CUB is giving a free VB to every eligible person in the country (who buys the right newspaper and cuts out the coupon) to celebrate Australia’s recent performance on the cricket field. Or to celebrate that that the English are leaving with the little urn still safely stored in the overhead compartment. Or that the Barmy Army are bunking out. Or something. Either way – free beer!

If you could buy the nation a beer, what would it be?

So here is something for you to ponder as you front the bottle-o, proudly waving your coupon and joining the queue of like-minded souls snaking out into the car park:- if you had the power and reach of CUB and could offer every Australian of legal drinking age a beer OF YOUR CHOICE, what would it be?

Now, before you engage brain and activate an answer that may merely reflect your own favourite brew, consider the following: You have a once in a lifetime opportunity to expose the entire adult population of this wide brown land to a beer that they may never even have heard of. They may love it or loathe it. They may become an instant convert to your recommendation or they might just swear off beer for life after drinking it. A grave responsibility. Think carefully.

What would your justification be? What factors would you consider paramount? What beer will give the Beer World – and by that I mean the Craft Beer World, of course – the best return on investment? What beer best encapsulates your love of the Amber Nectar? What beer would you most like to give others the chance to sample?

Do you stick to something simple, plain and ‘entry level’ just to get the ball rolling? Do you give them all something a bit more challenging and hope they continue the journey under their own steam? Or do you completely freak them all out with a malt-driven or hop-blasting specialty brew so foreign to them all that they run squealing and sobbing back to their mainstream mistresses, leaving all the Craft Beer for you and those who truly believe? Your call.

The only limitations placed on this offer are that the beer must be in bottled form, readily available and Australian. Forget about the particular brewery’s ability to actually in real life produce or deliver the quantity required, it’s not that fair dinkum a project.

But remember that your choice may just change the face of the Beer World in this country. Forever. That’s a really long time. We may not even have won back The Ashes by then.

Let us know in the comments what beer you would buy the nation if the shout was your choice? One commenter will win a pair of Chimay chalice glasses (Australia only).