Emu (beer) - Varieties

Varieties

There are three varieties:

• Emu Bitter is a full-strength lager. It is a very bitter beer with now only 4.0% alcohol, high hoppiness and a medium body. The recipe has not changed since it was first launched in 1923. Emu Bitter is colloquially known as "Bush Chooks," "EB" or "Kenny" (after the master brewer, Ken Arrowsmith (Ken Oath) featured on the current label and in recent advertising).
• Emu Export, sometimes called Emu Export Lager, is a lager. The beer was first brewed in 1954 and contains 4.4% alcohol. It is also affectionately known as "the red lead", the "flightless bird" or simply "export" or "sport", "E squared", "wife bashers" or "red can". It is marketed as the flagship brew of the Emu armada even though its recipe and taste has changed markedly since the controversial dropping to 4.4% alcohol. (It was 4.9%).
• Emu Draft, sometimes Emu Draught, is a midstrength beer. It was first made in 1992 and is brewed with malt giving it a distinctive amber colour. It contains 3.0% alcohol.

In the mid to late 20th century, when Emu Bitter came in large brown bottles with green labels, it was also called "green stuff", "green poison" or "kero". These names were frequently used tongue in cheek, or in a derogatory way by those who preferred Swan lager, (often the only readily available alternative), and were a reference to Emu Bitter's green coloured label and its very bitter taste ("kerosene like taste" Swan Lager drinkers would claim). Post WW II, power kerosene in Western Australia was often coloured green and came in brown 26 oz. bottles similar to those used post war for Emu Bitter. These old colloquial names are still sometimes used with affection by some older generation Western Australians who recall the days when beer only came in large brown bottles or out of a keg.

Prior to the late 1970s, the Swan Brewery had a virtual monopoly in the Western Australia beer market. Therefore, outside of the Goldfields where the original Hannan's Lager and Kalgoorlie Stout (Kalgoorlie brewed by the Swan Brewery owned Kalgoorlie Brewing Company) still held their own, the choice for beer drinkers was often only between Emu Bitter and Swan Lager, and both brews had their loyal consumers who would make fun of the opposing brew. Emu Bitter drinkers, in response to the "kero" name calling, would often claim that Emu Bitter was "a real man's drink", while Swan Lager was "a drink for women and young men not tough enough to appreciate the bitter taste of Emu Bitter". And in those less than politically correct days, any young Perth man who did drink an imported beer, or the locally bottled Skol, or Swan Special Bond, was likely to get comments from his drinking friends suggesting his choice of brew indicated something questionable about his sexuality. The Kalgoorlie Brewery closed in 1982 and Hannan's Lager eventually disappeared from Swan's list of brews (but lately, a facsimile Hannan's Lager was launched by the Ironbark Brewery).