Life Is Getting Better, Australian Beer Dept.

Americans know that Foster's is "Australian for beer." That's actually not true -- Foster's is a marginal player in the Aussie domestic market, although the Foster's-owned VB brand is very popular. But what I think of as Foster's-like beer -- feeble lagers, "refreshing" but why not just have water -- has typified the Australian domestic beer style. As it has in most other places on this side of the Pacific.

Until now! A craft brew explosion, in the good sense, is underway in Australia, promising to correct one of the few sub-standard aspects of the Aussie lifestyle: bad beer. I'll have more to say about this shortly, but for now, here is the view this afternoon from the place I'm staying in Sydney. Each of those 11 bottles is a local craft brew, including four from the influential James Squire range of beers and one from the phenomenal Lord Nelson Brewery, where I have been dozens of times over the years and where my wife and I tried pints' worth of various brews last night. The bottled version of Lord Nelson's "Three Sheets" ale, perhaps not as good as straight from the brewpub but still very good, is second-from-right in the picture below.