Legendary Australian surf patriarch brutally slams Mick Fanning beer as “a five out of ten… it’s not Heineken”

"Bitter."

It is Australia Day, in Australia. That magical time of year when our brothers, sisters, both chemical and natural, toast each other’s oi oi oi-ness and watch The Man from Snowy River marathons. As the geographically aware know, the Lucky Country floats south of the equator meaning it is, currently, summer there and so Australians also celebrate Australia Day by sitting outside in the warm sunshine, drinking the national drink.

Bee-ah.

Enter Jessie Sunset. The TikTok sensation who looks like this…

… smartly decided to take different bee-ahs to the legendary surfing Roberts family and have them taste test.

Around the table they went, professional surfing sisters and brother, sipping and ranking on a scale of one to ten, one obviously being undrinkable, ten a revelation, until coming to patriarch Pete Roberts who, I think, wrote Church of the Open Sky.

Now, Pete selected a Balter to sample and you certainly recall the bee-ah launched by Mick Fanning, Joel Parkinson, Josh Kerr and Bede Durbidge in 2016 at the height of the extreme-sport-stars-pivoting-to-booze craze. St. Archer, founded in 2013 with investments from surfers, skaters, snowboarders, had just sold to Molson for tens of millions and alcohol seemed like a can’t lose bet.

Back to the taste test, though. Pete took one sip through very pursed lips and described the taste as “bitter” and not nearly as good as a Heineken, giving Balter a terrible “five out of ten.”

Ouch.

I wish former World Surf League CEO Erik Logan would form up a spirits company. I feel cachaça could gain real marketshare in the United States, Australia too, with a proper narrative. Like, an Oklahoman with a wetsuit of armor who travels south to the magical federative republic of Brazil, sips the magic sugar juice and loses it all.

Sharp.

David Lee Scales and I did not discuss cachaça nor did we reference the Family Roberts during our weekly chat, but we did spend time on David Lee Scales’ namesake David Lee Roth ripping Eddie Van Halen’s son Wolfgang in a recent social media rant.

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