Name of Site: BeerPal.com
URL: www.beerpal.com
Load Time: Medium
Ease of Navigation: Signposted
Plug Ins Required: None
Review: If you drank a different beer every day, it would take you more than 22 years to get through all the beers on this site! How many livers you would go through in that time is up for speculation. Beer lovers the world over have been brought together here to taste, rank and discuss their favourite or least favourite brown ales. Members collect beer caps for participating which encourages the site to brew more and more content. It's all quite straight forward, with a discussion baord a few polls and the all important beer data base. Nothing too taxing for the inebriated visitors.- SS
Name of Site: Budweiser Beer
URL: www.budweiser.com
Load Time: Slow
Ease of Navigation: Signposted
Plug Ins Required: Flash, Real Player, Windows Media Player.
Review: The self-proclaimed "king of beers" makes enough money to employ the slickest marketing team in the world, turning this brown liquid anaesthetic into a total lifestyle choice, where bikini clad babes cavort around racing cars with hip hop grooves accompanying every gulp of your next alcoholic journey to Hangoverville. There is so much on offer here - a totally personalised web experience complete with Celebrity endorsements and multimedia wizardry. It all looks so hyper slick, you have no option but to choose "Bud" as your recreational drug of choice. - SS
Name of Site: Tooheys
URL: www.tooheysnew.com.au
Load Time: Medium
Ease of Navigation: Signposted
Plug Ins Required: Flash
Review: It seems women don't drink Tooheys much, since all visitors on this site are referred to as 'blokes' and 'mates'. Step into the virtual pub, and over the din of the punters, pour yourself a glass of refreshing, cold beer, uh, content - beer recipes, history, contests, tipping comps and a crazy beer pouring game where you are left in charge of the bar for a while, as the thirsty patrons keep a-comin' back for more. The site looks great and will certainly make you thirst for a "New", but somehow I think the beer will be far more satisfying than what is available at this humble little establishment. - SS
Name of Site: Foster's Beer Information
URL: www.fosters.com.au/beer
Load Time: Meduim
Ease of Navigation: Signposted
Plug Ins Required: Flash
Review: The hugely successful Foster's brand has put Aussie beer on the world map and allowed Carlton United to produce a massive range of beers, sponsor the Grand Prix, develop entire suburbs with beer money, and put a nice little Website together. Plenty of info here, including how good beer is for your health (in moderation, of course), a virtual tour of the brewery, food/beer matchmaker, history and a lengthy beer glossary. It all looks and sounds so wonderful, enjoyable, youthful, glamourous and safe, I think I'll head off to the bottle shop now and get wasted. - SS
Name of Site: Real Beer
URL: www.realbeer.com
Load Time: Medium
Ease of Navigation: Signposted
Plug Ins Required: None
Review: A total beer portal, Real beer is bubbling over with content. Over 150,000 pages of beer stuff on a huge network of sites, ezines, print publications, internal pages and external affiliate links. From reviews to events, pub crawl tales to home brew tips, if it is beer, it is here. Buy beer, books and other merchandise, plan your next holiday around beer festivals and read up on all the latest beer news. Funnily enough all the beer health news reports seem to keep coming up with more and more scientific evidence that beer is good for you. Could it be the scientists had the old beer goggles on when looking at the research data? - SS
Name of Site: Skotrat.com
URL: www.skotrat.com/skotrat
Load Time: Medium
Ease of Navigation: Signposted
Plug Ins Required: Java
Review: Scott Abene is a home brew and Frank Zappa freak. His monument to both is yours to enjoy. In between skulling sessions he has managed to find the time and energy to build an impressive resource and attract over 16 million visitors. Home brewing is a real fanatical hobby it seems, and Scott obliges one and all with a huge range of recipes, tips, info, discussion board and general brewing banter. While the big corporate sites aggrandise their brand in a push for bigger market share and profits, Skotrat is shouting the world a brewery full of very tasty and refreshing information for free. - SS
Name of Site: TotalBeer.net
URL: www.totalbeer.net
Load Time: Scorching
Ease of Navigation: Walk in the Park
Plug Ins Required: None
Review: Not as total as the name suggests, this 'lite' beer site still satisfys with a full bodied richness of beer reviews, history and beer know-how. With a few clicks of the mouse, you will quickly top up your beer knowledge and stagger away a little wiser about this most popular liquid refreshment. There is the makings of a good beer catalogue in a tree-based navigation system, but with only two Aussie beers listed, there is a long way to go. A great basic primer for the would-be connossieur, but not quite enough to satiate the professional guzzlers. - SS
Name of Site: Promash
URL: www.promash.com
Load Time: Scorching
Ease of Navigation: Walk in the Park
Plug Ins Required: None
Review: Brewing your own beer must be a very rewarding enterprise, both from an economic, alcoholic and refreshment perspective. If you are serious about it (you may even dream of becoming the next beer baron, or at least getting your neighbours pissed for Christmas), you need high tech brew management software. ProMash takes care of everything. A huge range of features, including recipe formulation, water profiler, brewing session recording, calculators galore and even competition printouts for your next brew-off, put you in total control of your legal drug manufacturing laboratory. Plenty of support here and a huge discussion board. All that is left to do is savour the results. - SS
Name of Site: Alcoholics Anonymous Australia
URL: www.aa.org.au
Load Time: Medium
Ease of Navigation: Signposted
Plug Ins Required: None
Review: Contrary to the rose-coloured notions put forward by beer manufacturers and afficionados alike, alcohol abuse is a pretty major problem for a lot of people. When it all gets too much, AA is there to lend a hand. This site offers a very large amount of information about how to get help and what the whole AA journey is all about. Four main sections for newcomers, members, media and health professionals allow for easy navigation of the information at hand. The site is a contact point, to be followed by an actual meeting attendance to get the healing process underway. For those who just can't control themselves, this could well be the way to go. - SS
Name of Site: National Alcohol Campaign
URL: www.nationalalcoholcampaign.health.gov.au
Load Time: Medium
Ease of Navigation: Signposted
Plug Ins Required: Flash
Review: The Australian government has decided to get 'em young when it comes to alcohol education (have they given up on the oldies?) with a campaign to encourage responsible drinking, as opposed to their 'zero-tolerance' policy for other recreational drugs. The site has a good range of resources available to teachers, parents and kids - legal, medical and general - and links to the 'Drinking Choices' site. I doubt it's effectiveness against the mountain of alcohol advertising, societal norms and peer pressure. This site does little to attack the root causes of teenage drug use. It just asks them to use a little less medication to cope. - SS
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