Carlton Cold

Brewed by Carlton & United Breweries (CUB)
Style: Pale Lager
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

Serve in Dimpled mug, English pint, Lager glass, Shaker

This one is a little rough. Faint beer like odors perfectly represent the faint beer like tastes. A bit of weird metallic flavor, probably the PoR hops. A beer to drink with the brain disengaged, nothing too offensive, but a bit of a lobotomized beer that has had all the flavors taken out.

Golden color with a small white head. The taste is sweet light malty with a slight grassy bitter finish. Kind of thin and rather boring.

I remember when this beer was released in Australia in the mid 90s. It sold out all over southeast Queensland, like taking candy away from a baby everyone wanted it. I suspect because it might have been the first aussie "lager" to be served in a clear bottle. The "beer" has no redeeming features whatsoever. A bland unpleasant chemical buttery taste leaves a vile animal fat residue on the palette, like cold fish and chips. If you have a vivid imagination you might think you are drinking beer, but this drink has (as have many Australian beers) had any actual typical malt beer flavours removed prior to bottling for fear of scaring off the punters. Beers like this have contributed to a revision of what Australians consider beer. Hit an aussie with anything as remotely challenging as a full bodied bitter and they choke.

The most remarkable thing about this beer is its head: white, very slow to disappear and leaves a white foam mountain on top of the body (I had to shake the glass to make it disappear). Otherwise, it gives an overall impression of blandness; this must be the Australian equivalent of a Budweiser or a Michelob. Probably good to quench your thirst on a hot +mas day down under, but otherwise not worth drinking for the sake of it taste, which is near-nonexistent.

(on bottle)Sorry, but after a big talk we had to land on the the first impression; it smells of cold urin. As for flavor it has no nothing at all, impressing.

UPDATED: MAR 31, 2005 Bottled - Uninteresting, very slightly hopped with that poor artificial look and taste that comes from cold filtered beer. For the price I’d try Melbourne Bitter, or piss in a cup instead

»Clean crisp fresh taste« the top says. Surely they mean "bland boring watery taste"!?