Happy 150th Coopers Brewery – cheers to Australia’s largest brewer

According to the Coopers Brewery website, it is 150 years to the day that Thomas Cooper unleashed the first batch of his eponymous beer on the South Australian public. 150 years later, Coopers Brewery has grown to become Australia’s largest brewer – yet has not compromised in any way (well, almost) on that journey. Coopers have survived and indeed prospered as a family owned company, whilst so many others have either disappeared or been taken over by multi-nationals. They started 7 years before Tooheys, 16 years before Castlemaine Perkins and more than 20 years before Fosters and now stand alone amongst those pioneers as brewers of note and steadfastly (South) Australian. Congratulations Coopers – and here’s hoping for another 150 years. I simply cannot think of anything better that has come out of South Australia – including the Chappell brothers.

Coopers Beers have featured often on the pages of Back of the Ferry and on Back of the Ferry’s @untappd account. After much consideration, this correspondent is prepared to declare that Coopers Pale Ale is his go-to-beer. Coopers Pale Ale was also the subject of one of oompaloompa’s better reviews. It used to be Tooheys Old, but since I looked up Cyril Dickthorpe’s calorie and carb counter and saw that a Tooheys Old is like drinking a loaf of bread compared to the Pale (which remarkably only has 6.2g of carbs per stubbie) – it’s Pale Ale for me. The majority of Coopers Beers have a cloudy appearance, which I’ve always found comforting and re-assuring. The bottle advises this is a deliberate consequence that leaves a natural residue of yeast during maturation. Some novices are put off by the cloudiness and sediment that appears when their beer is rolled – I just reckon that it looks natural.

I’ve always been a big fan of today’s beer – Coopers Dark Ale – and am surprised that it hasn’t graced these pages previously. I think I was hoping to get to Adelaide Airport and try it at the Coopers Lounge, which is the singluarly best thing about the Adelaide Airport. pommy_ch and I used to make a point of being very early for our flights when departing Adelaide – to get a good look at the merchandise and enjoy some fresh on-tap Coopers. This is a fine Dark Ale – nice dry finish, with good coffee notes. Love the colour as well – there aren’t many cloudy browns out there. Coopers have also announced that there’ll be a special celebration ale that chief brewer and 5th generation Cooper, Dr Tim Cooper, has knocked up. We’ll give that one the full beerporn treatment – as soon as we can get our hands on it.