Becks
Tuesday, July 24th, 2007
As most people are aware the German’s know how to make a good beer and this is one of them.
First brewed in 1873 in the small German city of Bremen and then officially launched in 1874. Becks beer was winning prizes and medals from a very early age. From its beginnings to this current day Becks has been brewed to the German Purity Law of 1516 – one of the oldest food regulations in the world. Unfortunately, the beer itself no longer comes from Germany and is now brewed and bottled here in Australia, but rest assured the same ingredients used in the German counterpart are used here. Becks beer tastes exceptionally crisp and dry making it an ideal drink for beer drinkers and non beer drinkers alike. There’s not much of a scent to Becks and the colour of the beer is light yellow. The beer comes in a green pop cap bottle with the traditional silver foil top label.
In continuing fashion from my last review I will show you one of my favourite Becks television advertisements:
To give you an idea of just how popular this beer is, the makers claim that over 50 Becks are consumed every minute, plus Becks are now sold in over 120 different countries worldwide. So next time you’re in the market for a German alternative might I suggest you try Becks, you won’t regret it – I didn’t!
Rating (out of five):
Category : Beer Reviews, Lager, Pilsner
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Never really tried beer till a few months back but this one is great! I’d definately give it a big thumbs up!
The Aussie brewed Beck’s is a pale shadow of the German original. Look for the “Imported” logo on the upper foil if you want to try thr real thing.
Schroeter is right.
Most BECKS is brewed under licence… this results in a very different beer that does not adhere to the German purity laws…
The pisse is really worth its money if you can get your hands on an imported bottle (which was not to badly mistreated with sunshine etc.).
Horrible, if you had ever drank Becks before it was brewed here.
The taste difference is chalk & chese, or rather beer & horse piss.
I got annoyed at the local Becks so I complained. Here is there response :
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Thank you for letting us know how you feel! You were very forthright which I appreciate.
If you would permit me, I would like to give you some information about the Beck’s Bier you buy in Australia. The first thing is that there two types; locally brewed and imported.
Locally-Brewed
Brauerei Beck licenses brewing of Beck’s in many countries around the world. They supervise the setup of this brewing and bottling to ensure the same recipe is used and the same stringent standards are met. In addition, a sample of EVERY brew made in any of these countries is flown back to Brauerei Beck in Bremen, Germany for tasting and checking by a master brewer before it is approved for release. Even if the flavour is perfect but the colour is slightly out of specification, the brew will not be released. In this way, we can ensure that the Beck’s you buy in Australia is identical to that which leaves the brewery gate at Bremen.
Imported
Various importers bring Beck’s into Australia and sell it in competition to the local licensee. The vast majority comes from Bremen so starts its life as perfect Beck’s. The issue then comes from what happens between Bremen and Australia.
The first factor is time; it takes at least 3 months for most of the product to reach Australia. For flavour & aroma for lager, fresh beer is the best beer. Even the non-experts can pick (and prefer) a fresh beer vs one that is over 3 months old. Most of the imported Beck’s in Australia is well over 3 months old; it can be well past 6 months. When the beer leaves the brewery in Bremen it has 12 months ‘best before’ date on it. Check how much date is left on the product you purchased.
The second factor is heat. Beer is of course brewed at high temperature, but once it has fermented and been filled into bottles and kegs, the quality of the beer is best preserved by avoiding heat. A trip out from Bremen involves the product being loaded into containers and shipped out via the Middle East and Asia, often spending additional time on the docks in Bahrain or Dubai and Singapore. None of the regions or cities are renowned for their cool temperate climates and as a result, a large proportion of that extended shipping time also sees the beer subjected to high temperatures.
The purpose of telling you all this is so you can make an informed choice. It is understandable that drinkers would think that imported Beck’s must be good. The reality is that the Australian-brewed Beck’s tastes exactly the same as the Beck’s that leaves the gate in Bremen. The reality is also that the Beck’s that arrives in Australia from Bremen no longer tastes as good as when it left, or therefore as good as the vastly fresher locally-brewed Beck’s.
Clearly you enjoy Beck’s. If you didn’t feel strongly for the brand you wouldn’t have felt so compelled to write to us. Hopefully you can in time appreciate and savour the flavour that this great beer is meant to have
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Am I to beleive that I like stale Becks ?
I challenge someone whos about to fly to Germany to bring a couple of bottles of local Becks and compare it.
Hi Dave I think you should be commended for writing to Becks and no we shouldn’t have to put up with second rate brews!
Couldn’t agree more: local brew tastes worse and hangover headache would prove to me that the exact ingredients & brewing are not used & that purity laws are not followed.Try Oettinger Pils .
i’m having the becks imported right now, expiry date is 8/10
in comparison to the local one i had last saturday, I would have to say the local is significantly BETTER!…
The local has more flavour and sweeter,
imported taste more carbonated when first opened and less taste.
I realise this thread is years old now, but i googled one day in search of others who had found the difference in taste as well. Since moving to Australia almost a year ago, I found the taste of my favorite beer had changed but wondered if it was simply my tastebuds after being scorched by an Aussie summer. But I was confident the difference in tatse was real.
I found a shop that sells Beck’s with a sticker placed on each bottle claiming it to be ‘imported’. Well naturally . Or maybe not so naturally as I later learned that Beck’s is also brewed in SA.
HOWEVER, after holding 2 bottles side by side, one imported from Germany and the other from SA, the difference was revealed. There is an extra ingredient in the SA brew. Yeast.
Both bottles contain water, malted barley and hops, but only the SA bottle contains yeast on the label. This would certainly explain the taste, as well as the hangover effects, as I’ve always found pure Beck’s to give no hangover, but the imposter can make no such claims.
[...] reading the dialogue on the industry advice site http://www.beeradvice.com.au/51/becks . Beck’s have also been subjected to similar scrutiny in [...]
Australian Becks tastes like shit. All the BUL beer uses the same BULshit lines that it’s flown back to Germany
My favourite line is this one:
“Even the non-experts can pick (and prefer) a fresh beer vs one that is over 3 months old. Most of the imported Beck’s in Australia is well over 3 months old; it can be well past 6 months.”
WELL GUESS WHAT, EVEN AN IDIOT LIKE ME CAN PICK YOUR SHITTY BS MARKETING. Your beer is SHIT. It is just like all the other hangover inducing shit on the Australian market (proper imports excluded)!
TOTAL MARKETING SCAM, purity law my anus, Germany all over the label. BULshit.
Give me a 12 month old crappy tasting German beer ANYDAY.
Just bought a carton of Becks as it was on a special at the local Woolworths. Hadn’t drunk it since coming to Oz from the UK 3 years ago. After tasting it, I was perplexed as it did not taste anything like any Becks I had drunk before. It was far too sweet for a start. After looking at the label and seeing it was brewed locally, a quick search brought me to this page. All I can say is that if the local stuff tastes like “real” Becks, then I don’t know what they used to do to the stuff they shipped to the UK to make it taste infinitely better. That was from Bremen and it consistently tasted like real beer, not the syrup in a bottle they sell here as Becks. I certainly won’t be buying the local brewed stuff again.
Yeah it’s a shame Scott but more and more brews seem to be going the way of ‘brewed under licence’. Remember to pay close attention to the label in future purchases and thank you for your comment.