Victoria Bitter - History

History

The origins of Victoria Bitter date back to Victoria Brewery founder Thomas C. Moore, who developed the recipe in the early 1900s. The beer began to gain wide popularity in the mid 1960s with an innovative television advertising campaign featuring a very similar recording of the theme from the film The Magnificent Seven, images of working-class Australians at work and play, and a voice-over by notable Australian actor John Meillon. The campaign was used until quite recently. Paul Hester, late drummer of Crowded House, once appeared in a VB advert.

Like most Australian Lagers, VB is made using a wortstream brewing process, and uses a portion of cane sugar to thin out the body of the beer.

Currently one third of the packaged beer sales in Australia are of VB. It is available in 375 mL cans ("tinnies"), short-necked 375 mL bottles ("stubbies"), 750 mL bottles ("Long Necks", "King Browns" or "Tallies") and "Twisties", "Throwies", "Throwdowns" or "Grenades" (250 ml bottles in the State of New South Wales). As of 2005 VB also comes in 500 ml tinnies ("Lunch Greens"), which are commonly drunk by trade workers on lunch, being just enough to quench their thirst and maintain maximum retention of their precious bodily fluids.. It used to be available in the Northern Territory in a 1 litre tinnie nicknamed a 'Killer can' (Kilo can). As with all packaged beer sold in Australia it was for many years only available in 750 mL or 26 2/3 fl oz (1/6 imperial gallon) bottles, until the introduction of "stubbies" and smaller cans.

On the 6th of July, 2011, VB released the product packaged in limited edition, 1958 heritage cans. The packaging has the original artwork of the 1958 VB product, but also includes a standard ring pull on each can, something which was lacking on the original can. The alcohol strength remains at the standard 4.6%, as with normal packaged VB cans.

On the 3rd of September, 2012, CUB announced VB will be going back to its original recipe of 4.9% and its original packaging. CUB had received many complaints since it was changed to 4.6% in 2009, and the beer had lost a large amount of market share. The updated VBs began rolling out in late October 2012.