Data from research firm Roy Morgan has highlighted the continued decline of beer consumption in Australia.
The data highlights the difference the seasons make to beer consumption in the country, with peaks coming in the summer season, followed by winter season troughs. The data also shows that more consumers turn to red and fortified wines as the temperature drop rather than beer.
Over the past 10 years, the average proportion of Australians drinking beer during the July-September quarter is 37.6 per cent, compared with a long-term average of 43 per cent for the January-March quarter.
“Unlike beer-drinkers in the northern hemisphere, Australians do not tend to see beer as a winter beverage. So it’s no surprise that the proportion of us drinking it during the cool July-September quarter falls, only to peak again in the warm January-March quarter every year,” said Andrew Price general manager of consumer products with Roy Morgan Research.
“Of course, this doesn’t mean that so-called ‘winter beers’ aren’t available here, but it does suggest that marketers wishing to overcome our resistance to (or at least, inability to process) the concept have their work cut out for them.
“Along with the corresponding increases in the proportion of us drinking red and fortified wines during the July-September quarter, our findings also reveal that Aussie adults are much more inclined to drink hot chocolate at this time of year than any other quarter. One has to wonder, therefore, why no liquor brands have yet introduced a pre-prepared alcoholic hot chocolate into the market.”
I originally migrated to Australia from the UK in 1978. I was one of the early members of CAMRA and had a good knowledge of and appreciation of beers, not only real ale.
In those days beers such as Fosters, Cascade and XXXX were widely available in the UK as there was a huge Aussie ex-pat community.
So even before emigrating I had the chance to sample Aussie mainstream beers alongside European beers such as Dutch Heineken, Pilsner Urquell, Carlsberg etc.
Australian lagers would hold their heads up proudly alongside their Euro cousins, with Fosters in particular being a very tasty example.
Since then the quality and flavour of Aussie mainstreams has declined year by year so that nowadays they lack virtually all malt flavour and with the exception of a few standouts like Melbourne Bitter they no longer have any hop aroma or much bitterness.
They are simply “chug them down to get p**sed” brews. That was fine up till the 90s as cider was virtually non existent and pre mixed spirits were in their infancy.
However nowadays drinkers looking to either to get sloshed easily or at the other end of the spectrum to experience some sort of flavour, why would they bother with the rather nasty mainstream beers anymore.