Carlton Light ‘Fine full-flavoured beer’ Poster

Before 1968 Carlton & United Breweries had a monopoly on beer served across the hotel bar in Victoria. That brand was Carlton Ale. With the entry of Courage Breweries a joint venture between local hoteliers, the British brewer Courage, Barclay & Simonds (it became Courage Ltd in 1970) and the British Tobacco Group put pressure on CUB to rethink their branding. So Carlton Ale was rebranded as Carlton Draught and the beer across the bar was made available as packaged beer.

As for the packaged beer they revamped all of their brands like Melbourne Bitter, Crown Lager, Abbots Lager, Victoria Bitter and Foster’s Lager. Foster’s Lager had a real revamp from the old red and yellow label to the well known blue and gold. The red ‘F’ was retained from the original brand going back to 1888.

Unlike in the U.S., “light” beer in Australia is not lighter on calories; it’s just lighter on alcohol content—usually around 2.5% ABV. By contrast, your average Australian beer is a standard 4.5% to 5%, and mid-strengths are around 3.5%. So why bother? Australia’s Drink driving laws are relatively tough. The maximum drink alcohol reading nationwide is 0.05, and it’s heavily enforced, with cops setting up roadblocks to stop and breathalyze massive numbers of drivers. Australians are also inundated with anti-drink-driving ads. As a result, people count the numbers of standard drinks they’ve had and generally police themselves pretty well. Staying at .05 is about one standard drink an hour, so if you want to drink and keep pace with your non-driving mates light is a relatively stigma-free option, and it’s available at every bar.

Carlton Light was one of the first beers produced and promoted as a good tasting light beer. Sales reflected a good acceptance and realisation of drinking and driving by most Australians.