Red Dwarf is a long-running BBC sitcom created by Rob Grant and Doug Naylor that’s been on and off our screens since it was first aired in 1988. At its heart, the sci-fi themed comedy is a character study focused on the class divide in the UK, seen through the relationship between Dave Lister, the last man alive and a working class Liverpudlian, and Arnold Rimmer, the holographic recreation of his supervisor; a middle class company man.

“Hang on!?” I hear you cry. “Red Dwarf is a sci-show with killer robots, time travel, parallel universes, despair squids and shape-shifting, emotion devouring genetically engineered killing machines?” Yes, it is those things, but the earlier seasons focused more on the relationship between the two protagonists—the rest is just set dressing.

There are other characters: Holly, the ship’s computer, and the Cat, a humanoid lifeform who evolved from Lister’s pet cat while he was held in suspended animation for a million years. From season three onwards, Kryten, a domestic service robot also features, but the show's central focus is still largely on the relationship between Lister and Rimmer.

We see class differences portrayed in almost every interaction between the two characters. Rimmer is shown as having had a comfortable upbringing, a large family and a life in the volcanic suburbs of Io, whereas Lister is a working class orphan from Liverpool. Rimmer is focussed on social and career advancement despite constant failure, whereas Lister just wants to get drunk with his mates. Rimmer enjoys middle class pursuits like board games, ancient history, and classical music, while Lister enjoys Zero-G Football and rock music. And there’s their alternate approach to food and drink.

Rimmer has a desire to be seen as having a higher status, intensified by his embarrassment at being a glorified vending machine repairman. In the episode Bodyswap—wherein Rimmer swaps bodies with Lister—he has Kryten prepare him a feast of poached fish, oysters, duck feet, and roast suckling pig. But in Rimmer’s most traumatic memory he reveals this is all a façade: his last words, upon being struck by a nuclear explosion, are ‘gazpacho soup’—a reference to when he was invited to eat at the Captain’s table and asked for the famously cold dish to be heated up. His greatest shame in his life (before he was reanimated as a hologram, at least) was wanting some warm soup.

Lister, on the other hand, lives on a diet of sugar puff sandwiches, violently hot vindaloos, and triple fried egg sandwiches with chilli sauce and chutney. He risks creating a temporal paradox to go on a time travelling cash and carry trip back to 20th century earth when they run out of curry, after deciding he cannot live off pasta.

““Lister exclusively drinks canned lager and is shown as limiting his choice of beverage, again due to class identity.””

In contrast to Rimmer’s professed love of French wine, Lister exclusively drinks canned lager and is shown as limiting his choice of beverage, again due to class identity. In the episode DNA, Lister confesses to Kryten his deepest, darkest secret, that he once… went into a wine bar—an act he considers class treachery and on the slippery slope to having possibly real relationships with women and eating tapas. Both Lister’s and Rimmer’s darkest secrets are that they consumed food or drink that betrayed their class identity.

The core message from this is that we shouldn’t limit our palates just for the sake of class identity. Lister clearly wants to enjoy a plate of patatas bravas and a bottle of Tempranillo, while Rimmer clearly prefers warm tomato soup. And yet they deny themselves these luxuries.

Homebrewers can fall into this trap with their identity too. There is definite anti-lager sentiment among some within the hobby; a sense that we only like lager due to socialisation and in trying to break out of class identity we forget that, actually, it’s still a lovely drink. This recipe is a reminder that you can enjoy a nice, crisp lager at a barbeque, a cask bitter down your local, and a can of hazy IPA at home. It’s fine, the class police won’t come after you.

I’m not immune to this; I also initially thought pale lager was too boring to turn into a recipe. The first draft of this article was a recipe for ‘beer milkshake’, which is something Lister orders from the ship’s vending machine in one early episode. I experimented by putting a bunch of lactose in a lager grain bill, complete with sugar puffs in the mash (which I learned are now apparently called honey monster wheat puffs, what’s that about?) Suffice to say I ended up drain-pouring this monstrosity and then decided to brew Lister’s actual favourite beer: Leopard Lager.

Leopard Lager is a great example of environmental storytelling. It’s never mentioned by name in the show but the prop cans have all the information we need to know about it. A 440ml can with a black banner at the top declaring it as ‘JMC Standard Issue’. JMC refers to the Jupiter Mining Corporation—the company that owns the mining ship Red Dwarf upon which the majority of the show is set—so big a company it produces its own lager for the half decade-long slogs across the solar system. It’s described as premium lager at 5.1% ABV, and is best served cold.

All indications point to Leopard Lager being an International Pale Lager, which is a Beer Judge Certification Program (BJCP) codified style, so I’m going to stick to these guidelines for this recipe. It’s your supermarket premium lager that doesn’t fit into any of the real historical lager styles. While it might call itself a pilsner, it’s strayed so far from the light it no longer fits the category.

Lacking the bready maltiness of helles or the spicy, herbal hop profile of a Czech pilsner, the whole focus of this style is a crisp clean finish. It’s supposed to be a refreshing, easy drinking beer. Adjuncts get a lot of flack as being included purely to cut costs, but for this style the addition of some rice or corn gives the lighter finish we’re looking for. The colour can range from pale straw to golden; there’s supposed to be little head retention so no wheat malt is necessary.

Hop aroma is described by the BJCP as being low to medium. Where a lot of mass-produced international lagers will have basically no hop aroma, it’s to style to include some, so I’ve got some Hallertau at the end of the boil to add a mild spice and herbal character that will help the beer taste refreshing. For fermentation, you want a clean finishing lager yeast.

This beer is perfect for fun fun fun in the sun sun sun, watching the zero-G football playoffs, killing a mutant vindaloo monster, or taking the edge off before ripping a hole in the space time continuum to find your one true love, Kristine Kochanski.

Brewing this beer is a white card conversation, so if you do decide to brew up a batch, please let us know!

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Recipe

Target Original Gravity (OG) — 1.048
Target Final Gravity (FG) — 1.010
Target Alcohol by Volume (ABV) — 5.1%
Target International Bittering Units (IBU) — 20
Batch Size — 20L

Ingredients

3.5Kg Simpsons Finest Lager Malt
600g Flaked Rice

25g Hallertau added start of boil
30g Hallertau added five minutes from the end of boil

Mangrove Jack’s Bohemian Lager Yeast (M84)

30L water total (10L for mash, 20L for sparge)

Method

Mash Duration — 1 Hour
Mash Liquor Volume — 12L
Total Grist Weight — 4kg
Liquor to Grist Ratio — 2.5 L/Kg
Mash Temperature — 65ºC
Sparge Liquor Volume — 18L
Sparge Liquor Temperature — 75ºC
Boil Duration — 1 Hour
Fermentation Temp — 10ºC