Coopers Special Old Stout

Formerly brewed at Coopers Brewery
Style: Foreign Stout
Regency Park, South Australia, Australia

Pours a decent solid black with a limited head. Flavours and aroma are in the same basket - big chocolate malt and roasted patent malt. Very smooth- bitter finish, would be interesting if they tried ageing this in bourbon barrels.

(bottle date ’best after 09/03)’. Pours like liquid chocolate out of the bottle - very tasty. Good nose - lifted roast malts and seems quite complex. Backs up well in the mouth - more roast and chocolate - although finishes a touch too bitter for my liking. Plenty of fizz prevents any cloying. Pretty good stuff but the yellow label is a notch up again.

I cannot count how many I have tried, but this is the first beer I tried to cellar. From 1999 to now, this is an indeterminable beer. I actually had three flat samples and one that made me crook. But alas, a hybrid beer for the connoisseur. Pours an opaque near black with brownish hues. Head slowly forms and then disappears seeming to never stick around past the second mouthful. Aroma is strong and yet quite mellowing, of mocha, burnt wood, hazelnuts and molasses. Taste meets the aroma as it continues its waft through the mouth. Quite sweet, and treacly smooth it has a nice blend of dark malts giving it a mocha flavour with an espresso chaser, long mellow and syrupy. This is an elixir of a Stout, robust but contained. Beautiful for a Winter’s fireside.

Ruby-black with a fair, creamy head. Sweet toasty malt, burnt and rasiny aroma. Dry grainyness, fruity, mostly grapes, coffeeish roasted bitterness, lingering off fruit.

15 May 2004 - Ripe fruity choc malt. Clear dark brown-black appealing colour. Spiritous choc malt, warming to the back of the throat flavour. Fizzy wth a thin to medium body that could be a bit better.

Dark black colouring with an off-white/brown head. Smoky, roasted, coffee, woody, burnt malt aroma. Roasty, malty, hint of sweetness in its taste.

Choc malt aroma with black apperance and no head. Bitter burnt malt flavour with smooth palate.

2003 bottle. Thanks to Mutant for the trade. Pour is a dark black with deep maroon tinges on the side. Very little head, even with a vigorous pour. Interesting to try this without ever having the regular best extra stout. Immediate flavor is very roasty and black. Like black coffee and dry, dark baker’s chocolate. Huge amounts of black patent malt. Has an ever so slight hint of sweetness (oats, cream and bananas) which is quite pleasant. Some definite treacle, a touch of sticky tar and just tons and tons of bitterness. Not as complex as the Southwark, nor as flavorful as Lion (nowhere close). Body is medium though I didnt find that it was watery or drastically thin (certainly a lot less body than Lion Stout). A good beer though, they dont comprimise the bitterness and I like that. Aroma has black licorice, dark coffee and bitter black malt in it. Bottle conditioned, moderate carbonation.