Daylight savings trips on the back of the ferry are now in full swing. The crowds are growing at the outdoor Circular Quay bar and it seems that the bars at Circular Quay are growing in number. I talked about Young Alfred last week and the fact they offered two beers that I’d never seen before. I’ve already covered about the first of those – ‘na biretta Chiara. I lamented the fact that ‘na biretta’s brewer – BirradaMare – makes some very interesting looking beers and that we in Oz got the most mainstream. Well, fortunately their “blonde” isn’t the only one available in Oz – and BotF will be having a crack at the Nera and Rossa (read black and bock) soon. (Not that the Chiara was bad – it was actually a good Euro beer).
Hoöten - on the stern
The second unique at Young Alfred was a “Premium Dutch Lager” called Hoöten. After the ‘na biretta Chiara, Hoöten was very, very bland. It is very fizzy and undistinguished. It is one of the few beers to include Maltose as one of its listed ingredients. I had one before pulling into Mr Liquor for the supplies for the journey home and made my second sighting of Hoöten in 20 minutes. Mr Liquor had it in 6 packs for $9.99. That was a worrying sign. Normally Mr Liquor puts in something new at a double digit price – but with the Hoöten, he’d gone bargain basement from Day 1.
Hoöten - fizzy lager
Now this hasn’t washed up on a beach – Hoöten is legitimately imported. I like to check the provenance of a beer, but that proved hard with the Hoöten. It’s allegedly brewed by “H-West B.V”, located at a Post Office in Maarsen. H-West B.V. is a subsidiary of Bavaria Brewery which makes a shit load of beer for Liquorland – Hollandia or Bavaria. Those beers at least seemed to have a history. On the other hand, it looks like someone in Coles said – “That cheap Dutch beer sells. Are there any more varieties?” “Nah – all we’ve got is Hollandia or Bavaria”. “Well, just give us something like Hollandia and we’ll make up a new brand”.
If that sounds improbable, then check out this article from the Sydney Company that manufactured the label and packaging. “The name Hooten was provided by the client, but aside from that, there was no established branding so everything was created from scratch.” I’ve looked at a few Dutch dictionaries and the name Hoöten translates to nothing in English. They then go onto to say – “A foil label and the icons that were developed for the natural ingredients used add to the story that this is a high quality, premium product”. There it is in black and white – the story that this is a high quality, premium product. It’s not – it’s simply cheap Dutch piss, packaged to look classy. And it is cheap with a bottlo advertising it for $33 a case. Another one taken for the team by BoF.
back of the ferry 
This is interesting, I heard a story about Bavaria Beer a couple of months ago suggesting that they were unhappy with Coles/Liquorland discounting the brand too much and thus cut distribution to them and are planning to reposition Bavaria as a more upmarket euro lager (a la Peroni, Beck’s etc).
Maybe Hooten was the trade-off. You stop ruining our flagship brand (Bavaria) and we will give you some cheap beer in plain green bottles and you can call it whatever you want. Hooten wasn’t the best choice of name though.,,,,
[…] website). It ranks as seventh in imported beers to Russia by volume. It sounds a little like Hooten beer being manufactured in Holland, purely for Australian consumption. Well, it’s not longer […]
Shame to read this.. I absolutely love Hoöten.. I lived in NL growing up for years and never heard of it but coming back to Oz and finding Hoöten was kind of like a reminder of a second home.. Really like this beer- not simply a nostalgia thing.
G’day
I’ve been drinking the lighter version , Hooten Gold and find it quite agreeable it’s even cheaper $30 for 30.
I am not beer snob and will give anything ago , having worked in a brewery I have seen it all , expensive piss does not mean better ingredients etc just smarter marketing.
It’s about time the big fellows had competition .
The only way to know what’s in your beer is to brew it yourself.
So enjoy what you like and bugger the price snobs.
Cheers
Hanch
It’s actually imported by Liquorstax who are big enough to do their own contracts.
AFAIK Coles don’t have access to it.
It’s my goto cheap piss when my home brew is running low and it beats the crap out of BUL Heineken or Carlsberg.
Just had a go at a few bottles. I quite like it. It’s not a replacement for the La Trappes and Chimeys, but if you like euro pilsners and dont want to pay $40-$50 for a case, then this is worth giving a go. I haven’t tried drinking this in excess so I cant comment on how bad the hangover might be. Cheers (or as the dutchies say: proost).
Funny that the name hooten doesn’t mean anything in Dutch, so what does v.b mean in
Australia, I have tried a case of hooten, and it’s ok, has a full flavour, and a slight hoppy taste, not too bad, let’s not compare to the Turkish brewed Becks beer, that needs to be tasted to tell you something is badly wrong, the taste is awful, and if you were thinking that
You are about to down a Becks beer, you will be totally pissed off, the stuff is plain awful,
And makes you look at the bottle, and see that this is some imitation. Most of the writing is in some foreign language, only word I could work out was instanbul. Beware.