The English just Don't give a XXXX

As regular perusers will know, I have been running a competition to find out which brew will be endorsed as the Bender Squad official beer. During the past few weeks i have chosen a selection of ales, lagers, stouts and beers that best represent a certain niche, and have voted on it. A few have been universally snubbed for the bland corporate kak that have been foisted upon these shores. But I have a couple of news stories that might be of interest.

First up is the news that Castlemaine XXXX is packing up it's didgeridoo and slinging it's hook back off down under, after a quarter of a century. How did it survive so long??? Well back in the day, when bitter drinkers still outnumbered lager drinkers (and it isn't that long ago) the choices that faced non beer drinkers were sparse. Hoffmeister, Tenets, Skol and Harp were pretty much your lot. So when XXXX came along, on the back of an excellent ad campaign, it was an instant success, much the same way Fosters was. I am slightly ashamed to confess that during my teenage years, that Castlemaine was my lager of choice, when Holsten wasn't available. But thankfully times change, and with brands such as Carlsberg, Stella and Becks popping up, the nastier cooking lagers disappeared. Apart from XXXX, which mistakenly believed it could still emulate it's early success. But a combination of being a pretty pissy lager, and the fact that we all began to realise that stuff from Australia, including bloody Australians, were pretty shit, proved to be the final nail in the coffin. Hell, they even stopped selling it in Walkabout two years ago.

The other thing that I couldn't help noticing, was just how many brewers and beers had been, or were about to be swallowed up buy the massive multi national AB Inbev. They hit the headlines last year when they stumped up $52 Billion to acquire Annheuser Busch, the American brewers of Budweiser, amongst many others. Well they weren't immune to the economic down turn, and in an effort to reduce it's debt have put numerous brands, or assets as they would call them, up for sale. They have already offloaded a number of its far east brews, and are said to be looking to shed a number of the eastern European outfits. Rumours suggest they are ready to offload the high profile Becks, if the price is right. Rolling Rock is another that could be put up for sale. Will it signal a return to the small operations that built up these brands in the first place? We can only hope.