XXXX Gold

XXXX Gold pulled off the strangest coup in Australian beer: a mid-strength lager from Brisbane that spent a stretch of the 2010s outselling every full-strength beer in the country. Queensland's beer, in other words, quietly became Australia's.

The four X's are old brewers' shorthand — crosses once graded a barrel's strength, so more X's meant a stronger beer — which makes it a fine joke that the brand's modern champion is the gentle one. XXXX itself dates to 1878 in Brisbane, where the brewery's giant red XXXX sign above the Milton neighborhood remains a hometown landmark; the Gold variant arrived in 1991, just as Australians decided what they really wanted was a beer they could carry through a whole hot day.

It's brewed by Lion under Japan's Kirin, and its loyalty map is stark: in Queensland, XXXX Gold is close to civic infrastructure — the beer of leagues clubs, campgrounds, and State of Origin nights.

Pale gold, modest head, and a gentle grainy sweetness — honeyed cereal, hardly any hop aroma. The body is light but not thin, the bitterness low, the finish quick and faintly sweet. Mid-strength is the engineering brief: a beer where the second and the fifth taste the same, and that's a feature.