” claims the label. Correct, if it was being compared to Bud

“The inspiration for this wit-style beer may be Belgian, but its ingredients are north-west Victorian in spirit. So the flavours are wheaty, citrussy and yuletide spicy. Cloudy beer for a cloudless Christmas. Contains a sprinkling of snow.”
So says the label. Our verdict: Lacks the smoothness of other witbiers. Cane-sugary, fairy-floss finish. If you brewed it as a copy of Hoegaarden White you'd be stoked, but it's not the best beer ever. It's also not the worst.

Copper color. Thin head. Ale tasting, but no fruitiness on the nose. Nice, but NQR (not quite right). Neither here nor there, neither fish nor fowl, neither hale nor foul.

A dirty Aussie lager, but one of the better ones. The dirty beer of choice of people who actually like beer. If someone told you that you had $30 to buy a slab you'd choose this. An easy-ish-drinking lager. Serve chilled.

Brown.

A bit cheap and nasty, but it is all right. Brown/red color of rum and Coke. Good, long-lasting head. Not great. Not crap.

Golden. Light carbonation. Tastes exactly as Budweiser Budvar should taste. A bit paradoxical in that this Budweiser is the antithesis of US Budweiser. Beautifully balanced; malty and hoppy. A great beer.

Aussie beer. Amber color. Dirty smell that doesn't carry over to the taste. Smells like pub carpet.

Said Lisa: “That's the sort of beer a girl could drink.” It smells like Passiona but doesn't taste like it. Nowhere near as good as the Floris Apple