Our South Pacific correspondent writes

It's Sunday night, so it's time for another crawl through my archives of beer pictures and experiences I mean to write up for the Guide but couldn't be bothered to at the time! This week: The Cook Islands.

Rarotonga Brewery, August 2006

Louise and I went to Rarotonga, the main island in the group, in August last year. We were on our way back from Sydney and after three weeks of intensive city-based tourism and meeting all of Louise's friends and family we were ready for a break. Thankfully, Raro (as the locals call it) fitted that bill to a T - our little hut right on Muri Lagoon was the ideal place to sit with an ice-cold beer in between bus rides to the "capital", Averua, or swimming in the crystal clear waters of the lagoon, or visiting the cultural centre to learn about the local way of life and go through the ritual "embarrass the tourists" audience-participation dance.

Cook Islands beers, then. There is (or was: looks like it's closed down!) one brewery in The Cook Islands, the Rarotonga Brewery. It serves up two different lagers, Cook Islands Export (with a nice picture of Captain Cook on the label and pretend handpump, pictured right) and Vaka. They come bottled in recycled Heineken bottles and...how can I put this? They're foul. They're both waterery, insipid, and have a weird buttery aftertaste. Blech.

As well as Cooks beers, Kiwi lagers (Steinlager and Speights, mainly) were available and drinkable enough. But there were also a couple of beers from other Pacific Islands. Vailima from Western Samoa was actually very nice indeed - a crisp, German-style lager. However, Hinano, from Tahiti, was as buttery and horrible as the Rarotonga Breweries' products. But it did have a nice picture of a lady on the can.

Authentic Cook Islands vinyl flooring tablecloth, too

In summary: don't go to The Cook Islands for their beer (especially if the brewery is still shut down). Also, don't go for the radio as it only has two stations, only one of which can be heard outside the main town. However, its beauty and relaxed feel more than make up for it's brew and media deficiencies.

Oh, and its internet domain suffix is .ck, which makes for some great domain names. Check out that radio weblink above if you don't believe me.

Big can!

Cheesy poofs optional