Oz beer for $450 launched

An Australian company has launched a beer that might be a bit hard to swallow, for the liquor will be sold at a whopping price of 450 dollars a bottle.

Sydney, Jan 30 : An Australian company has launched a beer that might be a bit hard to swallow, for the liquor will be sold at a whopping price of 450 dollars a bottle.

Carlberg, the company which has launched the beverage, has claimed that its new Vintage No.1 beer is probably the most expensive beer in the world.

Brewmaster Jens Eiken, of Carlsberg, said that only 600 of the 375ml bottles will be made, and most will be sold through three of Copenhagen's most exclusive restaurants.

However, Daniel Bennett, manager of the International Beer Shop in Perth said that he was doubtful whether any beer could be worth that much.

"It's hard to justify, I would think," Sydney Morning Herald quoted him, as saying.

"But there are champagnes that sell for thousands of dollars.It's hard to know what it's actually worth.

"I suppose it's up to the person who buys it to decide," he added.

Eiken said part of the secret of the 10.5 per cent alcohol beer is the way it is stored in special Swedish and French oak casks in a dimly lit crypt 15 metres under the company's old brewery.

According to the expert, the taste of the brew hints of prunes, caramel, vanilla, oak and cherry port bitterness, and was best consumed with gourmet blue cheese or on its own with 'a very special friend'.

"We believe that there are people out there who are willing to part with this amount of money just so that they can taste an amazing beer or to keep it on their mantelpiece," he said.

Some Copenhagen residents, despite the Danish capital's high standard of living, expressed doubts that any beer would be worth that much.

"Only show-offs will buy this beer. There can't be any justification for such a price for a single bottle of beer," TV journalist Marie Grundtvig Buss said.

Eiken said that there is another incentive for those finding the beer's price a bit hard to swallow.

Each bottle has a label with a hand stencilled original lithographic print by Danish artist Frans Kannike, making the empties worth 500 kroner (113 dollars) apiece.

ANI