Coopers Vintage Ale

Brewed by Coopers Brewery
Style: English Strong Ale
Regency Park, South Australia, Australia

(07.12.06) 12.6 oz brown bottle from Liquorama. Date label unreadable but presumably September 2005. Malty sweet aroma. Poured cloudy brown with small white head. Soft carbonation. Medium-bodied ale that starts with light malt sweetness and caramel/fruity (raisin?) flavors. finished dry with light malt fade. Some bitterness. A mild clean tasting drinkable ale.

Bottle sample at Union Beer Trade Tasting, NYC. 2004 vintage. Languid reddish-amber with no head. Nose is sweet and yeasty, with some faint staleness. Body is soft and lightly carbonated. Flavour is OK, but there’s not a lot going on, it’s just a pleasant sweetish ale. Hides the booze well, though.

Bottle. Pours a nice, thick amber with an immediate aroma of banana. Flavor is bitter banana with a bit of malt in the background. Thin but decent mouthfeel. I’ll buy another and cellar it and see what happens over time.

September 10, 2006 batch I think. Poured amber-orange with a very nice fast developing head that thinned quickly to a nice covering but didn’t do much in terms of lacing. Aroma was yeasty with some fruity esters. Flavor was caramel, toffee, fruity, cider, and unfortunately metallic with a squeeky acidic mouthfeel. If the mouthfeel weren’t so squeeky and the metallic factor weren’t there, this could have been decent.

Bottle dated 4-Oct 2002. My first impression upon pouring this brew was the large round, whitish floaties coming out in the pour. I really don’t like it when beers have this characteristic. Makes me wonder about mold, especially beers purported to have been bottled almost 4 years prior. Strong alcohol, caramelly aroma. Murky, reddish brown body, with an off-white head. Undercarbonation is the first thing I notice about this brew. Sweet; sweeter than I would expect for a brew that is only 7.5% ABV. Has a very smooth flavor, but needs a little more sharpness; more alcohol, carbonation, something. I paid $2.69 for a 12 oz bottle in the clearance table. Overpriced.

Popped this Australian brew open to drink in fond memory of Steve Irwin, The Crocodile Hunter, Born February 22, 1962, Died September 4, 2006. Pours a golden amber with quite a lot of solid matter floating around (which doesn’t bother me, but may put some people off). Moderately sized creamy off-white head leaves some lacing. ice Lots of fruit in the nose - figs and raisins, along with a touch of caramel. Flavor is of prunes and vinous at frist, but gives over to a peaty, almost scotch like flavor in the finish, which is dry and woodsy. I quite like the mouthfeel, and I think it really makes this brew. Very smoothly carbonated, and just the perfect thickness of feel to it.

Bottle vintage ’02 split with Tronraner. Pours bronze with large, solid floaties. There is a decent white head that I can stir up with little effort. The aroma is pruny with dense caramel and fresh barley. The mouthfeel is strange: it flirts wtih being syrupy, but has a fizzy layer also. The sweetness is quite appropriate, reminds me of something which might be found in a typical barley wine. There are notes of bourbon, bran, and some baking spices. Very malty and subtly spicy. Not bad.

2002 bottle. Pours orange, hazy with inevitable yeast sediment particles (there is a ton in the bottle), and small white head. The aroma is prunes, caramel, and grain. The flavor also has a lot of caramel, with some strong cracker taste. I also detect some grassy hops in there somewhere. The finish is a bit musty and something like raw grain, which lingers into the aftertaste. The mouthfeel has a bit of a sharp fizziness. Ok.