Duff Beer

https://www.duff-beverage.com/duff-beer.html

Brewed by Duff beverage GmbH
Style: European Pale Lager 
Lohnbrauhausen, Germany

“Can’t get enough of that wonderful Duff!”

Who hasn’t heard of Duff Beer? From the TV show, The Simpsons, its Homers go to beer, and a brand that doesn’t need any advertising. Homers love of the beer knows no bounds, “Ah, good ol’ trustworthy beer. My love for you will never die” 

Where the beer got the name “Duff” has always intrigued fans of the show. The actual word is slang in England for “Useless” or “Broken”, but I have never heard it used. I do know it can be a surname (Damien Duff anyone), and in Ireland to be “Up the Duff” means that the girl got pregnant! So perhaps Duff signifies a useless over rated everyday common mans swill, ie like Budweiser? For sure Homer is that beer guzzler who doesn’t give a fuck what he is drinking. 

With the success of the show it was only a matter of time that some real breweries got in on the action and started making “Duff Beer” a reality, and resulting in numerous legal actions and naming disputes. 

In the late 1990’s, the Lion Nathan brewery in Australia produced a beer called “Duff Beer”. 20th Century Fox brought legal action against the company. The product was ordered to be pulled off store shelves and destroyed, even though the beer had no direct relation to the comedy series, or any similar colouring or logo design. A similar thing happened to Duff Brewery in Dunedin, New Zealand who were brewing their stuff well before even the Simpsons were on the box. To escape heavy court cases and legal drama the company changed the name eventually to McDuff in the end!

Since 2006, Rodrigo Contreras, from Guadalajara, Mexico has sold Duff beer. Registering the “Duff” trademark in Mexico, Contreras designed the bottle to be identical to the one portrayed on The Simpsons TV show. Since its inception, the Mexican brand Duff has spread to other countries in Latin-America, most notably to Brazil, Chile, Colombia, among others.

In Germany, we got the Duff Beverage GmbH rolling out their Duffs in 1999, while the Eschweger Klosterbrauerei, a brewery in Hessen, brewed their version of Duff Beer under the German Reinheitsgebot, under contract for Duff Beer UG. Two Duffs, one country, crazy stuff! Or that’s what I think, it isn’t very clear, and there might have even been a division between the two German Duffs, ex colleagues and partners doing their own versions and hence the two different brands. I am not sure on this one, but all I know is that the Duff Beverage GmbH is the original and authorized German Duff beer!! (For now at least!!) 

In Chile, unauthorized “Duff beer” in the country, was rampant, literally the beer was to be found everywhere. This was the straw that broke the camels back. 21st Century Fox just had to step in. 

Because so many breweries were capitalizing on “Duff Beer”, 21st Century Fox finally relented and decided to sell their own version, the true version you could say, of “Duff Beer”. Much easier to take on the cowboys when you have an actual real life brand at hand rather than something just on the TV screens (Intellectual property laws tend to be hard to enforce for fictional products). Previously Matt Groening, the Simpsons creator, had stated that he did not wish to license the Duff trademark and sell an actual beer as he was worried it would encourage children to drink. Yeah for sure! Cause a drunken half naked beer bellied Homer is something that kids can aspire to (I guess!)

An officially licensed Duff Beer is sold at the show’s themed areas at Universal Studios parks in Orlando and Los Angeles, in replicas of Moe’s Tavern and a waterfront Duff Brewery. They also sell a canned energy drink in a can that is designed to look exactly a Duff beer can from the show. In 2015, they began selling licensed Duff beer in Chile, and in time they hope to expand worldwide.

For the actual show version of the beer, Duff is made by Duff Breweries in Springfield, small town USA. Duffman, a superhero kind of guy, is their always enthusiastic spokesman all the time wearing a utility belt full of cans of Duff Beer. The beer’s slogan is “Can’t Get Enough of That Wonderful Duff”, though there are others.

In the show there are quite a few varieties of Duff Beer. Despite Homer and Barney not noticing, regular Duff, Duff Light, and Duff Dry are the same beer, we have a Duff Stout, “the beer that made Ireland famous”,  a “Scandinavian Düff, the Beer of Danish Kings”, a Malaysian Duff” made of soy sauce, a Duffenbrau, the higher-quality “semi-imported” version of Duff, Raspberry Duff, Tartar-Control Duff, and Lady Duff for women (which is just regular Duff Beer in a pink can!), a Duff Zero, a completely alcohol-free variant with all the taste and flavor of regular Duff, the Duff 200, made of pure 200-proof grain alcohol, with the slogan “NOTHIN’ BUT BOOZE”, a Cuban beer called El Duffo, a bottle of Canadian Duff (or Le Duff avec Codeine on the label in French), which is laced with Cough Medicine, amongst a host of other Duff varieties mentioned in the show. Fudd is the beer enjoyed by residents of Shelbyville, the rival town to the Simpsons’ home of Springfield.

Review: 0,5l red can of Duff Beer: 4.9% vol.

“The Legendary Duff Beer” is how this beer is marketed! From Germany, and they call it a craft beer on their site, cheeky buggers! 

Comes in a can or a bottle. I got mine in a can from Lidl no doubt! 

“The legendary beer”, is written on the distinctive looking can, all red and bits of blue, fairly colourful anyway. But no mention of the actual Simpsons show, Homer, or in fact who the brewery is. Very ominous.

With no real link to the show, its obvious this brewery is taking the mick, but anyhow lets get stuck in.

Very carbonated on pour, all fizzing away no end, resulting in a very nice and white frothy headed beer that has a nice clear golden colour.  Some slight lacing going on. The beer manages to maintain its head throughout. Overall its a pretty decent looking beer. A good start!.

On the nose I get a lot of malts, grains and cereals, overall a general clean lager smell. Standard smell, not bad, not great, ok but faint enough.

Get a lot in the can which is great. But whats not so great is the taste, very dish watery, not great at all.

Tastes like a low grade regular lager, the corn and grains are detected, but not as smooth and a bit “urgh” if I am to be honest. Not as smooth as you would like, bit too bitter and metallic for my liking.

Forgettable lager really. No real taste to it. It is ok I guess but overall just nothing for it to stand out in the mass market of boring lagers………….except of course its name! 

Perhaps that is the whole point? Make a light lager that is even worse than most beers. Sure isn’t that what Homer would be drinking? But something tells me that is not what they were gunning for. They really could have made more of an effort I think, they have a great name and are from traditional beer kings, Germany and they produce this? Tsk!

A one off purchase beer, just bought for the name value. A gimmick!

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