Opening hours: Pubs used to shut tight in the afternoons but the law has been changed in recent years. Pubs can now open from 11:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. Monday through Saturday. Sunday hours are 12 noon to 10:30 p.m. But publicans may choose to close to suit the demand of individual houses. While most... View Article
Other countries have bars, cafes and bier kellers. Only the English have the public house⎯pub for short⎯an institution so unique and indefinable that it can never be faithfully uprooted and transferred elsewhere. But while the English pub is alive and well, the industry is in the middle of change, transformed by social, economic and political... View Article
Jolly Good Ale and Old is the official history of Coopers Brewery, originally published by Wooster/Aussie beer books in 1987 for the brewery’s 125th anniversary and then reissued with an additional chapter on the 1990s. It’s a better-than-average company history because Painter is a good writer who gives a lot of the history of south... View Article
Mark McKay’s On Tap is a collection of anecdotes about Australian pubs. If someone famous⎯an actor, politician, author or gangster⎯has visited an Australian pub, McKay provides an entertaining anecdote. He’s also good at pub history, addressing such questions as what’s the oldest Australian pub (probably the Woolpack Hotel in Parramatta, a Sydney suburb) and what’s... View Article
Keith M. Deutsher is a retired entrepreneur who, among other credits, was the Australian manufacturer of plastic six-pack ring-pull beer carriers. He is also a beer label collector, a hobby that has led him to produce The Breweries of Australia, an Authoritative Guide to Australian Brewery History. The book is comparable to the CAMRA publication,... View Article
Dunkel is the original style of lager, serving as the forerunner to the pale lagers of today. They originated in and around Bavaria, and are widely brewed both there and around the world. This is often what the average consumer is referring to when they think of dark beer. At their best, these beers combine the dryish chocolate or licorice notes associated with the use of dark roasted malts and the roundness and crisp character of a lager. Examples brewed in and around Munich tend to be a little fuller-bodied and sometimes have a hint of bready sweetness to the palate, a characteristic of the typical Bavarian malts used.
These are the recently popular brews in a figure-conscious society. Essentially, these are pale lager styled beers with fewer calories. Like all other “diet products,” the objective is to maintain flavor while minimizing calories. This achieved quite successfully by some brands, despite the implausibility of the proposition.
Originally brewed in Thuringia, a state in eastern Germany, these lager -style brews were known to be darker in color than their Munich counterparts. Often relatively full-bodied, rarely under 5 percent ABV, these beers classically feature a bitter chocolate, roasted malt note and a rounded character. Hop accents are generally low. This obscure style was picked up by Japanese brewers and is made in small quantities by all of Japan’s major brewers. Schwarz beers are not often attempted by U.S. craft brewers.
This category is legally mandated in states where any lager stronger than 5 percent alcohol by volume cannot call itself a lager beer. There are a number commercial brands that have been created to fill this category, many of which do not have great merit from the connoisseur’s perspective. Many malt liquors achieve their greater alcoholic strength through the use of adjunct grains—corn or rice—that add little flavor. Some strong European lagers are forced to adopt this labeling moniker for the U.S. market.
