Ain't got no body

Your Correspondent is on record somewhere (possibly everywhere) as saying low-carb beers are a bucket of toss. Style over substance. Real beer isn't actually that high in carbs, apart from peat-dense stouts like Guinness, so low-carb beers are really just a synonym for Marketing Wank. Subtract the carbs and you basically subtract the malty, estery residues of brewing that are everything to do with flavour, body and mouthfeel. Hence why most low-carb beers (in particular the US 'Lights', named for dietary considerations not alcohol content) are thinner than Amy Winehouse and taste equally as dried-up and skanky.

That said, I've been trying a new low-carb ale. As agreed, this is usually a recipe for fail frosted with arse. The brew is Speights Traverse from NZ's leading brewer Speights (having their headquarters here in Dunedin has nothing do to with that statement), sibling to their Summit golden lager which came out a year or so ago and saw the Lion Nathan owned concern moving away from their traditional of making old-man beers like Old Dark and Distinction Ale (aside from their flagship Gold Medal Ale, NZ's number one selling beer) to aiming for the Yoof Market. Lots of advertising leveraging the synergy of Speights' Otago base and the adventure playgrounds of central Otago and the Southern Alps; Summit's tag line being 'Don't mess with nature', clearly parking the marketing bus smack bang in that sort of territory. (Like all beer ads it's a good one, because they've spent money on thinking it up.)

Same again with their new low-carb effort Traverse, aiming for the body-conscious gent with their tag line 'Only carry what you need' (see what they did there? Cos it's half the carbs. And it's called Traverse, leveraging all that X-treme mountainy shit. MARKETING GENIARSE.) Now WoB isn't TOBP - not that nearly enough decent Kiwi beers make it to Steve's page, which isn't that surprising given some bastard parked the Pacific Ocean in the way - so our beer reviews extend as far as saying the following: It's decent. Not as sweet as Summit - so Beeso will be disappointed - and no body to speak of but it's pretty to look at, like Miranda Kerr. Nice mouthfeel. Ditto. Possibly.

But what's the point? As with last time, this is style over substance, pretense over contents. Traverse - and the other 'value added premium branded' low-carb beers like Pure Blonde or Hahn Super Dry - are more expensive than their usual label stablemates. Traverse, on the day I bought it at $19 a dozen, stacked against $17 for Summit and $15 for Speights (as the Gold Medal Ale is usually known.) A perfect example of what a branding guru once described to me (and a bunch of other peeps in a seminar, I wasn't that special) as the intent and the ideal of all branding exercises: getting people to pay more for less. In this case, less carbs, less body, and less flavour. Less beer, in short.

And, to be fair, the Kiwis (or at least the NZ arm of Lion Nathan) usually do this sort of thing better than most. The best midstrength around at the moment is Steinlager Edge - not yet in Australia - but it's 3.5% alcohol, lower(ish) carbs, and actually has taste. Compare that to something like Peroni Leggera, which is aimed at the same market but instead tastes almost exactly as though someone's poured Nastro Azzurro into a stubbie to two-thirds full and topped the bastard off with water. Given the carb and alcohol count it may well be the case. Bloody Italians. The rest of them are equally nasty. All the Blondes are skanky. Pure, Platinum, Bondi, Jackie O. There hasn't been a good low carb beer brewed anywhere, ever. And there never will be, because it's like trying to make fat-free chocolate, or friction-free sex. You can't take out the key ingredient and expect to make the thing appealing.

So in summary. Low carb beers: they don't taste very nice and they make two fifths of fuck all difference to the size of your gut. Buy them if you are stupid. The end.

The Doctor is OUT to grab the last Summit before DMDY does.