Brew No.6 – Coopers Sparkling Ale

RATING: 3.5/5 Stars

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This is one my favourite commercial beers so I was quite keen to get into this one. I have used one of the Coopers premium kits that I sourced from Dave’s Home Brew (www.daveshomebrew.com.au) in North Sydney. I have been told that the best way to make this beer (and the pale ale) is to culture a yeast from a couple of the coopers bottles. Unfortunately I didn’t have time but will certainly do this next time. This is probably my last ale for a few months as its getting too cold and perfect lager brewing weather Recipe as follows:

• Coopers Sparkling Ale Can
• 1.5kg Thomas Coopers Light Malt Extract
• 500g LDME
• 300g coopers brew enhancer 1
• Safale yeast

As mentioned it was getting cold, so took a good couple of weeks to ferment with plenty of warming from the heat lamp. Bottled on 28 June 2008 into PET bottles with carb drops.

22 July 2008 – Noticed that the PET bottles are not showing much carbonation, probably because of the cold weather. Felt sorry for them and bought them up to the house where it’s a bit warmer I did find one that seemed a little more conditioned than the rest and opened her up. WOW…the alcohol in this little baby is full on, looks like this one is going to have to sit in the bottle for quite a while.

10 August 2008 - Had another cheeky long neck, and this one is really starting to soften up and tasting great

1 September 2008 - Wow, this is a pretty good beer. BIG malty taste, which next time I would balance out with a little more hops. Had some mates over on the weekend and they loved it. One mate who loves Coopers reckons it tastes pretty damn close! I still think that in another month this will get even better.