FRESH IS BEST M
ost beer drinkers would probably have had a disappointing experience with an imported beer. It’s no secret that – especially for hop-driven styles – too long in the warehouse, on the ship or truck, or time sitting on the shelf can reduce a beer’s quality in spades, with both hop aroma and flavour diminishing rapidly when exposed to heat, light or oxygen. With this in mind, and with the huge upsurge in quality of locally produced products in recent years, is there still any point in ranging imported beer? Richard Kelsey, Director of online and ‘bricks and mortar’ retail store Beer Cartel, says he has seen a “pretty dramatic shift” in the imported versus local beer landscape in the last three or four years, and particularly in the last 12 months.
38 | JUNE 2018 NATIONAL LIQUOR NEWS
WITH LOCALLY-PRODUCED MAINSTREAM AND CRAFT BEER, IMPORTS, AND BREWED UNDER LICENCE PREMIUM INTERNATIONAL BRANDS ALL COMPETING FOR SPACE IN THE FRIDGE THESE DAYS, THERE ARE MORE OPTIONS FOR THE DISCERNING BEER DRINKER (AND RETAILER) THAN EVER, WRITES TAM ALLENBY.
“There is now so much quality beer being produced that Australian beer accounts for over 60 percent of craft beer sales we make, from the 1,000 different lines we stock,” he told National Liquor News. “If we were to go back two years, around 40 percent of all our sales would have been made up of Australian beer. “In the past, where the quality of Australian craft beer wasn’t as good as what we are seeing on the market now, we would have said that Australian and imported brews were still relatively comparable. Now the quality of Australian product has increased, we will always recommend going with Australian product. This is particularly important for beers that are lower in alcohol or really hop-forward as these degrade more severely over time and drinking these fresh is important to really appreciate the beer.”
COLD STORAGE Well aware of the effect that importation can have on quality, many beer importers employ cold storage throughout the shipping process to try and negate the decline; according to Phoenix Beers’ owner Leif Ryan, “if a beer is not pasteurised and relies on its hop characters, then we transport and store refrigerated”. However, the last part of the chain – in-store – is out of the importer’s control; a lack of space to be able to store beers refrigerated is a constant headache, as many retailers would no doubt attest. “Luckily for us since our beers are from high quality brewers, they stand up to being stored ambient for a number of weeks without issue,” Ryan adds, pointing to Sierra Nevada as one brand that continues to grow in a very competitive and crowded Australian market.
