"Green Death"

[thebeerpig]

Somewhere around 1980 myself and a few mates departed Victoria and went on a fishing/camping/lotsofdrinking trip to NSW. We ended camping on the Darling river a few kilometres out of Menindee. A couple of days after getting there we had drank the camp dry so headed to the Menindee pub to get another carton of beer each. I saw they had cartons of a beer I’d never heard of (Southwark Bitter) on special really cheap, and only ever having drank Victorian beer, I bought a carton thinking all beer is drinkable and that I had scored myself a bargain. I cracked open a can on the way back to camp and found it tasted terrible. I thought it must have been well and truly past its use by date and couldn’t drink it or the rest of the carton. My mates all bought themselves cartons of Tooheys and they thought that my “bargain” tasted terrible too.

Thirty odd years later I was having a session at my local pub with a bloke from South Australia and remember him telling me that the terrible taste of Southwark Bitter was a “feature” when it’s fresh, was not due to bad storage, and it was called the “Green Death” in South Australia. We were both at the “speaking left handed braille” stage of the evening when he told me this, so my memory is vague of the tale he told me behind it’s nickname, except I think it may have had something to do with bad hangovers.

A further 10 years on and once again the name “Green Death” has been popping up, this time in a couple of recent forum threads.

My curiosity has got me hoping that there are some South Australians on the forum that could fill me, or anyone else interested, in on how Southwark Bitter got the nickname “Green Death”.

[Malter White]

It's original label was green. 

[Classic Brewing Co]

16 minutes ago, thebeerpig said:

Somewhere around 1980 myself and a few mates departed Victoria and went on a fishing/camping/lotsofdrinking trip to NSW. We ended camping on the Darling river a few kilometres out of Menindee. A couple of days after getting there we had drank the camp dry so headed to the Menindee pub to get another carton of beer each. I saw they had cartons of a beer I’d never heard of (Southwark Bitter) on special really cheap, and only ever having drank Victorian beer, I bought a carton thinking all beer is drinkable and that I had scored myself a bargain. I cracked open a can on the way back to camp and found it tasted terrible. I thought it must have been well and truly past its use by date and couldn’t drink it or the rest of the carton. My mates all bought themselves cartons of Tooheys and they thought that my “bargain” tasted terrible too.

Thirty odd years later I was having a session at my local pub with a bloke from South Australia and remember him telling me that the terrible taste of Southwark Bitter was a “feature” when it’s fresh, was not due to bad storage, and it was called the “Green Death” in South Australia. We were both at the “speaking left handed braille” stage of the evening when he told me this, so my memory is vague of the tale he told me behind it’s nickname, except I think it may have had something to do with bad hangovers.

A further 10 years on and once again the name “Green Death” has been popping up, this time in a couple of recent forum threads.

My curiosity has got me hoping that there are some South Australians on the forum that could fill me, or anyone else interested, in on how Southwark Bitter got the nickname “Green Death”.

Well you pretty much hit the nail on the head mate, I am a South Australian & I can remember when I first starting drinking it, it wasn't nice & it can give you hangovers so bad you would need a priest to get rid of it !!

West End although not liked by our Vic/NSW neighbors has always been a good old standby although I hardly drink it these days. There are always so many other beers on offer it comes down to what you feel like.

As most of us would agree, our own beers usually better than pub swill. That's what we say anyway.

Cheers

Phil

[Classic Brewing Co]

5 minutes ago, CLASSIC said:

Well you pretty much hit the nail on the head mate, I am a South Australian & I can remember when I first starting drinking it, it wasn't nice & it can give you hangovers so bad you would need a priest to get rid of it !!

West End although not liked by our Vic/NSW neighbors has always been a good old standby although I hardly drink it these days. There are always so many other beers on offer it comes down to what you feel like.

As most of us would agree, our own beers usually better than pub swill. That's what we say anyway.

Cheers

Phil

Quote:   Sorry it is so long.

Most people remember Southwark Bitter by its nickname the Green Death a name that became popular interstate after Southwark Bitter was exported to Sydney in the 1960 s during a Brewery workers strike, and due to improper transport and storage the beer had gone bad. Strength - 4.5% Colour - Light golden straw in colour.

Southwark Bitter started life as Nathan Bitter, First brewed in 1928 by the Walkerville Co-Operative Brewing Company. The Walkerville Co-Op began brewing in 1889 on Richmond Street, Walkerville, using the old Black Horse Brewery. The brewery quickly became popular and the company purchased the much larger Torrenside Brewery in Southwark (Now Thebarton) in 1898. The Walkerville Co-Operative Brewing Co. continued it's growth and became the largest brewery in South Australia by the end of World War One.

As most of the breweries in Australia at the time the Walkerville Brewery brewed Ales, but the taste of Australian beer drinkers were changing, the lighter taste of lager beer was becoming popular. The South Australian Brewing Company being the first S.A. Brewery to brew a Lager Beer in 1903, with it's K'nig Lager Bier. While the new lager beer sold well it was marketed as a German lager and by the end of the decade anything German was not looked upon favorably. The beer was renamed to Adelaide Lager in 1914. It was not until after World War 1 that lager beers were really in demand. The Walkerville Brewery put out a lager beer called WB Lager in the early 1920's, and it proved to be a great seller. It was decided that a large scale lager brewery was to be purchased.

Leopold Nathan, a Swiss chemist, invented a revolutionary brewing system that featured the complete isolation of the wort from the atmosphere and from potential contaminants, fermentation with a pure yeast culture, and a dramatic reduction in the amount of time required to produce marketable beer. His system was first granted a patent in the United States in 1908, and it was refined and improved over the next couple of decades. Three complete Nathan breweries were installed in Australia during the 1920s, and a further three installations were planned but not implemented.



The Walkerville Co-operative Brewing Company Ltd of Adelaide signed an agreement with the Nathan Institute of Zurich in November 1925 for the installation of its plant at the company's brewery at Southwark, and this became the first Nathan system to be installed in Australia. It was a major project for the brewery, requiring the erection of additional buildings to accommodate the new equipment. Beer production commenced in the Nathan plant late in 1927, and a formal opening ceremony was held in January 1928.



Nathan Bitter was the first beer brewed and was instantly popular, being sold around Australia. The South Australian Brewing Company was becoming the more dominant brewery in the 1930�s and by the end of the decade they had purchased the Walkerville Brewery. Since the Nathan Beers were so popular they continued to make the beer at the Southwark Brewery, the brewery wanted to remove the Walkerville branding so they renamed the brewery to the Nathan Brewery.



The Nathan brewery was later renamed to the Southwark Brewery, and all the beers were renamed to follow the brewery name change. Southwark Bitter is the longest surviving beer being brewed by the South Australian Brewing Company, going through different branding over the years.

Style - English Bitter
Strength - 4.5%
Size - 375mL Bottles
Colour - Light golden straw in colour.
Aroma - A pleasant sweet lager aroma with a hint of aromatic hops.
Malt - A sweet malt flavour.
Hops - Mainly bittering hops used like Pride of Ringwood. Hardly any hop taste.
Overall Taste - A normal Aussie lager in flavour perhaps a little sweeter in the malt department and 25% more hops than your usual VB or Tooheys New.
Overall - As far as big Aussie Lagers go this would have to be my favourite. I have always enjoyed a Southwark on a hot summers day after mowing the lawn or digging in the garden.

[Barramullafella]

Firstly, TBP you have my sympathy for having experienced the stuff and for buying a carton of it. I too have had the dreadful experience but only bought a 6 pack of the rubbish, swallowed a mouthful and threw the rest of the contents at a stray cat - it knew better than to try it. The name I believe comes from the colour you turn after sampling the rotten stuff, and the thought of death after having sampled the crud, as not being that bad if only to escape the foul taste.  But, I could be wrong

[iBooz2]

Back when I was a young buck growing up in Mildura my mates and I used to go to the speedway a lot.  Quite often we would drive over the border to SA and go to the speedway meetings held between Renmark and Berri.  We would take a boot load of VIC beer and park in between the SA groups.  It usually ended up in a full-on drunken blue with the SA mob in the cars parked next to us.  A bit like Holden v Ford arguments.

After a few meetings we got sick of bluing over whose beers were best and eventually we swapped beers with them.  We drank the Southwark and they drank our CUB stuff as if to try and convince each other our parochial views of - our home state stuff was better. 

I did not mind the different flavour of the Southwark back then as it was a bit of a novelty and much better to go home with a SA hangover rather than with a black eye.

Edited June 19, 2021 by iBooz2

[Classic Brewing Co]

5 minutes ago, iBooz2 said:

better to go home with a SA hangover rather than with a black eye.

Wise choice @iBooz2  there has been a lot of heated arguments VB vs SA beers over the years & I can't see it changing anytime soon.

[thebeerpig]

On 6/18/2021 at 4:44 PM, CLASSIC said:

Well you pretty much hit the nail on the head mate, I am a South Australian & I can remember when I first starting drinking it, it wasn't nice & it can give you hangovers so bad you would need a priest to get rid of it !!

It appears my not liking the taste of it was a blessing in disguise. I always pig out on beer when I’m camping and it sounds like I would’ve woken up in the morning feeling extremely green and wishing I was dead if I had of drank it.

[thebeerpig]

23 hours ago, Barramullafella said:

I too have had the dreadful experience but only bought a 6 pack of the rubbish, swallowed a mouthful and threw the rest of the contents at a stray cat - it knew better than to try it.

We moved downstream to a camping area on the outskirts of Pooncarie the next day and spent the night there. When we moved on I left my carton of Southwark Bitter under a tree as a “trick or treat” for the next lot of campers to try .

[Classic Brewing Co]

2 hours ago, thebeerpig said:

We moved downstream to a camping area on the outskirts of Pooncarie the next day and spent the night there. When we moved on I left my carton of Southwark Bitter under a tree as a “trick or treat” for the next lot of campers to try .

Well it is perfectly clear a number of you don't enjoy Southwark Bitter but I am sure there are just as many who dislike VB.

I would suggest if you don't like something, don't drink it.

There are still a few shockers out there in every state.

On a brighter note we are blessed with a huge range of great beers in Australia including Craft & Imported, not to mention all of those/us that make our own.

Cheers.