IT all started, so the story goes, when a lemon farmer in Australia hit on the idea of turning his surplus of ripe lemons into an alcoholic lemonade. Within the year, young Australians were downing bottles of Two Dogs and later enjoying a whole new range of so-called ``alcoholic carbonates'' in a rainbow of flavours, writes Alison Daniels.

The launch of alcopops in the UK 18 months ago met with similar success. The sector is now worth an estimated #500m a year, and galvanised the major brewers and a plethora of small companies into concocting a staggering assortment of potent brews with creative titles.

But the rise of the alcoholic lemonades has also been met with a series of warnings about under-age drinking and criticism of the marketing and advertising techniques adopted by the drinks industry to flog their sugary sweet beverages to the ``adult'' market.

Carlsberg-Tetley and Bass are the latest companies to unleash the ire of the advertising watchdogs.

But, brewing companies ignore the current trend at their peril as demonstrated by the catastrophic fall in Matthew Clark shares. The group, which owns Gaymer Cider and Taunton Cider, has seen its combined sales of 1980s designer drinks - Diamond White and K and the decades-old Babycham fall by 30% in July then crash by 60% in August, prompting its chief executive to remark that he had never seen anything like it in 36 years in the drinks industry.

Ahead of the field is Bass with Hooper's Hooch, currently sold in lemon, blackcurrant and orange flavours and soon to add apple. The 4.7% proof drink has cornered a 70% share of the market.

Second in popularity is the 4% proof Two Dogs, imported from Australia by Merrydown and now with a 20% share of the market. In third place is Carlsberg-Tetley with its 4.9% proof Orange and Lemonhead.

Behind the market leaders, other brewers have jumped on the bandwagon. Whitbread, for instance, launched its range of Shott's alcoholic seltzers in March, while Scottish Courage, the beer division of Scottish & Newcastle, hit the scene with another Australian import, Sub Zero, and is set to launch a whole new raft of tropical flavours of its wine cooler Castaway.

However despite the sector's obvious growth in real terms the alcopop industry remains small beer. According to Scottish Courage, with an annual turnover in 1995/6 totalling #1790m, alcopops are likely to remain only a ``very small part'' of its sales.

City analysts too are keen to put the whole trend in context. London-based BZW said that an estimated 80 to 90 million litres of alcopop has been consumed over the last year compared with 560 million litres of cider, a drink which makes up around 10% of the drinks market.

The Brewers and Licensed Retailers Association's Tim Hampson said: ``Alcopops are not that remarkable an idea, people have always liked sweet drinks, whether it be a gin with bitter lemon or a blackcurrant in their lager.''