Coopers Vintage Ale

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

Same as Caesar and Noize. Aroma of caramel malts, fruits and some bread. Cloudy, brown coloured with a thin, brown, lasting head. Taste is sweet, caramel malty combined with bread and fruit. Well bodied. Decent brew.

Bottled, 2004 version. Cloudy brown color, short off-white head. Aroma of caramel malt, bit aged, some wood, bit fruity. Taste of malt, some bread, bit bitter. Bit creamy mouthfeel. Decent beer.

Had the 2004 edition. Fruity, apple?, sweet aroma. Full taste, a bit bitterness and (wal)nutt. Nice. Had the 2008 edition during my holiday in Australia april/may 2009. Red colored brew. Sweet, honey, malty aroma. Flavor is citric, malty, chocolate bitterness, honay, sticky palate, strong, alcoholic.

06-Jun-06 (375 ml bottle: $2.99 at Holiday Wine Cellar in Escondido, CA) 2004 bottling While this is better than the 2002 bottling, it’s not exactly knocking my socks off. The 2002 bottling seemed very far past its prime, but this one isn’t as bad. Still, I’m definitely thinking the advice on the label to age this beer is just marketing hype. It tastes quite fruity and moderately sweet initially, but in the finish, the beer is bready and cardboardy to me. Medium-full bodied, but seems to thin a bit toward the finish. Carbonation is light but sufficient. Acidic, dark orange fruits in the nose, but also plenty of that cardboard smell too. About the same burnt orange color as the 2002 bottling, but the particles are much finer and don’t really settle out, rather, they hang in the beer for the entire session. Small, almost filmy "head" dissipates fully. When the next bottling shows up in stores here, I’ll buy and rate one immediately. I’m hoping it tastes better fresh because this was only mildly enjoyable.

06-Jun-06 (375 ml bottle) Batch: 04-Oct-02 What the hell is living in the bottom of this bottle? Some nebulous creature like in a 1950’s sci-fi horror flick occupies about an inch of the bottom of the bottle, and I’m scared to open the bottle and let this thing out into the world. Grab the kids and run for your lives because I’m opening it anyway. Pouring the beer into my pint glass, it’s a burnt orange, very hazy, with very large chunks of shit gradually settling to the bottom of the glass. Except that the carbonation keeps some of the chunks circulating up through the center of the beer and back down along the edge, like some other-world lava lamp. Small, creamy, off-white head shows excellent retention. But enough about what this beer looks like, I drink beer because of the taste, and unfortunately, this beer is not very pleasant. It smells like wet cardboard, wood, and some other unpleasant aromas that I can’t begin to identify. More wood and cardboard in the flavor. Oh forget it, this beer is so far past prime, there’s no point in reviewing it further. Suffices to say, disregard the suggestion to age this beer, this is awful.

12 oz bottle, via ross. Pours a slightly murky dark amber with a small head that faded to a thin covering. Some sediment in bottle. Very fruity and yeasty aroma with caramel and toffee malt. I’m also getting a little candi sugar as well, similar to some Belgian Stong Ales. Flavor is lots of dark fruits with figs, dates, and a little raisin. Alot of yeast on the semi-dry finish. Rather complex for what I was expecting. Mouthfeel is medium bodied with active carbonation yielding a creamy texture. I’m rather surprised by this one, if I didn’t know better I would have guessed that this was Belgian in origin. A certainly interesting beer.

2002 bottle. Mostly alcohol for aroma some malt notes. Dark amber body with head that disipated quick. Flavor was little harsh at first with some alcohol bite but finished with some caramel and alcohol subsiding. Finish was good but didn’t start out well.
Sample of 2005. Had good fruit almost zesty aroma. Hazy orange body with white head. Fruity hop flavor with some honey. Refreshing on the palate.

Bottled (Vintage 2004): Orange coloured. Dusty. Off white small head. Sweet and fruity aroma. Light vineous notes. Flavour is sweet and caramelly. Is a bit dry. Has some pruny notes. Is quite pleasant and easy to drink.

Darker and more flavourful than the regular coopers but still holding down that sparkling taste in the mouth. Lots of caramel maltiness and dark fruit flavours.