Great Northern

Nothing in modern Australian beer has grown like Great Northern, a mild, pale lager invented in 2010 and pitched squarely at boats, utes, and long Queensland weekends. Within a decade it had become the best-selling beer in the country.

The name is borrowed history — Carlton & United revived the badge of the old Great Northern Brewery of Cairns, in far-north Queensland — but the beer is pure modern strategy. The masterstroke was strength, or rather the lack of it: the flagship Super Crisp is a mid-strength, light enough to see out a whole afternoon on the water, which is exactly the afternoon every ad sells. A city almost never appears.

It belongs to CUB under Asahi Beverages, and its rise says something true about drinking in modern Australia: the fastest-growing beers are the lighter ones, and the daydream that moves them is a tinnie in a tinny — a light beer in a small boat, far from anywhere with meetings.

Very pale gold and light on its feet: faint sweet-corn and cracker notes, minimal hop presence, a soft body and a clean, slightly dry finish. It is deliberately undemanding — cold, quick, gone. On a sweltering Queensland afternoon with bait on your hands, it comes surprisingly close to perfect.