Barefoot in the Kitchen

Beer

 

I tried Barefoot Radler whilst cooking dinner earlier in the week.

I had sweat pouring off me, sizzling steak on the hotplate and the Radler tasted great, so good that I thought I’d keep the rest for the footy the next night. When the next day rolled around the Barefoot didn’t taste as good. In fact, I couldn’t bring myself to finish the last four of the six-pack. However, the Minister for War and Finance, who has long held beer prejudice, actually enjoyed them.

What was going on? A beer that she quite enjoyed and I didn’t like? I’m not so out of touch that I don’t realise that because I don’t like it, doesn’t mean everyone won’t. I’m sure that everyone who has read these reviews has thought to themselves “this guys a clown, that beer is great”. But this tastes like a shandy all be it with a little lime. And I haven’t had a shandy since I was 12 at my cousin Chooka’s wedding.

I’m not going to bore you with how I thought it tasted, I’m sure you’ve worked out that I think it’s just beer and lemonade with lime. Instead I’ll give you a bit of background on the beer itself. The Barefoot Radler site tells the story of how radler was first developed. “On a hot Saturday afternoon in June 1922, Franz Xaver Kugler – publican of the Kugler-Alm near Munich, Germany – started mixing dark beer with sparkling lemon juice to meet the high demand from large groups of cyclists who wanted a more refreshing drink so they could continue on their journey without falling off their bicycles! And so a new type of beer was born – a beer with a lemon and lime twist”. He called it ‘radler’, the German word for cyclist – in honour of the folk it was made for. In Germany, the ‘radler’ is an established part of their culture and apparently sells more than 300 million liters of this style of beer are sold each year.  Barefoot Radler was launched in 2008, the 4.2% beer has no artificial additives or preservatives and they are a “carbon neutral” brewery.

Here’s what I think is happening. The 18 –24 year old segment is trending away from beer to premixed and Alco-pop drinks. In an effort to pull the younger palate back to beer, breweries are bringing out these lighter tasting beers, which will grab for not only that segment but also some of the non-beer drinking crowd or those that don’t like a heavy tasting beer.

I’m not saying it’s a bad beer; just that it didn’t suit me.

Probably a good choice though if you don’t remember when breathalysers were little bags that turned crystals green, power strikes or Sir Joh

 

 

NB as of June 2010 Barefoot Radler were forced to change their name to Bare Cove Radler

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