Aaron - Reviews
Coopers European Lager | September 11th 2017 | |
Coopers Green neck lager recipeI made this to 21 litres 1 x European Lager kit, 800 g Brew enhancer # 1, 500 g LDME, 1 x Carapils grain pack , 1 x Mangrove Jacks M 84 yeast fermented at 11-12 C. I really love the way this one has turned out at just 20 days test. Great light bitterness and crisp dry finish. Could add hops but I'd rather save them for my Pale Ales and IPA's. Excelent hot day summer drinking light tasting beer. Will definitely do again as it gets warmer. well worth giving a go!
|
||
Family Secret Amber Ale | August 27th 2017 | |
Family Secret Amber AleWhat a nice beer, put down with kit yeast, 1kg of Brigalow extra malt, 1 Brigalow Galaxy Finishing Hops all bought from Big W on special, brewed for 3 weeks in the tub then bottled, Wow, after 2 weeks it was ok but 6 weeks later double wow, this is really a good beer, when your mates come around and you pour them a beer and non of them pick it as a homebrew and even say thats a nice beer what is it, you know your onto a winner, i have another bubbling away as we speak. would recommend this brew for anyone who just wants a beer that tastes and smells like a beer. |
||
Bootmaker Pale Ale | August 11th 2017 | |
awesome Pale AleIt's quite unfair to rate this beer as its only been in the bottle for 2 weeks but I needed to see how it was going. I made this one to 19L with 1x KG LDM, 1x 250 g Carapils grain pack and 13 g Amarillo hops boiled for 10 mins. I ditched the kit yeast and added Safale US-05 instead as suggested by brew shop staff. Brewed at constant 20C. This one turned out a little less bitter than expected but great body and nice crisp finish. Lovely citrusy grapefruit, toffee, pine after taste. Well balanced and already a real pleasure to drink. Definitely be doing this one again and perhaps pimp up with some more hops but I think it's probably close to exactly how I like it now. After a month I'll get a better idea what to do for the next one. Definately recommend. |
||
Mangrove Jack's Czech Pilsner | August 4th 2017 | |
Really good PilsnerSteeped 100g of Carapils for 30 minutes, dissolved 1kg of pilsner enhancer then the tin of MJ CZ Pilsner and 100g or maltodextrin. Into fermenter to 24L and Saflager 34/70 yeast. Fermented for 3 weeks at 13 degrees. 4 weeks in bottle before sampling, the beer is nice and crisp with a dry finish. Nice nice and malty, with a lingering bitterness. Some quite fruity notes too. I am no beer expert, but this tastes better than any commercial Pilsner I've brought recently. Will definitely make this one again. |
||
Coopers Australian Pale Ale | August 4th 2017 | |
Better than expectedAfter making a few fancy brews I decided to make this one as cheaply as possible. 1.7kg tin of Coopers Aussie Pale Ale + 1kg of dextrose to 23.5l with kit yeast. Fermented at 22 degrees for 7 days then bottled. I was not expecting much, but after 3 weeks in the bottle I opened one. I was pleasantly susprised, it is very drinkable with no "twang" like I expected. As it gets old it jut gets better. Will definitely make it again. |
||
Coopers European Lager | August 4th 2017 | |
Awesome!!! New Favourite!I made this with a 1kg Mangrove Jacks Lager enhancer and Saflager 34/70 yeast. Fermented at 13 degrees for 3 weeks. 3 weeks in bottle before first sampling. It was very good even at only 3 weeks. I let it sit for a few more weeks before trying another and it was incredible. Move over Heineken!!! Highly reccomended. |
||
Black Rock Whispering Wheat | May 17th 2017 | |
Even drinking this green is pretty good! Lol. 10 days in bottles and it is starting to taste pretty good.So, I decided to try my first Black Rock kit and I liked the sound of Whispering Wheat. Fruity overtones etc. etc. sounded like a nice beer to kick off the summer. Well, despite the fact that it came with an underwhelming amount of yeast (who puts 5 grams for a 1.7 kg kit?, even Coopers puts 7grams.) I am pretty impressed with this brew. I added some extra Cooper's ale yeast I had to this to bring it up to about 10 grams of yeast and the result is a fairly smooth, very fizzy and quenching brew, but not overpowering either. Better than some other weak kits I have brewed in the "summer" category. I started with some Mr. Beer kits and was not overly impressed with them. The American Light Ale it comes with is a joke. Weak and metallic and just not really great. The second I brewed was the Aztec Mexican Cerveza from Mr. Beer and it was decent (as good as Corona) but still fairly weak. Then I found out that most of these lighter beers in cans are not that great sometimes. So I have since graduated to bigger brewing amounts, but I still employ the Mr. Beer Fermenter cause I like it and I still am liking the can kits (haven't graduated to brewing from scratch, yet) The next was a Cooper's IPA, which is a great brew and then I decided to try something non Cooper's and went with Black Rock Whispering Wheat and started using spray malt sugar instead of white (cane) table sugar. I used the "proper" malt for this, a medium wheat spray malt and I am rather impressed with the results. It has bite, but not too much and even though it is still a bit green, it is starting to get really smooth and has a "fairly" pleasant taste. Certainly not offensive in any way. One might even say it's bland, as some have said, but I think differently. It's not bland, but it does lack something. The only extra thing I added, was about a quarter to a third cup of real 100% Canadian, grade A Maple Syrup. I am kind of liking this beer actually as far as smoothness, light flavour and heavy head and carbonation. Very thirst quenching. It has enough kick for a lighter and more "summery" type beer, but maintains that nice light flavour. Is it bland on the wheat flavour? Yes, but it is still rather pleasent. Is it a bad beer? No. I've brewed MUCH worse beers, like that Mr Beer American Light Ale. Lol. |
||
Coopers India Pale Ale (IPA) | May 17th 2017 | |
One of Coopers best selling kits, according to the local brew place and it is a great IPA really.This was the fourth kit I brewed and still one of the best in my opinion. I had some o.k. ones before it, but weak and some good ones after, but this was one of the kits I liked most so far. I never used a spray malt DME with it (just straight white table sugar) and it still turned out good. It's powerful if you over sugar it, lol. I got pretty wasted on only a few of them and that was before I got a hydrometer, so I suspect I brewed a very strong beer cause I was a bit over generous with the sugar and I bought an extra yeast packet to add a few extra grams of Cooper's ale yeast to it. The result was a nice tasting beer, with a serious kick in the teeth for ABV. I was not expecting that. Overall, it was a nice kit and I would definitely brew it again, "properly", just to see what it is like when you don't spaz on it. Hehehe. This is a great beginner brew, because it is kind of hard to screw up. I thought for sure it was going to be horrible, with what I did to it, (a bit extreme) but it still turned out good. Cooper's yeast is very hardy (I pitched it a bit too warm) and it ate up all the sugar and turned out a strong regardless, but not an offensive tasting brew that sat well in the stomach, surprisingly, even when drunk, lol. Even a friend really liked it too, so it can't be that bad. Certainly, a very drinkable brew, even if you think you screwed it up. Like they say, as long as you sanitise and not pitch yeast at a really improper temp. it is hard to screw up beer really. Especially kits. |