Lion Red Beer
Lion Breweries

I'd like to say "great", but I cannot. Had as table beer on a hot day in Auckland at an Italian bistro. It served its purpose, but not in a great way

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wow, an NZ version of ~Natural Light. A 330ml can to keep out the light and enhance its freshness. Poured into my trusty mug. A standard North Island brew, the last of my cheap 12 case.

Appearance- A medium lager color consisting of a slightly dark golden body. Heavy carbonation and foaming head. Little lacing and head retention.
Smell- Like an adjunt lager with a metallic twang and a notable bitterness from most likely that full maltliness claimed on the label.
Taste- Similar to the smell with a decent lager from slight maltiness and a limited metallic taste
Mouthfeel- Light and heavily carbonated.
Drinkability- Its a cheep macro lager that one can over look its short comings. It is easily to drink if you come from alongline of BMC drinkers.

In the time I lived in Auckland working as a bartender I felt like Lion red was the Kiwi version of Budweiser.

the reality is different. it does not taste the same at all, but it fills the same place in the market as the American beer does in My home country.

Lion is as drinkable as any other macro brew. Very light on the mouth, almost watery, but not nearly as lite as the American lagers.

If you are looking for a cheap beer on a hot day, the lion wont lead you astray. Not my favorite Kiwi mass produced beer, but if want a consistant ber this is the beer.

Heineken also contract brews at this brewery

I used to walk by this brewery everyday when I lived in New Zealand. Now, at last I'm typing up my review of the damn thing. Off the tap at Wildfire in Auckland, NZ this beer was a light amber color with lots of visible carbonation. The head was white and short lived leaving no lacing to speak of. The aroma was very macro-lager-ish, dry grains and a musty malt background. The flavors were no better sadly, just sort of a kiwi twist on Coors, bready malt and some hints of fruit. The body was light/medium, the mouthfeel prickly due to over carbonation. Their brewery smelled like crap and the beer it produced really not much better.

shortnecked brown bottle states on the label "New Zealand's Largest Selling Beer". I poured contents into a pounder glass it forms a rather loose pearl white head that falls to a thin cover. Darker than your typical pale lager this is leaning towards copper. Gotta give credit where its due and the head retention and lace on this puppy are very good to see.

I picked up a metallic side to this in the smell, I just hope that it doesn't translate to the flavor. True to the description on the bottle it is a flavorfull malty beer. They continue to say that it has a pleasant hop bitterness and this is where we don't see eye to eye. Hops are dead in this offering. A touch make a presence at the finish but this is a an all malt lager and not a very good one. Metallic does enter but is much less annoying than what you can get in the smell. There is a medicinal detractor as well. Certainly a drinkable offering with the low abv and its not a complete bust.

Notes: I'm glad I got to try this and would be inclined to suck another one down if I ever see it again. Below average overall.

This is a pretty fair beer of the style, but not (in my opinion) quite to the standard of this brewery's Lion Brown. (see review elsewhere - as soon as I can find it on the site!).

It is overly sweet, over carbonated but quite drinkable if chilled properly. Just remember - it is a large scale macro, and leave your deeper expectations at the door.

Worth a try if you find yourself in New Zealand. It is better off the tap than from any form of take home (fresher?) but still worth a go...

It's called Lion Red, because the label is red. That would explain the amber-tinted, golden pour. A generic malt sweetness and faint spicy hops make up what little aroma this has. The taste is basically an adjunct lager with an ever so slightly bigger bready and fruity malt backbone. I'm detecting some sort of off flavor, maybe it's an astringent taste, but I'm not certain. Well, a least I learned what the word karaoke means from the bottle cap- empty orchestra.

Another New Zealand beer popping up on the shelves here in Alberta. We can get this from the exact opposite end of the world, but we can't get any Stone up here, let alone Sierra Nevada. Came in a 6 pack of pseudo-stubbie, true to its name an emblem of a lion on a red seal on the label.

Pours out a clear light amber hue, a decent amount of carbonation, but only the quickest fizzles of head. Smells of sweet malt and an as of yet undeciperable adjunct lingering around it. Comparable if not slightly more appealing than a lot of the macro lager in these parts. The flavour is a thin wash of malt extract that gets hijacked by an obnoxiously aggressive overcarbonated mouthfeel that just rips over my tongue. When the trauma of that fades a bit of sweet malt tends to linger on the aftertaste. The farther down the glass I go the more the malt flavour begins to fade, to be replaced by the sodium laced flavour of soda water, making me question just what the heck this beer is comprised of in the first place. It almost had my attention at "hello", but the more it started talking the more I began to realize how shallow and one-dimensional it really was. This one is a definite pass. Maybe the local distributors could bring in some good New Zealand beer next time they get that inkling, instead of the stuff the New Zealanders don't want themselves.

Pours a reddish orange color with minimal white head. Smells of not a whole lot slight sweet malty notes, but other than that nothing special. Eh, doesn't taste so good. Tastes like a standard macro, but slightly sweet. Some breadiness to it, but nothing that good. Really not a beer that I would drink again.