Appreciation: Cooper's Sparkling Ale

So I figure I might do some 'appreciations' of beers that I drink if it occurs to me to do so.  Tonight, SWMBO has gone for dinner with 'the girls' leaving me at her place with nobody to play with.  I walked her down to the restaurant and called into Oddbins on the way to pick up something to drink.  They had a reasonable selection including this Antipodean offering that I fancied trying because there is a kit version avilable.  So here goes:

As I kind of expected, this isn't really an 'ale' as we in Britain would think of it.  To me, it's much more like a Wheat Beer, which I think of as a lager.  That said, it is nice.  It is pretty fizzy, which is what hits you first, followed by a reasonably high level of bitterness.  The mouthfeel is somewhat thin, but this is made up for by the pretty large aromas coming through the nose.

As you can see, I'm not very good at writing about beer, I'm better at drinking it.  But maybe I'll get better...

Barrelling Linthwaite Light

So, true to my word, I came home and checked the Gravity of this and found it was at 1.012 like yesterday.  Because I didn't think I'd be able to do anything with it later in the week and am heading to Paris for a week after that I figured I should go for it and whack it in the barrel.  I may regret this choice as when I got down to the bottom of the FV, I noticed a few bubbles still going, which suggests that the yeast was still a little active...Oh well...

So here's how it all went down:

I santised the barrel in question (the syphon tube, thermometre and other gubbins are in there too)

While that was going on, I set up the 'area' and boiled ~80g of Brewer's sugar in 200ml of water and left it to cool.

Moved the FV to the table.

Opened it up and had a look.  The bubbles up top should've told me not to do it really, but I'm tired and impatient...

Temperature probe and the aquariam heater.

Barrel done with sanitising and all rinsed out, we're ready to go.

Little suck on the end of the hose and we're in business.

Arty shot of the barrel filling up.

When it's all full up, it goes back to the trusty boiler room to do some secondary fermenting.







And I get a treat for a job well done:

This is the Coopers Stout I wrote about the other day, and it is lovely (this picture does not do it justice...)

Cheers!

Cooper's Stout

So I had the first couple of pints of this last night and I must say it is brilliant. I made the kit up with Medium Spraymalt (dry malt extract) and reduced the brewlength to 20l (most kits are 23l as standard). Reducing the length tends to give the brew more body, and this is certainly the case for this beer.

I'd describe the taste as a little more malty than Guinness, but a similar level of hop flavour and bitterness. I overprimed the barrel a little (not deliberately) which means it's quite lively out of the tap. To poor a pint you have to open the tap very very slightly and let it trickle out slowly until the last bit when ou can open the tap up more to get a good head on the top. This is the first of my brews that retains its head for a substantial amount of time, but I don't really care about the sort of thing much.

The only taste problems are that the overpriming has left it a little more carbonated than I would like and there is still a slight 'chemically' after taste to it. For the next brew, I'll try treating the water with a campden tablet to get rid of any nasty chloramines. There is also a hint of a fruity aftertaste (banana?) which I've read can be caused by fermenting too hot, so I'll watch that in the future.

Photo to follow...