Natural Blonde - Carlton & United Breweries, Ltd.

SmashPants

Australia

3.25/5  rDev +39.5%
look: 2.5 | smell: 3 | taste: 3.5 | feel: 3.5 | overall: 3

Bottle: standard macro fare - 355mL brown bottle, cheap label.

Appearance: standard light amber lager, pitiful bubbling head that dissipates immediately.

Aroma: pretty standard lager grain aroma. Not bad since it's a low carb.

Taste: pretty decent for a low carb - I couldn't split it from a full strength. And that is an achievement of its own. Flavours of grain with light grassy hops.

Aftertaste: the hops linger and become somewhat bitter, but does dissipate reasonably quickly. Lucky it's a refreshing, sessional lager.

Mouth feel: standard macro lager - light body, high carbonation. Suits it just fine.

Overall: the best thing about this low carb is that it tastes exactly like a proper, Australian full-strength lager. A good sessional - not overly special, but just a reasonable refreshing lager.

Serving type: bottle

10-01-2012 04:53:51 | More by SmashPants

kdcreagh

Australia

1.75/5  rDev -24.9%
look: 4 | smell: 2 | taste: 1 | feel: 1 | overall: 3

I am not a CUB basher. There's a reason why these guys have such a large share of the Australian market - because they deliver consistently high-quality products to a large audience. That said I have absolutely nothing good to say about this "beer". It's as pointless as the marketing campaign that's currently trying to flog off this new low-carb concoction, "Taste the future in your mouth".

The look - The head poured clearly and cleanly, this beer looks fantastic, very bright and inviting.

The smell - Very faint aromas. Barely anything in fact, bar a slight hint of obvious malt.

The taste - literally like drinking water with a dash of malt extract.

Mouth feel - if it weren't for the fact you'd taken a mouthful, you wouldn't be able to tell you were drinking anything.

Drinkability - obviously no taste means it's very easy to drink. Get this near freezing and you'd be able to drink dozens. But given such a bland, tasteless beer, why would you bother other than to get drunk?

CUB makes some excellent low-carb beers. Pure Blonde Naked Mid-Strength rivals any other Australian premium on the market, those lovely Galaxy hops!

But this crap?

I have no idea why they even bothered when they have the two Pure Blond ranges already dominating the market.

Expect this to last about as long as another ill-conceived CUB expedition, Empire Lager.

Serving type: bottle

04-24-2009 07:45:45 | More by kdcreagh

jarmby1711

Australia

2.05/5  rDev -12%
look: 3 | smell: 2.5 | taste: 2 | feel: 2 | overall: 1.5

A disturbingly clear beer ,which is quite often a big warning to me. The enthusiastic bubbling rushes to a soap sudsy like head that hung around for a while.
Smells of Eau de CUB .You know that metallic chemically mixture , far removed from malted barley hops and yeast.There is a waft of biscuity sweetness ,which in a CUB product is quite a stand out.
What had started off ingloriously then descended quite precipitoiusly.One couldnt find anything unpleasant about the flavours , but then again one could find nothing pleasant either. Simply it is flavourless. See that word CUB : flavourless.
Mouthfeel is watery with some sourness to ramp up the experience.
I can readily make a few conclusions.
1."carbs" do add flavour to beer
2. " carbs " dont add flavour and CUB just arent very good at the technique
3. 1 and 2 are true
There are far less " carbs " in sparkling mineral water , it is cheaper and has just about as much flavour.

Serving type: bottle

01-20-2009 21:52:07 | More by jarmby1711

Macca

Australia

2.28/5  rDev -2.1%
look: 2 | smell: 2 | taste: 2.5 | feel: 2.5 | overall: 2

It is very hard to find anything nice to say about this beer. I was hoping that somebody else might have set this up.
It pours a dark amber with very little head, absolutely no retention. It looks ugly.
A slight hop aroma but so very slight.
Taste is reminiscent of everything else from CUB.
I am glad the chili dinner has numbed my taste buds.

Serving type: bottle

12-02-2008 09:08:15 | More by Macca