XXXX
Encyclopedia
XXXX is a brand
of Australian beer
brewed
in Milton
, Brisbane
by Queensland
brewers, Castlemaine Perkins
. It enjoys wide popularity in the state of Queensland, where it is commonly found on-tap in pubs and bar
s.
The XXXX brand was first introduced in 1924 and is a throwback to the long standing tradition of using Xs to indicate the strength of an ale. The brand name also built upon XXX Sparkling Ale introduced in 1878. The brand is used on the XXXX Bitter, XXXX Gold, XXXX Light Bitter (Lager), XXXX DL (Diet Lager) and Sovereign (Lager).
Previously sold beers, currently not available, include Thirsty Dog (Wheat Beer) XXXX Draught/Original Draught, and XXX Sparkling Ale which is only sold at the XXXX alehouse next to the brewery.
Other currently sold brands include:
where the company was born in 1857. The yellow-and-red label still bears this town's name. XXXX has been brewed in the Castlemaine Perkins Milton
Brewery since its introduction, and has featured an artist's sketch (later very stylised) of this brewery on the label of beer bottles and cans. In the 1950s the prominent 'XXXX' illuminated sign was erected on the brewery. "XXXX" itself refers to a traditional grading system for strong beer.
and Tooheys
are popular. In North Queensland, XXXX Bitter, on tap, is becoming less common (2007).
The most widely known outside of Australia is XXXX Export Lager. It contains 4.8% alcohol
by volume (ABV) which amounts to 1.4 standard drink
s.
XXXX was brewed under licence in the UK by InBev
Ltd until 2009. It was commonly available in cans in British off licences and sometimes on tap in British pubs, although it was much less widely available than Foster's (which is found in many UK pubs). At 3.7% alcohol, the British brewed XXXX was somewhat weaker than most of the Australian variants. Castlemaine XXXX was withdrawn from the UK at the end of June 2009 when InBev's licensing agreement expired.
is Mr Fourex - a jovial cartoon man in a suit with a boater
hat, who features on the City side of the Fourex Brewery at Milton and is to be re-introduced into advertising in the near future for the first time since 1967. Mr Fourex is thought to be modelled after a gentleman by the name of Paddy Fitzgerald. However, Mr Fourex may have been around long before Paddy became a force at the brewery. A second theory is that the cartoon is modelled on a well-known dwarf who sold newspapers in the inner city suburb of Fortitude Valley in the late 1920s. The true identity for the inspiration behind the cartoon remains a mystery.
A common nickname used by the military (Australian, passed along to their Allied guests) was "Barbed Wire," as the XXXX has the appearance of the fence product used in the Outback. Predominant during the post-Vietnam era, it current use is unknown.
The second major campaign was launched in the early 1980s in the North Queensland area after the general manager of 'XXXX' Pat Holmboe at the time heard of the locally famous Clinton Howe, a council road worker, being able to consume a very high quantity of the beer in a short time (approx. 3L in 1 minute or 3/4 gal.). The company was forced to close the campaign within the first few day s of T.V. advertising following government pressure.
A popular advertisement campaign from the 1980s and 1990s featured the tagline "Australians wouldn't give a XXXX for anything else."
Most beers under the XXXX label are sold in Australia as 375 ml cans (tinnies), 375 ml bottles (stubbies) and 750 ml bottles (tallies or long necks), on tap (in most Queensland pubs but also to a lesser extent throughout the rest of Australia) and all bottles have twist top lids. Underneath the twist top lids there are trivia questions.
XXXX is unique amongst Australian beers in that it is still being served from wooden barrels at the Breakfast Creek Hotel in Newstead, Queensland
. Whilst not cask-conditioned, as in the case of British real ale, the beer is nevertheless unpasteurised and delivered by gravity and is described as having a fresher and smoother taste than the regular 'keg' variety.
XXXX's labels generally feature a depiction of the Milton Brewery alongside the Ipswich railway line, presently with a Citytrain
EMU
in the foreground with the existing extensive railway fencing omitted. Prior labels had steam engines and diesels when those locomotives were more regularly seen in Brisbane.
. XXXX Gold is also a sponsor of the QLD Bulls
and the QLD, SA, ACT & NT Cricket Associations. XXXX Gold also sponsors the Australian V8 Supercars Championship Series.
On 16 July 2010, XXXX released a limited edition "XXXXX" can to celebrate Queensland's fifth consecutive series win.
On 27 September 2006, XXXX launched the sponsorship of the XXXX Gold Beach Cricket Tri-Nations 2007
series. The series ran from January - February 2007. The series involved cricketing legends from Australia
such as Allan Border
, England including Graham Gooch
and West Indies including Courtney Walsh
and Sir Viv Richards
.
The latest campaign for XXXX Gold was launched on 29 October 2008. The XXXX GOLD Boat Building Project was rolled out in print, PR, TV advertising.
Brand
The American Marketing Association defines a brand as a "Name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller's good or service as distinct from those of other sellers."...
of Australian beer
Australian beer
Beer arrived in Australia at the beginning of British colonisation. In 2004, Australia was ranked fourth internationally in per capita beer consumption, at around 110 litres per year, though considerably lower in terms of total per capita alcohol consumption...
brewed
Brewing
Brewing is the production of beer through steeping a starch source in water and then fermenting with yeast. Brewing has taken place since around the 6th millennium BCE, and archeological evidence suggests that this technique was used in ancient Egypt...
in Milton
Milton, Queensland
Milton is an inner suburb of Brisbane, Australia, located approximately west of Brisbane's central business district. The suburb is a mixture of light industry, warehouses, commercial offices, retail and single and multiple occupancy residences...
, Brisbane
Brisbane
Brisbane is the capital and most populous city in the Australian state of Queensland and the third most populous city in Australia. Brisbane's metropolitan area has a population of over 2 million, and the South East Queensland urban conurbation, centred around Brisbane, encompasses a population of...
by Queensland
Queensland
Queensland is a state of Australia, occupying the north-eastern section of the mainland continent. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Australia and New South Wales to the west, south-west and south respectively. To the east, Queensland is bordered by the Coral Sea and Pacific Ocean...
brewers, Castlemaine Perkins
Castlemaine Perkins
Castlemaine Perkins is a brewery located in Milton, Brisbane, Australia. It is a wholly owned entity of the Japanese-controlled Lion Nathan company.-History:...
. It enjoys wide popularity in the state of Queensland, where it is commonly found on-tap in pubs and bar
Bar (establishment)
A bar is a business establishment that serves alcoholic drinks — beer, wine, liquor, and cocktails — for consumption on the premises.Bars provide stools or chairs that are placed at tables or counters for their patrons. Some bars have entertainment on a stage, such as a live band, comedians, go-go...
s.
The XXXX brand was first introduced in 1924 and is a throwback to the long standing tradition of using Xs to indicate the strength of an ale. The brand name also built upon XXX Sparkling Ale introduced in 1878. The brand is used on the XXXX Bitter, XXXX Gold, XXXX Light Bitter (Lager), XXXX DL (Diet Lager) and Sovereign (Lager).
Previously sold beers, currently not available, include Thirsty Dog (Wheat Beer) XXXX Draught/Original Draught, and XXX Sparkling Ale which is only sold at the XXXX alehouse next to the brewery.
Other currently sold brands include:
- XXXX Bitter, a pale lagerPale lagerPale lager is a very pale to golden-coloured beer with a well attenuated body and a varying degree of noble hop bitterness. The brewing process for this beer developed in the mid 19th century when Gabriel Sedlmayr took pale ale brewing techniques back to the Spaten Brewery in Germany and applied it...
marketed under the brand XXXX. When ordering in Queensland, it is often referred to as XXXX Heavy. - XXXX Gold, a mid strength lagerLagerLager is a type of beer made from malted barley that is brewed and stored at low temperatures. There are many types of lager; pale lager is the most widely-consumed and commercially available style of beer in the world; Pilsner, Bock, Dortmunder Export and Märzen are all styles of lager...
- 3.5% ABVAlcohol by volumeAlcohol by volume is a standard measure of how much alcohol is contained in an alcoholic beverage .The ABV standard is used worldwide....
. XXXX Gold is also a lower carbCarbohydrateA carbohydrate is an organic compound with the empirical formula ; that is, consists only of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, with a hydrogen:oxygen atom ratio of 2:1 . However, there are exceptions to this. One common example would be deoxyribose, a component of DNA, which has the empirical...
beer. When ordering in Queensland, the beer is simply referred to as Gold. - XXXX Summer Bright Lager, a full strength, low carb beer.
History
The XXXX brand was launched in 1924 by then Castlemaine Brewers, named after the town of Castlemaine, VictoriaCastlemaine, Victoria
Castlemaine is a city in Victoria, Australia, in the Goldfields region of Victoria about 120 kilometres northwest by road from Melbourne, and about 40 kilometres from the major provincial centre of Bendigo. It is the administrative and economic centre of the Shire of Mount Alexander. The...
where the company was born in 1857. The yellow-and-red label still bears this town's name. XXXX has been brewed in the Castlemaine Perkins Milton
Milton, Queensland
Milton is an inner suburb of Brisbane, Australia, located approximately west of Brisbane's central business district. The suburb is a mixture of light industry, warehouses, commercial offices, retail and single and multiple occupancy residences...
Brewery since its introduction, and has featured an artist's sketch (later very stylised) of this brewery on the label of beer bottles and cans. In the 1950s the prominent 'XXXX' illuminated sign was erected on the brewery. "XXXX" itself refers to a traditional grading system for strong beer.
Distribution and brand loyalty
XXXX is the most widely available beer throughout most of Queensland, although many other beers, such as Victoria BitterVictoria Bitter
Victoria Bitter is one of the many iconic beers manufactured in the Australian state of Victoria. VB currently maintains the highest market share of all beer sold in Australia, both on tap and packaged...
and Tooheys
Tooheys
Tooheys is a brewery in the suburb of Lidcombe, in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. It produces beers under the Tooheys and Hahn trademarks, and is part of the New Zealand Lion Nathan beverages group.-History:...
are popular. In North Queensland, XXXX Bitter, on tap, is becoming less common (2007).
The most widely known outside of Australia is XXXX Export Lager. It contains 4.8% alcohol
Alcohol
In chemistry, an alcohol is an organic compound in which the hydroxy functional group is bound to a carbon atom. In particular, this carbon center should be saturated, having single bonds to three other atoms....
by volume (ABV) which amounts to 1.4 standard drink
Standard drink
A standard drink is a notional drink that contains a specified amount of pure alcohol. The standard drink is used in many countries to quantify alcohol intake. It is usually re-expressed as a measure of beer, wine, or spirits for convenience. One standard drink always contains the same amount of...
s.
XXXX was brewed under licence in the UK by InBev
InBev
InBev is a subsidiary of Anheuser-Busch InBev. The company existed independently for several years - since the merger between Interbrew and AmBev and until the acquisition of Anheuser-Busch. InBev has operations in over 30 countries and sales in over 130 countries...
Ltd until 2009. It was commonly available in cans in British off licences and sometimes on tap in British pubs, although it was much less widely available than Foster's (which is found in many UK pubs). At 3.7% alcohol, the British brewed XXXX was somewhat weaker than most of the Australian variants. Castlemaine XXXX was withdrawn from the UK at the end of June 2009 when InBev's licensing agreement expired.
Iconography, advertising and brand recognition
XXXX's mascotMascot
The term mascot – defined as a term for any person, animal, or object thought to bring luck – colloquially includes anything used to represent a group with a common public identity, such as a school, professional sports team, society, military unit, or brand name...
is Mr Fourex - a jovial cartoon man in a suit with a boater
Boater (hat)
A boater is a kind of men's formal summer hat....
hat, who features on the City side of the Fourex Brewery at Milton and is to be re-introduced into advertising in the near future for the first time since 1967. Mr Fourex is thought to be modelled after a gentleman by the name of Paddy Fitzgerald. However, Mr Fourex may have been around long before Paddy became a force at the brewery. A second theory is that the cartoon is modelled on a well-known dwarf who sold newspapers in the inner city suburb of Fortitude Valley in the late 1920s. The true identity for the inspiration behind the cartoon remains a mystery.
A common nickname used by the military (Australian, passed along to their Allied guests) was "Barbed Wire," as the XXXX has the appearance of the fence product used in the Outback. Predominant during the post-Vietnam era, it current use is unknown.
The second major campaign was launched in the early 1980s in the North Queensland area after the general manager of 'XXXX' Pat Holmboe at the time heard of the locally famous Clinton Howe, a council road worker, being able to consume a very high quantity of the beer in a short time (approx. 3L in 1 minute or 3/4 gal.). The company was forced to close the campaign within the first few day s of T.V. advertising following government pressure.
A popular advertisement campaign from the 1980s and 1990s featured the tagline "Australians wouldn't give a XXXX for anything else."
Most beers under the XXXX label are sold in Australia as 375 ml cans (tinnies), 375 ml bottles (stubbies) and 750 ml bottles (tallies or long necks), on tap (in most Queensland pubs but also to a lesser extent throughout the rest of Australia) and all bottles have twist top lids. Underneath the twist top lids there are trivia questions.
XXXX is unique amongst Australian beers in that it is still being served from wooden barrels at the Breakfast Creek Hotel in Newstead, Queensland
Newstead, Queensland
Newstead is a riverside suburb of the city of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. It is situated 3 km north of the Brisbane central business district...
. Whilst not cask-conditioned, as in the case of British real ale, the beer is nevertheless unpasteurised and delivered by gravity and is described as having a fresher and smoother taste than the regular 'keg' variety.
XXXX's labels generally feature a depiction of the Milton Brewery alongside the Ipswich railway line, presently with a Citytrain
CityTrain
Citytrain is the brand name of urban, suburban and inter-urban electric passenger railway services in South East Queensland, Australia. Its network, centering in Brisbane, the state capital of Queensland, is approximately in route length...
EMU
Electric Multiple Unit (Citytrain)
Electric Multiple Unit are an electric multiple-unit commuter trains operated on the by QR Citytrain in South East Queensland, Australia. They were the first EMUs in Queensland entering service from 1979 and remain in service today.-History:...
in the foreground with the existing extensive railway fencing omitted. Prior labels had steam engines and diesels when those locomotives were more regularly seen in Brisbane.
Sports sponsorship
XXXX is the major sponsor of many sporting events and clubs, including the Queensland Maroons in the State of OriginRugby League State of Origin
State of Origin is an annual best of three series of rugby league football matches contested by the Maroons and the Blues, who represent the Australian states of Queensland and New South Wales respectively...
. XXXX Gold is also a sponsor of the QLD Bulls
Queensland Bulls
The Queensland cricket team, nicknamed the Bulls, are the Brisbane-based Queensland representative cricket team in Australia's domestic cricket tournaments:*Sheffield Shield, 4-day matches with first-class status, since the 1926/27 season...
and the QLD, SA, ACT & NT Cricket Associations. XXXX Gold also sponsors the Australian V8 Supercars Championship Series.
On 16 July 2010, XXXX released a limited edition "XXXXX" can to celebrate Queensland's fifth consecutive series win.
On 27 September 2006, XXXX launched the sponsorship of the XXXX Gold Beach Cricket Tri-Nations 2007
Beach Cricket Tri-Nations series
The XXXX Gold Beach Cricket Tri-Nations series is a beach cricket competition created and sponsored by Australian beer brand XXXX. It was launched on 27 September 2006, and the event coincided with the 2006-07 Ashes series being played in Australia with the first series being played in January...
series. The series ran from January - February 2007. The series involved cricketing legends from Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
such as Allan Border
Allan Border
Allan Robert Border AO is a former Australian cricketer. A batsman, Border was for many years the captain of the Australian team. His playing nickname was "A.B.". He played 156 Test matches in his career, a record until it was passed by fellow Australian Steve Waugh...
, England including Graham Gooch
Graham Gooch
Graham Alan Gooch OBE DL is a former cricketer who captained Essex and England. He was one of the most successful international batsmen of his generation, and through a career spanning from 1973 until 2000, he became the most prolific run scorer of all time with 67,057 runs...
and West Indies including Courtney Walsh
Courtney Walsh
Courtney Andrew Walsh is a former international cricketer who represented the West Indies from 1984 to 2001, captaining the West Indies in 22 Test matches...
and Sir Viv Richards
Viv Richards
Sir Isaac Vivian Alexander Richards, KNH, OBE is a former West Indian cricketer. Better known by his second name, Vivian or, more popularly, simply as Viv or King Viv Richards was voted one of the five Cricketers of the Century in 2000, by a 100-member panel of experts, along with Sir Donald...
.
The latest campaign for XXXX Gold was launched on 29 October 2008. The XXXX GOLD Boat Building Project was rolled out in print, PR, TV advertising.
See also
- Beach Cricket Tri-Nations seriesBeach Cricket Tri-Nations seriesThe XXXX Gold Beach Cricket Tri-Nations series is a beach cricket competition created and sponsored by Australian beer brand XXXX. It was launched on 27 September 2006, and the event coincided with the 2006-07 Ashes series being played in Australia with the first series being played in January...
- List of breweries in Australia
- Victoria BitterVictoria BitterVictoria Bitter is one of the many iconic beers manufactured in the Australian state of Victoria. VB currently maintains the highest market share of all beer sold in Australia, both on tap and packaged...