Beer O’Clock gets manly with Skol Super, the 'Bus Stop Beer'

It's Friday, and we all need a drink. Neil from Real Beer has this week's recommendation:

Skol Super – my one weakness, my Achilles heel if you will.

It is not a fashionable thing to say in good beer circles, but those big bold cans of 9% lager are a guilty pleasure of mine.

It was actually the first beer I ever reviewed. I chose Skol Super as a strange personal protest against the launch of the Citrus Hopper, Berry Hopper and Peach Hopper range of fruit beers, and of 'Stinger – The Fruit Flavored Lager.'

Those alleged beers were a truly a national disgrace.

They were literally nothing more than the usual watery New Zealand lager with a shot of sugar and some fruit syrup chucked in. They didn't need to be brewed - you could have whipped them up in a Soda Stream in five minutes - although it would have been an utter waste of five minutes.

In a moment of rare good sense, consumers quickly turned against them and they faded away. I mourn their passing like I would the end of polio or skateboarding. ( I do at least live in hope of the latter.)

Anyway, to register my disapproval against the (thankfully short-lived) fruit-syrup-beer phenomena I resolved there and then to review the strongest, manliest beers I could find on the shelves of my local New World.

That is where Skol Super came in.

This manly sounding beer is brewed in the United Kingdom. It comes in very manly 500ml cans. It has a most manly strength of 9% abv. It sponsors the World Championship of that most manly of sports - darts.

It is a light, almost sandy, colour with a large but wispy head. The first taste impression is of a full, strong, alcoholic mouth feel. You certainly won't mistake this for Export Gold in a hurry. It has hints of malty sweetness – but is not cloying. It has an inoffensive, but reasonably short, after taste.

I am reliably informed it is the beer of choice for British vagrants where it is usually served in a brown paper bag. Because of where it is often consumed, Skol Super has earned the moniker 'Bus Stop Beer.'

Here, it is almost five dollars a can, which leaves very little over for the brown paper bag. A guilty pleasure indeed...

LINKS: Real Beer

TAGS: Beer_&_Elsewhere