An ale expert has provided the answer to the long-debated question regarding the best and worst lagers brewed in the UK, delivering a verdict that might catch some by surprise.
Beer connoisseur Simon Martin, who runs the beer review channel Real Ale Craft Beer on YouTube, undertook a comprehensive taste test of many well-known UK-brewed lagers last month, including Fosters, Carling, Stella Artois, and Carlsberg.
During what must have been an enviable task for any beer lover, Simon set about tasting each beverage to determine the most and least delectable brews, overturning expectations about which would be declared the poorest in quality.
Simon remarked: “San Miguel is the worst. This stuff is the worst UK-brewed beer. It’s not from the Philippines any more. It’s not from Spain any more. Well, it kind of is.”
He elaborated: “It’s brewed in the UK. This stuff is horrible. Horrible, horrible, horrible. It has the hard water from Burton-on-Trent. It has the sweetness from all the syrup that they’ve used,” reports the Daily Star.
Further sharing his views on the beverage, he claimed: “And then they put… some astringent hop in there as well to just to kind of top it all off. This is the worst beer, UK-brewed, mass-produced, fake European world lager.”
Simon also didn’t hold back on his thoughts about Carling, admitting a dislike for it, before conceding he found it preferable over Holsten, which he described as “disgusting” and compared the taste to Haribo sweets.
As for Carlsberg, Simon said it emitted a “quite pleasant” aroma yet was “very sweet” relative to its counterparts.
He recounted that Stella Artois had once left him with a severe headache and, obviously, little seems to have changed, as his assessment did not appear favourable this time around either.
Simon said he’s “glad” because now he knows “never to buy San Miguel again”, and he “probably” wouldn’t buy Holsten Pils either.
Surprisingly, one brew that outperformed expectations was Fosters, about which Simon remarked it “always has this bad name”. Yet, after sampling, he found himself “very surprised”, describing the lager as “malty” and “grainy”.
He was so taken with the Australian-origin, albeit UK-brewed beer, that he made a bold statement, asserting: “If I was to buy any of these beers, I think it would be Fosters.
“I honestly think it would be Fosters. So the worst mass-produced fake European world lager is San Miguel and probably the best is… is Fosters.”
