Spaten München “Original – German Style Beer”, Ontario, Canada (Alcohol 5%) LCBO $2.25 (473ml can)
I just cannot believe this has happened again… I seriously cannot.
Yet another really solid imported (and inexpensive) German München beer is now brewed by Labatt Breweries in Ontario and hence tastes like absolute muck… and it’s sold in a bloody smaller can with 0.2% less alcohol to boot.
And at time of writing the LCBO website still states that it is brewed in Germany. FFS.
Much in the same manner as my late and much lamented Löwenbräu, something I covered in quite a bit of detail a few years back, I’m going to strongly suggest that you never buy this utter travesty again in its current form. Yes, I’m saying that beer drinkers should wholly boycott Spaten.
Now I’m not in any way professing that Spaten was a “Five Apple” 
beer, but it is one that I used to happily consume in enormous quantities in the back yard or up at the cottage, and upon many occasions over the years it became (along with the Turkish Tuborg Gold) a more than worthy understudy for my much missed Löwenbräu.
Much like Löwenbräu, and indeed most München beer, Spaten had that slightly malty edge, that being from Scotland, where historically beers have relied upon malt for much of their flavour profile, I tend to crave in an everyday beer. Today’s sorry abomination shares very little in common with its imported counterpart, but I think it’s the malt component that I find most lacking.
It has to be said that I am in no way condemning every simulacrum beer, case in point being the aforementioned Tuborg Gold, but this transplanted recipe is not so much lost in translation but lost at sea, missing, presumed dead. It honestly tastes as if someone took the liquid byproduct of someone suffering with a severe metabolic disorder and ran it through a SodaStream.
Perhaps this insipid profile is what inumerable focus groups told Labatt the Canadian palate yearns for, but no, it’s certainly not for me. No thank you.
Run this can-full-o-dregs out of town today by refusing to go anywhere near it.
Zero apples out of a possible five.
Minus two apples out of a possible five for being so bloody underhanded about it.
Edinburgh-born/Toronto-based Sommelier, consultant, writer, judge, and educator Jamie Drummond is the Director of Programs/Editor of Good Food Revolution… And no… just no.
This information must be distributed, it’s such an affront that something of intense German quality gets sold out to a local brewery with a fraction of the quality and keeps the name for deceit.
Get this information out there and boycott this product. I’ll sorely miss the old spaten.
So I walked into the LCBO beer section and noticed right away that the print on the flat was green,not red and thought “huh,Spaten is changing it up,whatever”. I left with 8 cans and hurried home to enjoy a few. The first sip puckered my lips,the second reminded me of Blue. Upon closer examination my jaw dropped when I saw that Labatts was the culprit. I feel sorry for my garden as that is where I proceeded to dump the rest of the can. 15 minutes later I got refunded for all of them including the empty one. I’m still amazed that this is still in the international section! And yes,RIP Lowenbrau.
I was 8 cans into a session when I picked up a can of spat in. Despite the fact that I was fairly pished, I knew almost right away that something was rank.
This is the type of carry on that happened in the UK a few years back with beers such as wife beater and Calley. All the fancy European style labels but brewed in east Sussex.
Thought the Reinheitsgebot law stopped this kind of tom foolery?
I was misled by word Munchen (sorry, no german keyboard on my android). And this is all. During the years i buy any european beer to test and try. And here is a major dissappointment…within one…the americanizing of the beer is obvious – from marketing of the product to the real taste!
Try Hacker-Pschorr Münchner Gold, it’s still brewed in Germany (I think)