Sad story from Oz

Beermat · Post by **Beermat** » Tue Jul 15, 2008 5:25 pm

No one on Ratebeer seems to have reviewed Melbourne Bitter, but here's a bloke who liked it plenty:
http://www.reuters.com/article/oddlyEno ... 080715?fee

Tapsucker · Post by **Tapsucker** » Tue Jul 15, 2008 10:59 pm

What's the current exchange rate? I think might have a problem (and it's not Melbourne Bitter).

Jon Walker · Post by **Jon Walker** » Wed Jul 16, 2008 8:52 am

That just doesn't add up. As quoted in the article;

An Australian man convicted of his seventh drink-driving charge was spending about A$1,000 ($972) a week on beer -- enough to buy more than 2,500 small bottles a month, a newspaper said Tuesday.

That's an average of 83 bottles a day assuming a 30 day month. How can anyone drink that volume of alcohol and still be alive?

Jan Primus · Post by **Jan Primus** » Wed Jul 16, 2008 9:23 am

Well he could have been spending that kind of money drinking in a pub very easily.

Jon Walker · Post by **Jon Walker** » Wed Jul 16, 2008 9:30 am

True. However even if the beer is $5 a pint in a bar then that means the guy was consuming 6+ pints a day EVERY day. Six pints in a session would do me in for a few days...I'm surprised his liver hasn't exploded.

The math also tells me that if 2500 small beer bottles costs $1000 Australian then each one is around 40 cents. That's quite a deal.

GregClow · Post by **GregClow** » Wed Jul 16, 2008 9:36 am

Jon Walker wrote:The math also tells me that if 2500 small beer bottles costs $1000 Australian then each one is around 40 cents. That's quite a deal.

Maybe one of the standard bottle options in Oz is one that's smaller than the usual 330/341 ml bottles? Like the 195 ml (and later, 222 ml) bottles that Mill St. used to use for the Organic Lager.

crawler · Post by **crawler** » Wed Jul 16, 2008 9:50 am

The article notes it's $1000 a WEEK, not month. So 2500 beer bottles in a month is more like $4000+ which makes a bit more sense. Standard bottles in Australia are 300-341 mL, depending on the brewery (and some brewers still use stubbies there!).

Beer on draft in most of Australia is traditionally ordered in the form of a small 10 oz glass (a "pot") or a larger 15 oz glass (a "schooner"), although more bars are selling 20 oz pints also.

inertiaboy · Post by **inertiaboy** » Wed Jul 16, 2008 1:12 pm

crawler wrote:Beer on draft in most of Australia is traditionally ordered in the form of a small 10 oz glass (a "pot") or a larger 15 oz glass (a "schooner"), although more bars are selling 20 oz pints also.

It's actually a bit more complicated

Jon Walker · Post by **Jon Walker** » Wed Jul 16, 2008 1:15 pm

inertiaboy wrote: It's actually a bit more complicated

I felt drunk just reading that chart.

crawler · Post by **crawler** » Wed Jul 16, 2008 1:32 pm

I've seen that chart also, but speaking for my own time spent in Sydney / New South Wales, Melbourne / Victoria, and Adelaide / South Australia, in most places, it is usually just the 10 oz pot, the 15 oz schooner, and sometimes the 20 oz pint.

I never encountered the 10 oz in Sydney or elsewhere in NSW being called the "middy" at all, it was always called a pot, so not sure how current the references are. A pot was also a pot (10 oz) in Adelaide, they didn't call the 10 oz size a schooner.