GREAT BARRIER BEER
Despite the road being long, with many a winding turn …it often seems to disappear so quickly. So, let’s not wait for the wake, grab this cold craft – it’s all the lubrication you need to be brave and tell a mate, your brother, the tribe, what they mean to you. It's a beautiful way to not only encourage another, but it opens the door to a conversation about life's sometimes bumpy road. Remember, eulogies are also for the living!
Origin – Great Barrier Reef, Queensland
ABV- 4.5%
Size- 375mL can
Style- Lager
There is no absolute agreement on what constitutes our national icon – that elusive thing that we all instantly recognise as uniquely Australiana. From Kakadu to the Daintree and back to the Bridge and Opera House, from Don Bradman, Banjo Paterson and Nancy-Bird Walton to Kylie Minogue and her heavenly hotpants, from Four'n Twenty pies and Vegemite to lamingtons and even burgers with pineapple and beetroot, our icons range from the magnificent to the mundane. In the year 2000, the Sydney Olympics opening and closing ceremonies laid them on with a shovel. A Light Horse Brigade of Men from Snowy River in Akubras and Drizabones, cracking stockwhips; giant Nolan Ned Kellys; massed Victa mowers; Hills Hoists; and huge rubber thongs.
Yet no list would be complete without Uluru or the Great Barrier Reef. However, while our Rock has weathered storms relatively unscathed for over a millennium, the same can't be said of the reef, which in the last three decades alone has lost half its coral. So, with a background already in environmental causes, James Grugeon decided it was high time someone lent our national icon a hand. As a proud advocate of purpose-led business, James started The Good Beer Co. to brew beer for good causes. From the outset his aim was simple - to make a great Australian lager for a great Australian icon. Great Barrier Beer was born.
Aside from helping raise the profile of the plight, through James' partnership with the Australian Marine Conservation Society, ten per cent of the price of every can, six-pack and carton sold goes directly to help fund their work to protect the Great Barrier Reef. Although it’s not just the concept that’s award winning, with the Ballistic Beer brewed lager also winning a swag of medals, including a bronze in the highly competitive 2019 Royal Queensland Food and Wine Show. So, what does it taste like raise a glass of craft lager to a better future for our reef? Crisp and refreshing. Single hopped with our very own Aussie iconic hop, the Galaxy, it’s a beer that delivers hints of livelier fruity characters with that familiar grainy malt profile from good European lagers. It’s then all wrapped up with a light bitterness that sends you away thinking it’d be perfect for enjoying on the reef. Along with BWS and local bottle shops, you can also pick one up on another Aussie icon, our floating pokie den that is P&O's cruise ships.
Drinking a beer designed to help the reef while you're looking at the reef – it doesn't get much more Oz than that!