KEY POINTS:
Any beer will give you a hangover if you - yes you, don't blame anyone else - drink enough of it. But Steinlager, our best-known beer internationally, has a reputation for giving the head an extra pounding.
It's the lager that, so the myth goes anyway, gives you
a special, more brutal and relentless kind of ache. It makes you wonder what the hell they put in it.
So what damage does the brand's new invention, Steinlager Pure, do to you? In the name of research myself and a few lads put the brew - touted as containing no preservatives just water, barley, hops and yeast from "the purest place on earth: New Zealand" - to the test on Thursday night.
Seventeen-or-so years ago I used to drink the original Steinlager out of the old grey cans. Back then, even with a young and keen beer palate, it was a potent brew.
But the morning after downing more than a few bottles of Steinlager Pure it's enough to make me hark back to David Kirk hoisting the World Cup aloft in '87 and scream, "We're Kiwis and we're taking on the world!"
Well, kind of. Come Friday at 8am the weary hangover is the same as any other boozy night but the kind of toxic shock the old Steinlager induced is not.
As a drinking experience Steinlager Pure is fresher and, as one of the lads says, "more real" tasting than the classic version "but a little boring and inoffensive".
Another says it has a generic beer taste and at least with the old "chemically enhanced" Steinie you knew what you were drinking.
The Pure version, as another of the lads says, still has that trademark metallic Steinlager taste but lacks an "essential beeriness".
"They seem to be heading toward the insipid flavour of American beers like Bud and Miller Draught," reckons the budding beer connoisseur.
At $25 a dozen, Pure is Steinlager's shot at the premium beer market while the old kind - now Steinlager Classic - stays just under $20 for 12.
Steinlager Pure was released this month and big bad actor Harvey Keitel stars in the television ad in which he praises New Zealand for saying no to nuclear testing, no to women not being able to vote, and no to putting preservatives in beer.
Wonder if he sampled the original Steinlager when he was over here shooting The Piano? If you drink enough of it, Harvey, you end up under the piano, mate.
I have a couple of friends who swear by Steinlager.
One of them lives in Canada now and he says considering the average local beers it's a saviour that his local bottle store stocks "Steingrenades".
"It's nice to know that they are drinking our beer here," he says.
We used to rib him about his devotion to Steinlager.
Although when we were at his place and ran out of Stella or Monteiths, what did we turn to gleefully but his stash of Steinie.
But whether a hangover with less ouch is enough to inspire the nation to reach for a Pure is another story.
