Homebrew Wednesday #4 Coopers English Bitter

The Coopers English Bitter I just brewed is the third and final beer that I brought back to Taiwan from my trip to Singapore. I have been steadily working my way through my IPA supply and I'm sad to see that I only have five bottles left. But, I have shared this one a lot more than my other beers in part because I've had more occasions to do so, and also because  I'm proudest of this one; it's the clearest, cleanest beer, tastiest beer I've brewed yet.

Not that I'm bragging. (I am).

Anyway, I was doing some math the other day and it occurred to me that I didn't have to wait until my IPA was entirely gone to brew my next batch of beer. In the past I've had to wait because I only had enough gear to bottle and drink one brew at a time. But over the last few months I've been steadily collecting Grolsch swingtop bottles and I've got about 35 of them now. Score! Cheers to Uzo in downtown Taichung for setting aside a whole bunch and donating them to my brewing adventures.

The recipe:

  • 1.7kg can Coopers English Bitter 
  • 500g Coopers Light Dry Malt
  • 1 tsp Wyeast nutrient blend

For the EB I made a fresh batch of sanitizer because I'm super paranoid about sanitation and  put on some of my favorite tunes and got everything ready to go.

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Home Brew Wednesday #1: Coopers IPA

After I brewed my last batch of Coopers Wheat, I ran out of Carb drops. Two beers worth of tasty homebrew fix-ins in the fridge and no way to carbonate them. Sigh. Good thing that in June I took a three week sabbatical back to the states for my pal's wedding. Amidst chugging as much tasty microbrew as I could get my hands on and thickening my waistline on some good ol' American cuisine, I ordered eight bags of the Coopers Carbonation Drops. I figured that was enough for a couple beers and some other adventures as well.

Then, two days after I got back from the states I got all my gear out of the closet and brewed my Coopers IPA. I was feeling much more confident this time around having two other successful batches under my belt and I was excited to make a darker beer after making the Lager and the Wheat.

The recipe: 

  • 1 can Coopers IPA ME
  • 500g light dry malt
  • 300g dextrose
  • 1/2 a tablespoon (or so) of Wyeast nutrient

This time around I changed a few things and even though it was only my third beer I felt the itch to start experimenting.

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Coopers Extra Stout

 

It has been quite a while since I had a stout beer and it is most refreshing to get a good one! I'm still glowing from my discovery of Coopers at the store, a rarity in Taiwan, and I feel as if I should go buy them all up and hoard them, Gollum-style.

Anyway, the Coopers Extra Stout is a great beer. There was a great towering head when I poured it into my glass and it was nice to watch it settle out. It settled much differently than other darker beers I've had recently, such as Guiness and Old Speckled Hen, in that there was a very...beady texture to it; the other ones were more, I dunno...silty (not a bad thing by any means).

Beer this dark doesn't get into my fridge enough. The Extra Stout hits the SRM scale pretty high at 30-35+ with its tasty opaqueness. The flavor is moderately dry with deep roasty tones and a slightly bitter finish. The warmer the beer gets the stronger the flavor becomes as it was quite cold when I started drinking it.

Great stuff. I need to get some more.

Alss check out this handy little archive to read more about stouts.

 

 

Homebrew: Coopers Wheat Beer

 

It didn't take me long to drink up all of the Coopers Lager that I brewed for my first batch and the more empty bottles I had, the more I wanted to brew another beer. Of course, getting my ingredients was an ever present problem and I had no wish to kick out a ton of money and have some goodies shipped from the Coopers office in Adelaide to my house in Taichung. Luckily, Chinese New Year solved my problem.

As a side note, for those of you who aren't so familiar with Chinese culture, when the lunar year ends in January of February there is a big celebration that you can read all about here. Mostly for foreign teachers like me it means that we have a week off of work and it's the perfect time for travel.

I went to Singapore.

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My first batch of brew: Coopers Lager

After I decided that it was time to brew my first beer I felt an immense wave of excitement coupled with a sneaking anxiety. I was thrilled to finally be able to try brewing, something that I'd wanted to do for a long time, but I was also nervous that I'd botch it the first time. This, of course, is a concern that I'm sure every new brewer feels the first time, but mine had more of an edge. If I screwed up this first batch I'd have to wait a few more weeks/months until I could get more supplies for another beer. As I said before, there are no homebrew stores in Taiwan, so I wouldn't be able to run down the street  for another can of malt extract and some brewing sugar.

Nonetheless, I tried my hand at it anyway.

During my research previous to this first batch I found a fantastic youtube channel called Craigtube that had some great videos on how to brew with a Coopers kit for the first time, and other useful stuff. My thanks to Craig and his videos for giving me the step by step know-how I needed. Anyway, I pulled up one of Craig's videos I'd already watched about a dozen times and wrote out instructions for myself, leaving the video open and ready in case I wanted to review something. Which I did. A lot.

So, I sanitized the crap out of all of my equipment using Starsan and set my can of malt extract to warming. What followed was a slightly frenzied mixing of ingredients (which I will post below) and a few minutes of near panic at what I perceived to be mistakes that were going to ruin my beer. But, all in all it was great fun and before I was finished I couldn't wait to make another one.

The recipe:

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