Got any spare change mate? (Carlsberg Special Brew)

Member Name: sandrabarber

Product:	Carlsberg Special Brew
Date:	19/01/02 (304 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Gets you drunk cheaply

Disadvantages: Gets you cheaply drunk

Carlsberg, with its origins in Denmark, is the world’s second biggest brewer. Its ‘Special Brew’ is the biggest selling ‘super strength’ beer in the UK. It is a whopping 9% alcohol by volume.

I once drank two whole cans of the stuff and had to be taken to bed by my very bored friends because my conversation was unintelligible and I kept vomiting in the waste paper basket.

I once knew a Dane who liked his Special Brew and could handle several pints a night. Everyone else I know loathes it and handles it as well as I.

Special Brew is very strong indeed and tastes very different than your usual normal strength or even strong lagers. It is thicker in texture and has a sort of very bitter caramelized taste on my tongue. It certainly isn’t what you could call refreshing, and the intoxication it produces is more a whack at the back of the head with a sledgehammer than an uplifting giggly wooziness.

I didn’t like it when I drank those two cans and a recent swig for old time’s sake didn’t change things one bit. In fact it burnt my throat like a vindaloo.

Despite all this, Special Brew, which was first produced in 1950 to commemorate the visit of Winston Churchill to Copenhagen, continues to sell like the clappers.

In fact, in off licences and supermarkets alone, 150 cans of Special Brew are sold every minute.

Mostly to winos and tramps, for whom it gives maximum off-yer-facedness for minimum cash, and thus represents exceptional value for money, currently costing £4.98 at Tesco for 4 500 ml cans.

The cans are a distinctive gold colour with the Carlsberg lettering. You've probably seen empty ones scattered around your local park and bus station.

Summary: