Drinking beer in Queensland #2

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Whilst I enjoyed my blink-and-you’d-miss-it trip to Queensland, I do have a bit of an issue with the Sunshine State’s drinking habits. For a start the drink of choice is XXXX Gold. Now, when I travel, my outlook is this: wherever you are drink the local drop. If it’s good enough for them, it should be good enough for you. Besides, what’s the point in drinking your usual beer while you’re away anyway?? Where’s your sense of adventure?? That’s how I feel NORMALLY. However in Queensland I have an entirely different opinion…

I’ll start by saying that I think it’s largely because of the climate that almost everyone - even the biggest , hairiest men I have ever seen - drinks mid-strength beer in Queensland. Let’s face it - it’s hot and sweaty and you need to drink a lot to stay hydrated. So I guess if you were slamming down full-strength beer all the time you’d be spastic in minutes.

So that would explain why it seems to be home to every conceivable kind of mid-strength beer. I didn’t even KNOW Crown Lager had a mid strength version. Until my parents told me they had a couple of Crownies downstairs and I almost tangled myself up in myself trying to actually get in the fridge with them until I realised they were a slightly alarming gold colour….. That’s right. Crown Lager Gold.

Cast Thee Out.

It’s not that I’m a beer snob - you should know by now that I’m not. It’s just that mid-strength beer to me is the single most abhorrent thing you could drink - next to a shandy. (Sorry Cash!)

It bloats me, seems to lack taste and most of all it lacks that delightful ability to get me drunk.

And I just don’t like the way it makes me feel. Probably because I am sober enough to realise that the beer tasts terrible.

So that’s why drinking in Queensland can be an awkward experience. I have no doubt that if I spent more time there that I would aclimatise and end up drinking middies with pleasure. But until such time, I will continue to fight for the full-strength beer’s rights. Mostly because I live in a place that is so cold for half the year that you need to drink full-strength beer just to stop you from slipping into hibernation.

But also because mid-strength is wrong. Wrong, wrong WRONG!!! It’s half a beer. It’s not quite a beer. It’s the apathetic beer!!

FIGHT THE APATHY!!!

Crack a full-strength beer now!!!