The number of labels with ties to either Woolworths or Coles just keeps on growing. Woolies has  a big hand in Gage Roads, Sail & Anchor and John Boston, while Coles was left behind for a while with only the Steamrail brand.

They’ve made up for lost time with the creation of two new brands - Lorry Boys and the terribly-named 3 Pub Circus.

Now some beer geeks will refuse to touch a beer from a supermarket company because they want to support the little guy – that’s their prerogative.

Me, I just like tasty beer and some of these supermarket brands are pretty good. I’m partial to the Steamrail golden ale and the Gage Roads Single Fin summer ale is a cracking beer. The John Boston beers on the other hand, well, there’s not much there to recommend.

And it’s the same story with Lorry Boys Pale Ale, which comes with what seems to be a very specious back story. According to the label, Jim and Joe used to make “small batch” beer and deliver it around the traps via an old lorry. Unless Jim and Joe work for Liquorland, I very much doubt that story.

For Liquorland is the owner of this beer (and Liquorland is, in turn, owned by Coles). Says so right on the back of the label – and kudos to them for making it obvious, because that other big supermarket chain makes sure their name appears nowhere on their beers.

When I saw this in the store I took a punt and bought a six-pack. Now I really wished I hadn’t because now I’m stuck with five beers I don’t want to drink.

When you smell the beer, there’s an unnerving chemical note at the very back end. Very soon, that became all I could focus on. In terms of flavour, there’s a weird note of banana here which is meant to be in a hefeweizen but not a pale ale like this. That flavour mixes in with some very slight fruit hints, turning this into a strange hefe/pale ale hybrid.

If you want to try a supermarket beer, I’d recommend some of the others mentioned above and give the Lorry Boys pale a miss.