Beer: Lubricating Australian Society

No nation in the world makes beer like we do in Australia. Sit down, Texas! I've warned you before! One more outburst like that, and you'll have a family of rock wallabies living in that gigantic cave you like to call a mouth!

The Belgians have a fair crack at making beer, and the Germans, too, seem to know a little bit about it. The British like theirs hot and flat, which is the equivalent of trying to quench your thirst by sucking on the tepid bladder of a dead goanna. It might keep you alive for an extra day, but it's a desperate act! The USA makes the odd tasty brew, but in general the words "insipid" and "lite" leap to mind every time I think of a Budweiser or a Miller. (And I know you blokes are a bit funny on your spellings over there, but what in the bloody hell is wrong with "light"? It stops you from tripping over your knuckles in the dark, you Neanderthal scrotes! Fair dinkum!) American beer is possum piss, I'm afraid. When it comes to brewing top-notch beer, Australia is the only country that has more chance than a one-legged Rebel in an arse-kicking competition.

But beer is so much more than a tasty beverage in Australia. It's an institution, with regional, cultural and social variations aplenty.

For example, did you know that in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Queenslanders had the lowest rate of literacy in the developing world? Were the beer brewers put off? Of course not. They just labelled their beer XXXX (pronounced "Four-Ex"), and the Cane Toads (as they are known to the rest of us normal Aussies) have been happily pissed ever since. And just so the geographically challenged Victorians (Australia's Mexicans) could remember where they lived, their brewers gave their beers names such as Victoria Bitter and Melbourne Bitter. Reckon I'd be bloody bitter if I had to live there, too!

You can often tell a lot about a person by the beer he or she is drinking. For example, a Tooheys drinker probably drives a Holden car, wears ugh boots, stretch jeans and a flannelette shirt, and has never set eyes on the letter G: "What are you f---in' lookin' at, mate! Piss off or I'll job ya!" Social graces? I don't think so.

Your more refined imbiber, on the other hand, might drink Crown Lager. This gold-labelled BMW of beers is the tipple of choice for chaps who drive European cars, and wear pinstriped suits, crisp cotton shirts and silk ties. In other words, poncing bloody yuppies who need taking out the back and thrashing with an axe handle. Frankly, they shouldn't be allowed to drink beer! In fact, they should be deported, the bloody leeches!

OK, yuppies are people too. (Christ, that hurt to say!) And you had to pick the best thing about drinking beer in Australia -- and by the Lord Harry, there's a long list of possibles -- it's that everybody does it. Everywhere from the Melbourne Cup to the Birdsville Races, from the Sydney Opera House to strippers' night at the Fifield Pub, everyone from the Prime Minister to Greasy Joe O'Donell, the local Goggomobile mechanic and horse-shoer, can be seen rubbing shoulders at the bar, shouting their mates schooner after schoone of the golden brew of angels.

So when you come to Australia -- and don't think I'm inviting you, you foreign rabble -- just remember this: The quickest way to make friends, spend all your money, and wake up in the gutter with a pounding head and a mouth like the bottom of a budgie cage is to buy an Aussie a beer. They still won't like you, but you'll be as popular as a plate of lamingtons at the Sunday School fete.

And my rating for Aussie beer? A deliciously hop-flavoured 0 out of 11 (I'd give it less if I could), a perfect score, because do you know what I hate about beer? Nothing!