Coopers Dark Ale

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Total Reviews 26  
Average Rating
3.65 stars - based on 26 reviews
Description

ORIGINALS

 
Homebrew For Beginners eBook | The Ultimate Home Brewers Recipe Book, 641 Home Brew Recipes
January 15th 2020
3/5 stars
#2012

An old time favourite

Coopers dark ale is a bit of a tradition here. Probably the kit I have most experimented with because, while it is on the budget end of the range, it offer the most of what I like in a base for a vintage ale or winter dark ale. The base recipe results in a beer with moderate bitterness and complexity of flavour, very much of Tooheys Old style but lacking a little body and maltiness, hence the 3 star rating. Get creative and this can be improved, particularly with the right yeast and adjuncts, but some aging is also critical as the flavours take some maturation to develop. I used a custom yeast blend based on champagne yeast, with lme and yeast nutrient, aged for 6-9 months to get some serious ester complexity and stunning bubble streamers. But this is going too far to affect the rating on the basic kit. You can afford to play with it though.
May 18th 2014
2/5 stars
#1804

Lacklustre

I made up this kit using Safale S04 Ale yeast, and added 500g malt extract in addition to the usual 1kg dextrose.  The result after two months' bottle conditioning was a very ordinary ale.  After three months in the bottle, this beer is a little better, but I won't be making this one again.  It has not lived up to its promise (in my mind) of a rich, tasty, fortifying dark ale with substance to it.  This kit may be of use in place of a brewing sugar in a stout brew, but as the base of a dark ale kit it does not stand for itself.
November 29th 2011
4/5 stars
#1696

Tasty Dark Ale

Made this kit up with the Coopers Brew Enhancer 2, steeped 280g Crystal malt and 90g Roasted barley. Made up to 23 litres and fermented with the kit yeast at 20C. The resulting beer is a very deep ruby colour, almost black. Smells are mostly chocolate and treacle. It tastes great, goes down very easy, even in summer due to it being not too heavy. Certainly a very nice and simple dark ale.
November 9th 2011
4/5 stars
#1682

Decent Dark Ale.

Brewed this Ale with 250 grams of chocolate malts and 1kg of dark DME. Added 2 tbl spoons of cinnamon, 1 tbl spoons of nutmeg at the 50 min boil and 200 grams of tattenang hops at the 30 min boil. Added kit when boil was completed. Fermented at 21 degrees. 10 days in primary and 10 days in secondary. Pretty decent ale. Seems to have the generic Coopers hop bittering flavor that we are not use to here in North America. Beer still came out rich and well carbonated sitting 3 weeks in the bottles. Better once matured for 2 months.
November 9th 2011
4/5 stars
#1683

Decent Dark Ale.

Brewed this Ale with 250 grams of chocolate malts and 1kg of dark DME. Added 2 tbl spoons of cinnamon, 1 tbl spoons of nutmeg at the 50 min boil and 200 grams of tattenang hops at the 30 min boil. Added kit when boil was completed. Fermented at 21 degrees. 10 days in primary and 10 days in secondary. Pretty decent ale. Seems to have the generic Coopers hop bittering flavor that we are not use to here in North America. Beer still came out rich and well carbonated sitting 3 weeks in the bottles. Better once matured for 2 months.
May 13th 2011
4/5 stars
#1512

Coopers Dark Ale

 Its been about 4 years since I last did this brew because I didn't think it tasted like a good Aussie Old. I then read a recipie for an 80' Ale using dark brown sugar. I used 400gms of dbs, 500gms of ldm and half a box of coopers be2. I also steeped 20gms of centenial hops with the ldm for 10 mins. The sugar in this brew gives it an almost port like flavour which is very enjoyable. Its the first time Ive brewed this beer and realy liked it.
November 2nd 2010
4/5 stars
#1247

I like my beer like my women

Being a rookie brewer--I've only made hard cider--I thought this turned out pretty tasty. I followed all directions, although used Safale US-05 Ale Yeast instead of the kit's yeast. Also used no sugar, instead twice the amount of malt (1 kg sugar = 2 kg extra malt). Made a very flavorful dark ale--my first batch in the cornelius keg.
October 24th 2010
4/5 stars
#1237

Part of a Toucan

Brewed with the Coopers Original LAger that comes with the kit. Fermented 14g of Goldings hops, some boiled cocoa and star anise, and 1/2 a vanilla bean steeped in 30mL vodka. Used US04 yeast at 18degC for 4 weeks. Awesome brew, excellent head retention, nice carb, dark red/brown colour. Very good body, nice balance. Definitely recommend
May 29th 2010
5/5 stars
#1168

Delicious Winter-drinking ale

Ingreds: 1 * Coopers Dark Ale Kit, 1 kg Brewcraft Dark Malt Brew Improver, 250g Light Dry Malt Extract (only because I had some left-over), 140g Corn Syrup (was meant to be 100g), 1 * 15g Fuggles Hops Teabag, 2 * 7g Coopers Brewing Yeast (1 came with the kit, another I had left over) Details: OG: 1.055 @ 28 degC, FG: 1.014 @ 20 degC (before bottling), so about 5.7% alcohol (6.2% after being primed) This is probably the best beer I've ever made. It's delicious. I am so proud to share it with friends! Sensational! I bought this kit on special for $4 at Coles. I probably wouldn't have made it had it been full price. Now that I have, I wish I'd bought more of them!!! Rating 4.5 stars.
May 12th 2010
4/5 stars
#1162

Dark eyed Red Head

Brewed with 1.5kg brown sugar and bottled using rough tablespoon of brown sugar to prime. after 6 weeks in the bottle it is starnge. Good, addicting, but strange all the same. Its like the pretty red head girl in the corner of a party, you know there is something wrong with her but you just have to have her. After each sip there is a sweet caramel flavour left on the lips which is other-worldly. Would reccomend giving it a go with all this brown sugar. Rather potent too, 3 crate bottles and you the king of the bar.
November 15th 2009
5/5 stars
#1062

Extra body

I used Coopers dark ale brewed it down to 20 Litres and added 1.5 Kg of Beer enhancer. Primary for 7 days Secondry for 7 days Then primed with two level teaspoons of dark spray malt. The beer came out a rich dark colour and a smooth mouthiness full of dark chocolate with a hint of burntness. Absolutely delicious.
October 28th 2009
1/5 stars
#1050

NASTY

Being my very first home brew, after 3 months I will not serve this to anyone. Actually, I dumped what I had left yesterday. I followed the directions, no boil, kit yeast, 1 KG table sugar. It tasted like a yeasty mud puddle and barely passed as beer. I am a very careful sanitiser, and there was no sourness. Would not try this again, just given the wierd flavours that were pronounced.
March 3rd 2009
3/5 stars
#944

Used the kit with 1kg liquid malt extract (from the supermarket - not brewer's LME) and the kit yeast. Also, only did 20L instead of 23L, in an attempt to get a tastier brew. Quite drinkable, but has a bit of a "burnt" aftertaste. Doesn't seem to have very good head retention, but I'm not too worried about that with this style of beer.
December 22nd 2006
5/5 stars
#613

Tooheys old, but better

Made this up with Brew Enhancer 2, 250g choc malt and 20g Goldings steeped for 10 min. Turned out fantastic. Like a Tooheys Old or Carlton Black, but with more character. Very pleased with it. I've used it in a toucan stout before, and it's great!
December 3rd 2006
3/5 stars
#598

My second kit, as well

Newbie brewer so followed kit directions & used regular household sugar. OG was 1.035 (uncorrected at about 25°C) & ended roughly one week later at 1.004. Bottled and conditioned for a week and found little head retention but with nice copper colour. Tasted a bit shallow but must admit I was a bit careless at bottling (mixed priming sugar too aggressively and also caused froth during bottle filling - bad idea). The kit seems to have forgiven me and I am enjoying them, nonetheless. Will try this kit again and use as basis for experimentation. Not sure why, but two of these and I become Rip Van Winkle.
October 20th 2006
4/5 stars
#567

Nice beer. rates 3.5 but could be a 4 with all malt
May 23rd 2006
4/5 stars
#510

add your own flavour

Like all Coopers kits this produces good beer on it's own, but to get superb beer you need to add some extra zing. I added a good dose of Halletau hops and used plenty of the Morgans Specialty Liquid Malts. I also doubled the yeast rate. Brewed around 20 deg C. Resulted in a very tasty beer indeed.
December 8th 2005
4/5 stars
#398

Great Base for experimenting

I've used this a few times now and had success each time. This kit lends itself well to experimenting with body and hops. I've always added hops late or dry. Try mixing Dark ale kit and Stout Kit together. Luurvly
December 7th 2005
2/5 stars
#396

My 10th brew

This was an experiment. I bought 2 tins of Dark for $5 each and thought I would make the brew with both tins. I added a bag of Brew enhancer 2 and used some lager yeast from other kits (Brewed in winter) I should have used more malt...early on it had an overpowering bitterness..which is slowly mellowing over time. Closer to a stout.
October 11th 2005
4/5 stars
#340

Very Nice

was hoping for a tooheys old-style. used just the kit and an ultrabrew, which is 500g ldme, 250 dex, 250 maltodextrin. Came out quite nice, though slightly lighter in colour, and didnt quite have the slightly burnt flavour of tooheys old. both probably because of the light malt added. will do again.
April 17th 2005
3/5 stars
#242

A RATHER "LIGHT" DARK ALE

nice dark chocolate color and not bad head. brewed with 500g dark and 500gm light dried malt. added 1 teabag golding hops. 2 sachets of the coopers yeast. however really lacks much flavour and body and quite a light tasting beer for a dark ale.grumpys superior brown ale looks the same but far better in body and flavour.
February 16th 2005
5/5 stars
#196

English Brown Mild - Dark Ale with a difference

Chocolate with a hint of roasted grains at the end - low alcohol in the style of the English Milds. Recipe came from oz.craftbrewer.org after some ironing out of details on aussiehomebrewer.com - thanks to all. 1/2 tin of Coopers Dark Ale 1.5 kg tin of Morgans dark unhopped liquid 50g black malted barley steeped 300g morgans dark in 2l water - add 15g goldings hops boil 5 mins. Cool slightly add grains. Top to 22 litres. OG 1.035 Safale yeast. 18-20c. Very dark, ok head, lovely beer.
January 27th 2005
4/5 stars
#153

nice

brew this occasionally and have never been dissapointed. Seems closer to a Newcastle brown ale than a Hunter Old when done K&K. Reccomend to lovers of dark ales and stouts.
January 16th 2005
4/5 stars
#118

A good kit

As a base kit it's fine. With the standard yeast I recommend adding malt only as the kit yeast tastes dry. Have also made this using Wyeast 1056 with 750g liquid malt and 500g dextrose which produced a good dry dark ale. My favourite was a bit of an accident. Added 1.25kg Dark malt and brewed with recultured Coopers ale yeast. It's closer to a stout, but it is smooth as silk with wonderful roasted malt characteristics at 6 months and getting better all the time. Surprising scope with this kit.
January 11th 2005
3/5 stars
#63

My second brew too!

Recently found a few old ones from 2003, and still good. Very much what you'd expect from a dark ale, although in hindsight tastes a little shallow from only using 1kg dextrose with the kit. Done with a body brew or dark malt this would be a great brew.
January 10th 2005
3/5 stars
#24

My second brew

I was hoping for something closer to Tooheys Old with this one. I used 500gm of Light Dry Malt and Brew Enhancer 1. I actually got the idea to use these ingredients from the Coopers website (on a recipe for Real Ale) so I didn't really know how it would turn out. Low alcohol (3.8%) excellent head, a little bit sweet and lacking in bitterness. Maybe should have added some Dark Malt for a bit of a burnt flavor. But it still tastes alright and will be even better by the time Winter rolls around!!!
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