This beer isn’t on the list because it tastes crap – though it is an ordinary beer. For mine there’s a weird sweetness which is presumably from the malt, though it could also be from the sugar the brewers claim they don’t use.

(As an aside, if you want to be amused and probably annoyed by some corporate sneakiness, read Matt Kirkegaard’s numerous pieces on Crown Lager).

No, it’s on the list just because I hate it. And I hate it even though I figured it had killed any chance of CUB ever sending me a free sample bottle of Crown Ambassador, their super fancy beer that retails for just under $100 (to my blessed relief, their PR company sent me some last week. My opinion – jeez, the Ambassador is a nice beer).

What I hate about it has more to do with the marketing than anything else. It comes in a fancy-looking bottle with a gold label, perhaps designed to make our brain subsconsciously think ‘‘quality’’. It’s also priced a bit higher than your standard lager, even though it isn’t any better than a standard lager.

What happens then is people who don’t know any better buy the beer because they think it makes them seem cultured or something. I don’t blame those people; not everyone can be so interested in beer that they read heaps about it and write stupid blogs about it. They just respond to the advertising.

And it’s effective advertising too – it makes people want to have the bottle in their hand so others will think them a classy individual. I’d say that’s why I’ve never seen a pub with Crown Lager on tap – because it’s not so much about just drinking the beer as being seen to be drinking the beer. And, in a schooner glass, a Crownie looks just the same as any other beer.

Note to geeks: I didn’t write this after sampling the ‘‘new improved’’ Crown Lager. Basically because I didn’t think it’d make any difference.