Steinlager (sometimes known as Steinlager Classic) is a lager-style

beer Beer is one of the oldest and the most widely consumed type of alcoholic drink in the world, and the third most popular drink overall after water and tea. It is produced by the brewing and fermentation of starches, mainly derived from ce ...

brewed by

Lion The lion (''Panthera leo'') is a large Felidae, cat of the genus ''Panthera'' native to Africa and India. It has a muscular, broad-chested body; short, rounded head; round ears; and a hairy tuft at the end of its tail. It is sexually dimorphi ...

East Tāmaki East Tāmaki is a suburb of Auckland, New Zealand. It is a largely industrial area adjacent to a rapidly growing population. Prior to the 1960s it was largely a dairy farming area. A landmark is Smales Mountain which in 2010 has the remains of ...

, a suburb of

Auckland Auckland (pronounced ) ( mi, Tāmaki Makaurau) is a large metropolitan city in the North Island of New Zealand. The List of New Zealand urban areas by population, most populous urban area in the country and the List of cities in Oceania by po ...

, New Zealand. It has won several prizes, notably at beer competitions in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

, and is New Zealand's biggest

export An export in international trade is a good produced in one country that is sold into another country or a service provided in one country for a national or resident of another country. The seller of such goods or the service provider is an ...

beer.

History

In 1957 the New Zealand

Minister of Finance A finance minister is an executive or cabinet position in charge of one or more of government finances, economic policy and financial regulation. A finance minister's portfolio has a large variety of names around the world, such as "treasury", " ...

, Arnold Nordmeyer, threatened to cut international beer imports as part of his "black budget" and challenged New Zealand's brewers to "come up with an international-style lager beer". Lion (then New Zealand Breweries) produced a beer the following year named Steinecker, named after the company whose equipment the beer was made in. The beer's name was changed in 1962, not in response to a challenge from the Steinecker company, but to distinguish it from Heineken.New Zealand Breweries History: Steinlager Brewery
In 1973 Steinlager was launched in the

and an American consultant suggested that to become successful the company should change the colour of their bottles to match that of other premium beers. As a result, the original brown bottle colour was changed to green.

Ingredients

According to Steinlager, the Steinlager Pure beer contains malted barley,

hops Hops are the flowers (also called seed cones or strobiles) of the hop plant ''Humulus lupulus'', a member of the Cannabaceae family of flowering plants. They are used primarily as a bittering, flavouring, and stability agent in beer, to whi ...

, yeast and water. The entire Steinlager range of beer is not gluten-free, and isn't considered suitable for those with coeliac disease.

Steinlager variants

Steinlager Blue

In 1991, another beer bearing the Steinlager name was introduced. Steinlager Blue was marketed using an advertising campaign featuring

The Blues Brothers The Blues Brothers are an American blues and soul revivalist band founded in 1978 by comedians Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi as part of a musical sketch on ''Saturday Night Live''. Belushi and Aykroyd fronted the band, in character, respective ...

. The two different tasting beers were known as Steinlager Blue or Steinlager Green which related to the colour of the bottle or can it came in (although Steinlager Blue was sold in a brown bottle). Steinlager Blue was discontinued in the later 1990s, leaving just Steinlager Green which then dropped the green from the name. Note the only reason Steinlager Blue & Green tasted different was the bottle colour. Beers bottled in green or clear bottles degrade under UV light. Both Steinlager beers were brewed in the same vat.

Steinlager Pure

On the first of June 2007 Steinlager Pure was released in the New Zealand market. Steinlager "Pure" and Steinlager "Classic" are now sold alongside each other, with Steinlager Pure positioning itself at the premium end of the beer market. It is marketed with Harvey Keitel, Willem Dafoe and

Vincent Gallo Vincent Gallo (born 1961) is an American actor and director. He has had supporting roles in films such as ''Arizona Dream'' (1993), ''The House of the Spirits'' (1993), ''Palookaville'' (1995), and '' The Funeral'' (1996). His lead roles include ...

Steinlager Premium Light

Introduced in 2000 as a low alcohol variant of Steinlager.

Steinlager Super Cold

Introduced in 2006, Super Cold is simply Steinlager Classic served at 0 degrees

Celsius The degree Celsius is the unit of temperature on the Celsius scale (originally known as the centigrade scale outside Sweden), one of two temperature scales used in the International System of Units (SI), the other being the Kelvin scale. The ...

Steinlager Edge

Steinlager Edge was a mid-strength, low-carb variant of Steinlager. It is made from the same hops as Classic and Pure but has an alcohol content of just 3.5% compared to 5.0%. It was discontinued in 2013 due to poor sales.

Steinlager Tokyo Dry

In 2016, Steinlager Tokyo Dry was introduced as "New Zealand raw ingredients meet Japanese brewing mastery".

Sponsorship

Steinlager is actively involved in sponsorship of major New Zealand sports teams, probably the most high-profile rugby team in the world, the New Zealand

All Blacks The New Zealand national rugby union team, commonly known as the All Blacks ( mi, Ōpango), represents New Zealand in men's international rugby union, which is considered the country's national sport. The team won the Rugby World Cup in 1987 ...

Rugby Union Rugby union, commonly known simply as rugby, is a close-contact team sport that originated at Rugby School in the first half of the 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand. In its m ...

team, have had the support of Steinlager since 1986. Steinlager is also the current presenting sponsor of the United States leg of the

IRB Sevens World Series The World Rugby Men's Sevens Series is an annual series of international rugby sevens tournaments run by World Rugby featuring national sevens teams. Organised for the first time in the 1999–2000 season as the IRB World Sevens Series, the com ...

. Steinlager was involved in yacht racing with the maxi-ketch ''

Steinlager 2 ''Steinlager 2'' is a Bruce Farr-designed yacht. Skippered by Peter Blake, she won the 1989–90 Whitbread Round the World Race and line honours in the 1989 Fastnet Race. She was the only yacht to ever win all six legs of the Whitbread Round th ...

'', which was skippered by Peter Blake, won all six legs of the 1989–90 Whitbread Round the World Race, and again in 1995 with Team New Zealand with their " Black Magic" boat, which won the Americas Cup by beating Dennis Conner's defending boat Stars & Stripes, also known as Young America, 5-nil in the finals' series. Steinlager, along with

Toyota is a Japanese multinational automotive manufacturer headquartered in Toyota City, Aichi, Japan. It was founded by Kiichiro Toyoda and incorporated on . Toyota is one of the largest automobile manufacturers in the world, producing about 10 ...

, ENZA,

TVNZ , type = Crown entity , industry = Broadcast television , num_locations = New Zealand , location = Auckland, New Zealand , area_served = Nationally (New Zealand) and some Pacific Island nations such as the Cook Islands, Fiji, and the So ...

and

Telecom New Zealand Spark New Zealand Limited is a New Zealand telecommunications company providing fixed-line telephone services, a mobile phone network, internet access services, and (through its Spark Digital division) ICT services to businesses. It was know ...

, formed the "family of five" major sponsors of Team New Zealand in 1995 and again in their successful defence of the cup in 2000. In 2006, Steinlager provided sponsorship to specific USA Rugby Union teams, including Media Rugby Football Club and York/Lancaster Rugby Football Club, as part of a US marketing campaign.

References

{{Reflist
Steinlager History

All Blacks sponsorship deal

More Steinlager info

External links

Steinlager website
Beer in New Zealand Kirin Group America's Cup