Beer Radar
By John Krüger
Low-Carb Beers
(First published by Wine Business Magazine in 2007)
What’s light in colour, light in body, has a smattering more flavour than light beer and well… let’s just cut to the chase: it’s low-carb beer. Out of all the beers in our assessment fridge, these were shuffled, stacked and used to hold other things up, until we had no choice but to open a few and get on with it.
We won’t waste too much ink on the dodgey ones, but let’s just say the first one did look very clear, had a beautiful yellow colour, had little bubbles and well, didn’t taste very nice. We’re erring on the side of caution and suggesting that the beer was “skunked”, an American coined term for light-struck beer. It’s not a great result, and apart from oxidation, (and just plain bad beer) it’s one of the scourges of the bottled beer market. Clear bottles offer the least protection from UV but look cool.
Surely another big reputable brand can blow the cobwebs off the tastebuds instead of scare them into curling up in a defensive position. Boags Blonde low-carb was actually surprisingly drinkable, but they seem to know what they’re doing when it comes to mouthfeel and finish with session beers in Tassie. And session beers are what low-carb beers are all about aren’t they?
