Peoples opinions on Coopers Beer?

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

RagingMammoth

Member
Joined
Mar 17, 2013
Messages
17
Reaction score
0
I'm thinking about splashing out on their lager kit. Any opinions? It's either that or a Geordie kit? I think it's Geordie.
 
Coopers should give you a perfectly drinkable beer. It will be better if you replace the sugar addition with dry malt extract and try to control your temperatures. Some people swap out the yeast and doctor them up further to improve them, but they are certainly drinkable if done right.
 
Coopers should give you a perfectly drinkable beer. It will be better if you replace the sugar addition with dry malt extract and try to control your temperatures. Some people swap out the yeast and doctor them up further to improve them, but they are certainly drinkable if done right.

Thanks for the advice, really appreciated. It's currently half price at my local wilkos, so ill definitely give it a go. What commercial beer is it comparable to?
 
Thanks for the advice, really appreciated. It's currently half price at my local wilkos, so ill definitely give it a go. What commercial beer is it comparable to?

Hard to say, I've never done one of their lager kits. I only do a couple of their kits these days and they're heavily modified. They're my quick brew with decent result brew days when I'm needing to fill some kegs and don't have a lot of time.
 
The Cooper's OS (Original Series) Lager comes with their ale yeast,so it's actually a light pale ale. Try using some plain extra light DME (about 3lbs),along with an ounce of east kent golding for a tasty light colored ale with good body 5.3% or so. The east kent golding tastes like herbs & lemon grass to me. Classic in a british pale ale.
Use half the 3lb bag of DME in a partial boil of 2.5-3 gallons. Do the Flavor hop addition at 15-20 minutes. The remove from heat & stir in remaining DME & the Cooper's can (pre-hopped LME) & stir till completely dissolved.
Chill brew kettle down to 75 or so,then take chilled gallons of water outta the fridge & use for top off. Get the wort down to 64F or so. Any lower,& Cooper's ale yeast is sluggish & stalls.
 
I have a Coopers Pale Ale in my cooler right now. Ive done a Coopers Australian Draft in the past and it turned out alright. This time I used a Wyeast American Lager yeast and its been in primary for a few weeks at 52 degrees. I also used 3.3lbs of Extra Light DME and got an OG of 1.046. My kids like to drink my Belgians, so Im gonna keep this around to keep them out of it! The Coopers kits are not bad, but I would agree with what others are saying about the yeast. Either replace it or get a starter going with the dry yeast as its hard to get going otherwise.
 
I never had too much trouble with their yeast. It's best rehydrated,particularly the little 7g packet. Midwest & NB carry the Cooper's ale yeast in the larger 15g packet. I def like that one when fruity esters are part of the style,like English ales. It's best betwen 64-68F in my observations. It's also a high flocculation yeast,so it'll make clear beer. WL029 & US-05 are also very good options,imho.
 
I ferment it much colder than the recommendations and it comes out quite nice

The following explains the ink-jetted code on the yeast sachets, supplied with each beer kit:

Sachets carry a Julian date code and may also carry letters to denote the type of yeast. For example, if they were packaged on the 25th of September 2007 = 268th day of 2007:

Original Series:- Ac (26807)

International Series:-
Australian Pale Ale - Ac+L (26807 Int)
Mexican Cerveza - Ac+L (26807 Int)
European Lager - L (26807 P)
Canadian Blonde - Ac (26807)
English Bitter - Ac (26807)

Thomas Coopers Selection:-
Wheat - A (26807 W)
IPA - Ac (26807 IPA)
Irish Stout - A (26807 IS)
Pilsener - L (26807 P)
Australian Bitter - Ac+L (26807 PS)
Heritage Lager - Ac+L (26807 PS)
Sparkling Ale - Ac+L (26807 PS)
Traditional Draught - Ac+L (26807 PS)

Note:
Ac = Coopers ale yeast (our own strain, not the same as the yeast in our commercial ales, developed in-house and propagated under contract).

A = ale yeast and L = lager yeast (these strains are commercially available dry yeast and their details are held in confidence).
 
Also,the Cooper's ale yeast comes in a larger 15g size. NB & Midwest both carry them,& they're usually fresher than those 7g packets that come with the cans.
 
Back
Top