By Willie Simpson

Launching a new brand straddling several different alcohol categories is being hailed as an industry first in this country. Independent Distillers Australia is behind the Three Kings brand which sees a trio of new products featuring a beer, a cider and a vodka and ginger mix, rolled out simultaneously this week (OCT 11).

“It’s been well-documented that the RTD tax impacted on us but that’s now part of past history,” says IDA general manager Myles Anceschi. The company’s best-known brands include Vodka Cruiser, Woodstock and Highlander, and the Rudd Government’s so-called “alcopop tax” obviously hit their bottom line hard.

The parent company Independent Distillers was established in New Zealand in 1987 by the late Kiwi liquor baron Michael Erceg, with operations in Sydney and Melbourne starting in 2000 and 2001, respectively. Tragically, Erceg was killed in a helicopter crash in November 2005, along with Guus Klatte, the export director of Dutch brewer Grolsch; Erceg was piloting the helicopter at the time of the accident.

The company was valued at NZ$1.25 billion at the time of his death. Independent Distillers is currently owned by private equity interests, with a small percentage still owned by the Erceg family.

IDA has always had a fairly low-key corporate profile on this side of the Tasman, particularly when it comes to their beer-making operations. A $10 million Steinecker brewery was installed in 2005 into the production base at Laverton , south-west of Melbourne, solely to produce Carlsberg under licence.

According to marketing director Steve Williams, IDA grew the Carlsberg brand locally to around 450,000 cases annually. Lacking a keg production facility, the Carlsberg licensing agreement has since been picked up in Australia by Fosters.

The Laverton plant has the capacity to produce more than one million litres of beer annually and, prior to the Three Kings launch, has been making leading Indian brand Kingfisher under licence, plus the low-carb Platinum Blonde for Woolworths. Other projects have included the Russian brand Baltika and Hummingbird – which is unashamedly targeted at female drinkers.

“The quality parameters we employ stem from the Carlsberg experience,” says IDA head brewer Mario Rubbino, who developed Three Kings Dry Lager as a beer aimed, mainly, at generation Y males.

“We aimed for a drier palate, with most of the sugars fermented out,” he said. While the hop bitterness is decidedly moderate, Rubbino used two aromatic hop varieties in hersbrucker and nelson sauvin to produce some lifted fruity notes in the mid-palate.

Significantly, each Three Kings product is bottled at the same strength – 4.6 per cent a/v, with mixed six-packs and cartons a future possibility, according to Steve Williams. “We need to acknowledge the expanding repertoires of this generation,” he says. “They are no longer just beer drinkers, they drink different products for different occasions.”

Three Kings Cider wasn’t available for tasting as we go to press but is being made under contract by a Hunter Valley winery using granny smith, pink lady and red delicious apples sourced from Batlow. Apple flavouring also features in the Three Kings Vodka & Ginger mix, along with ginger and aromatic bitters.

All three products are packaged in black glass bottles which is not quite a first for beer – a black-clad Mexican import called Simpatico arrived on these shores some 20 years ago before disappearing with alarming rapidity.

TASTING NOTES

THREE KINGS DRY LAGER (4.6%)

Pale gold, bright. Aroma: clean, malty with a whiff of lifted passionfruit/melon. Palate: crisp malt initially, medium body, some tropical fruit hints in rather hollow mid-palate; finishes dry with gooseberry hop flavour hints lingering on. Overall: fruity notes lift it slightly above rivals like Tooheys Extra Dry.

THREE KINGS VODKA & GINGER (4.6%)

Slightly hazy with faint amber tinge. Aroma: green apple notes dominate with ginger and perfumed hints in background. Palate: soft carbonation, apple notes and aromatic bitters upfront with ginger characters emerging later. Overall: good balance of flavours without cloying sweetness.

THREE KINGS CIDER (4.6%)

(UNTASTED)