LYNX PREMIUM
Booker
Netherlands, 5% ABV
Lynx is the UK’s bestselling ‘own-brand’ lager, brewed in Holland exclusively for cash and carry wholesale chain Booker, and sold on through independent off-licences across the country. Unless you work in the trade, chances are you’ve never heard of Booker, despite the fact that they have 172 branches in the UK. But if your local offie has a ‘Premier’ sign above the door (and more than 20,000 UK offies do) then it’s trading under a Booker brand. Lynx Premium is a 5% pilsner and, despite its ‘value’ price point and appearance, it punches above its weight when it comes to taste. Negotiating the minefield of own-brand lagers can be difficult, with many offerings being nothing more than cooking lagers, and others tasting suspiciously like re-packaged bigger brands. But supermarkets and wholesalers seem to be moving towards sourcing good quality premium exclusives that can compete with established brands. The increasing presence in the UK of value-based German supermarkets Aldi and Lidl and their solid own-brands has probably had an influence, and the UK big hitters have been swift to follow suit, like the mighty Tesco with its Boheme 1795 pilsner. Booker also produce a Lynx super strength – the 8.5% Lynx Altra – which is also a UK bestseller, outperforming the more established likes of Skol Super. Perhaps the thinking man’s booze peddler, Booker instigated the literary Booker Prize for Fiction (now the Man Booker) in 1968. Now they receive the Non-Beardy Beer Book Prize for Best Own-Brand Beer. PB
