Comments on: Paul Neville and the Bundy bear: in fine form

By: Dave Liberts

Dave Liberts — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

Trevor, I have no personal knowledge of the Bundy party referred to, but I’d be prepared to bet London to a brick that the ALP representation at the party would have been high, and possibly not far off a majority. And Mike, good recipe but as a beer man, my cheap quality beverage is home brewed beer. I’d recommend all beer drinkers get on-line or down to their local library, and get educated in a few great beer recipes. I drink hoppy, malty ales (not dissimilar to some award winning ales such as James Squire produce) which are usually around 6% alcohol and taste unbelievably better than anything CUB put out, and I pay about $1 per 750ml longneck. If I used lower quality ingredients, I’d pay even less, but I prefer a top quality product. My big tip for home-brewers is forget the yucky yeast which comes with brew kits, instead, get a bottle of Coopers Sparkling ale, pour off the clear beer then use a mixture of sugar and water to revive the yeast sediment in the bottom. It takes a couple of days to come good, when you add this to your brew instead of the sachet yeast, you get a great product with none of the Vegemitey flavours that dehydrated yeast can leave. Cheers!

By: Trevor Cook

Trevor Cook — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

I notice you don’t mention the statistics published in the SMH on 01/05/08:
“Three separate studies by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare in 2001, 2004 and last year, reveal the proportion of girls aged 14 to 19 whose alcohol consumption was “risky” or “high risk” (up to 29 or more drinks a week) fell from 14.6 per cent to 10.6 per cent, while the figure for boys (up to 43 or more drinks a week) went down from 8.8 per cent to 7 per cent.”
Why not give the full picture? Like Roxon, you appear to like some of the AIHW evidence but not all of it.
Second, RTDs may have gained popularity because they were cheap but what is the evidence that raising the tax on them will reduce risky drinking rather than just make other forms of alcohol more appealing.
I note you do not address the cask wine anomaly.

By: mike smith

mike smith — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

You want a premium RTD at a great price? Buy 1.25L of coke, get an empty bottle, buy 750ml bottle of rum. Pour half coke into empty bottle. Refill 2 bottles with rum. Drink. Adjust ratio if it isn’t strong enough. Cheaper, stronger. What more could you want?

By: Trevor Cook

Trevor Cook — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

On the bundy party, if it really did attract “270 ministers, members and staffers” then it must have included quite a few from the ALP side, which is probably why Nicola Roxon drew attention to the poster but not the party in question time yesterday