The eagle-eyed are about to notice a difference in Beck's beer. It is now being made in New Zealand by Lion Breweries instead of being imported from its home in Germany.
The local brew is already on tap, and it is now replacing the bottled beer on retail shelves.
The only perceivable difference between the two will be freshness, and the fact that a new label says it is made under licence here.
Beck's is made in 13 other countries, including China. Local breweries produce other international brands here. Lion has produced Stella Artois here for the past nine years, and Kilkenny and Guinness for 18 years.
Independent Breweries produces the Danish Carlsberg and Tuborg brands, and DB produces the Dutch Amstel and Heineken brands.
It has taken Lion's Canterbury brewery all year, and nine trial batches involving more than 250,000 litres, to get the match right. (No, the beer will not have been wasted: it will have been drip-fed into similar Lion brews made at the plant.)
Beck's owner, AB InBev (which also owns the Stella Artois, Budweiser and Hoegaarden brands, among others) provided the all-important yeast which gives a beer its distinctive flavour, and the same German hops are being used.
Beck's is a relatively pale brew, and the biggest problem has been to find a New Zealand malt which produces the required light hue.
In the meantime, Australian malt is being imported.
The same light green bottle is being used and, like most beer bottles, it is being imported. (Take care when drinking outside, because this one lets in more ultraviolet light, which reacts within minutes with hop particles to produce a sour or musty aroma.)
However, water, the biggest ingredient (more than 90% of beer) does not have to be transported, which is a cost-saving likely to be passed on to the retail shelf.
Keep an eye out: a 12-pack of imported Beck's which is not on special retails for about $28.
Guinness anniversary
Beck's started brewing in 1873. But it is a youngster compared with Guinness, which today celebrates its 250th birthday.
That year, Arthur Guinness signed a 9000-year lease on an unused brewery in Dublin.
The anniversary is being marked with a limited edition six-pack of bottles ($19 at Foodtown) of a brew based on an old recipe, and the standard Guinness stout is out in specially-labelled anniversary cans.
Black pilsner
Dunedin brewer Emerson's has released its second Hoppy Porter, available from the Wickliffe St brewery, which is even more hoppy than the first.
Hoppy2Porter (5.2%) has six different malts in it and bucketloads of hop. If you prefer hop, chill it, but the best balance of malt and hop is achieved about 10degC.
Just the Tonic
Dunedin's Tonic Bar is staging its second annual two-week Bestival of Feer, which ends on October 3.
Until then it has eight craft beers on tap, including three of Emerson's beers. (Try the brewery's trophy-winning beWITched wheat beer.)
- Ric Oram.
