Lion Nathan is about to import and distribute Budweiser, which is relatively hard to find, and have it in more outlets by Christmas.
However, some regard Bud as an unwelcome hangover from the peak of temperance sentiment nearly 100 years ago in the United States.
In the early 1900s, teetotal Americans were voting some states alcohol-free (just as electorates in New Zealand were being voted dry) leading to national prohibition in 1919 (when prohibition was within just a few hundred votes of also being introduced here).
Prohibition lasted in the US until 1933. It was illegal during that time to sell any beverage stronger than 0.5%. When it started there were about 1300 breweries; when it ended, only 166.
Anheuser Busch was one of them. They survived by converting to cereal beer made from non-fermentable grains like rice. Anheuser still makes its Budweiser from 80% rice, unlike the traditional all-malted barley beer.
Supporters of Bud say it is refreshing; others call it bland or tasteless with little or no bitterness. The young and the beautiful embrace it because it is cool to stand around with a slice of lime or lemon pushed down the throat of the bottle, presumably to give the beer some flavour.
Budweiser makes several other styles than the one seen here - including Brew Masters Private Reserve, an all-malt lager; American Ale, with a hoppy flavour and, from this month, Light Golden Wheat, but they will not be imported in the foreseeable future.
However, my Louise likes Bud and will welcome it, as will others who shy away from the traditional malt flavour of beer.
• Although my forebears migrated here 150 years ago from Somerset, which is the capital of apple-growing and cider-making in Britain, remnants of that beverage have long since evaporated from my bloodstream.
I recall it as dangerously drinkable after a colleague, drinking it by the pint, slowly slid down the wall to the floor of a bar in the early 1970s when Auckland was left virtually beerless by a brewery workers' strike which lasted for several weeks.
So, with some trepidation, I poured a bottle of Monteith's recently released Crushed Apple Cider (4.5%), which, incidentally, was judged the best cider at last month's BrewNZ annual beer competition.
Well chilled, its lovely balance of sweet and bitter apples and effervescence does, indeed, make it dangerously refreshing - but the price of $15 for a four-pack of 330ml bottles is sobering.
• Featured this month at Dunedin tavern Cableways is Erdinger Dark wheat beer on tap.
Erdinger, from Bavaria, makes several styles of wheat beer. The Dark is 5.6% alcohol, more malty than many and with subtle banana and raisin flavours.
• Massey University in Palmerston North will hold the country's first residential short course in craft brewing for brewing wannabes in November.
The university installed a micro-brewery more than a year ago for its engineering and food technology degree course.
- Ric Oram.
