Coopers European Lager Review

[Muddydisco]

This Comes from Archtronics Post in the Austrialian Lager Review
It's Better suited in here

European

This comes with lager yeast (not much of it) as such fermented at 13 degree's over winter. Smells like a lager and tastes like one with a slightly bitter kick after taste which is nice, very little if no yeasty aromas or taste. As a final coment holds it head better than a commercial pint I would say will post a pic in a little bit.

Mark

 

[Shanesfords]

ive got this sitting in the king keg now. i used the brew enhancer and ive dry hoped it with some challenger and target hop teabags as ive found the other coopers kits to be a bit lacking in hop taste im gonna leave it for as long as i can
ive been told six weeks ? ive not done a lager kit before :

 

[kwakamat]

Ugh. Just tried two bottles of this after its sat in them for two months (3 are recommended).

I don't know if this is how it's supposed to taste but the two I had were nutty in flavour and smell.

To add to that they have blown my head off as I woke up with an horrendous headache.

This lot will be going down the sink in a month if it smells and tastes like that still!

Don't know if anyone has had similar? I was expecting a peroni like crisp taste

 

[dave_h]

Made this a couple of years ago in OZ,

Used a brew enhancer and added some more hops (Saaz or tets i think). Definatly needs some more hops but not too much say 10-20g

Used the kit yeast, was quite good but needed 3 months.

 

[Pawlo7671]

I had this in primary for 6 weeks and has been in bottles for a month now, tried 1 the other night, it's very clean tasting with no off flavours at all and doesn't have the homebrew tang.
However...so far I'm dissaponted as it could do with a little extra hop profile to it, and tbh iv brewed good beers with normal yeast that taste better than this with less time required for conditioning etc
Hopefully it will improve over the next few months

 

[Brewing Boilerman]

Got this brew going on sept 2nd. Kept in FV for 2 weeks. Brewed with 500g light dry malt and 300g Brewing sugar. Bottled on sept 14th, so it has been conditioning for a little over a week now and i thought i would try on last night. Primed with granulated sugar. Had a very nice level of carbonation, the head lasted for a few minutes. Taste wise i thogut it was a very nice pint. Not yeasty at all to be honest considering how young it is. No off tastes, no twangs.

Hoping this is only going to get better over the coming months.

 

[ScottM]

I started this a couple of months back with a couple of changes to the recipe...

Coopers European Lager kit
500g Muntons Pre-Hopped light DME
1kg Dextrose
20L Bottled water

5L in the fridge (to aid cooling)
2L Tap water boiled with campden tablet
Sugars thrown in during the boil
Poured in the kit and gave a min to boil.
Poured into FV and topped up with water to 23L

1.046 OG
1.006 FG
Approx Alcohol 5.19%
Primed with 180g of Sugar


I bottled it on the 15th of September and opened one last night for a taste. I fear it may be over-primed as the head retention of this pint is fantastic and I got a LOT of it. Next time I'll be cutting back to 150 if the next bottle is the same (may not have been cold enough). Regardless, that was my fault.

On opening the beer there was a distinct eggy sulphur smell. It wasn't overly powerful but definitely there and obvious enough. Carrying on regardless I took a healthy swig and swished it around. The flavour was VERY clean, as said previously... a little too clean. It isn't very hoppy at all. However, this leads to a very crisp and clean tasting lager. It doesn't have the flavour profiles of peroni, stella or any other European lagers but it does make for an excellent Lager base.

I'll report back in a month when I've given another bottle a go. It's definitely a success as it's a very refreshing pint. It could do with dropping the sulphur and gaining some hop flavour, but other than that it's brilliant. Crystal clear, crisp and refreshing. I'll definitely give this one another go, just with lots more hops

 

[Antrog65]

This was my first brew since coming back into homebrewing after a gap of 20yrs. In the good old days your beer looked like beer, smelled like beer and tasted like beer, until about 5 seconds after swallowing it when a huge siren went off screaming HOMEBREW !

So i'm in the homebrew shop and can't believe how many different kits there are now and ask for a general lager.

'This one is similar to Becks' says the shopkeeper.

Never! They've taken a photo of a Becks bottle and cut it off just above where it says Becks Bier by the looks.

'How much sugar do i need?'

Apparently Tate & Lyle haven't the monopoly anymore and there's a new kid on the block called brewing sugar - and he's got a big brother called brew enhancer.

So, i bit the bullet and went for it with the brew enhancer - i didn't take an original gravity just got on with it. It bubbled its head off and was finished in about 7-8 days.
Racked it off and left it overnight then bottled it with a teaspoon of brewing sugar per pint bottle. I made a bit of a boo boo by not filling right up to the 23 litre mark thinking i could top up once fermentation had finished, but a ton of dried froth around the tub put me off doing that, i forgot when i'd racked off to top up too so I ended up with 34 bottles and a half pint that accidentally fell into my mouth - gorgeous! Ok it was flat, but definitely promising.

I noticed that the sugar seemed to fall out quite quickly so kept shaking the bottles up, anyway a week after being in a warm room they went in the cellar. . . Except one.

I opened a bottle 3 days after bottling purely to see if it the tops would come off ok with my bottle opener

Wow what a brew. Had a head that stayed, bubbles came up the glass all the way down the drink and tasted like any commercially bought lager. No old homebrew aftertaste, and strangely the sediment was pretty solid on the bottom of the bottle too so no wisps creeping up. I'm presuming this is due to the brewing sugar?

All in all an absolutely cracking 1st kit back into brewing

http://www.flickr.com/photos/27708437@N08/8120422262/

 

[ScottM]

A month? Who was I kidding lol. Just chucked 5 bottles in the fridge to 'check' later

 

[Brewing Boilerman]

A month? Who was I kidding lol. Just chucked 5 bottles in the fridge to 'check' later

So, what did you think of it?

 

[ScottM]

A month? Who was I kidding lol. Just chucked 5 bottles in the fridge to 'check' later

So, what did you think of it?

Well, it's definitely lager lol. It has a cracking body and a lovely mouthfeel. It's just seriously lacking in flavour. I'm not sure if it's because it's so young but to be honest I don't think it is.

It's very clean, very crisp but not very tasty.... and that's coming from a lager drinker lol.

Don't get me wrong, for a kit it's not bad at all. A bit more tweaking would see it being an excellent lager, the base is definitely there. Ideal for beginners as there isn't really a lot to go wrong, and with a little interference it could become a truely excellent pint.

Next time it will be 150g of sugar in the batch though, as 180 just led to too much head.

 

[dollop]

Brewed this kit twice, start dates 15th June and 24th June this year. Left to ferment fully for two weeks. Used Muntons BKE instead of sugar. Stored for over 3 months in bottles in the shed. What a wait.

On testing it had a superb head when poured and was really clear but i noticed the sediment did not stay at the bottom of the bottle even though i was careful not to disturb it. Littles clusters of sediment made their way off the bottom of the bottle too easily.

So i`m expecting a dry sharp lager and all i got was a strictly average lager. Lots of body but not what i was expecting.

For me this kit was a bit of a disappointment. Could have been the warmish weather in summer but i preferred a Black Rock Export Pilsner that i brewed in July using only brewing sugar

 

[BigDDunc]

I got me one of these yesterday (along with Coopers Mexican Cerveza lager), I'll set them both off shortly and the aim is to leave them a good few months (3 at a minimum, bust most like 5+)
I'll post back my thoughts then, and I will be able to compare them both side by side.

Note to add, these are my first ever beers, and I'll be brewing them to the instruction using brew enhancer 2, except doign it short to 20L. Anyone any idea what sort of ABV that'll give me?

 

[ScottM]

I got me one of these yesterday (along with Coopers Mexican Cerveza lager), I'll set them both off shortly and the aim is to leave them a good few months (3 at a minimum, bust most like 5+)
I'll post back my thoughts then, and I will be able to compare them both side by side.

Note to add, these are my first ever beers, and I'll be brewing them to the instruction using brew enhancer 2, except doign it short to 20L. Anyone any idea what sort of ABV that'll give me?

Should see around 5% at 20L, maybe a little less with the Cerveza :)

 

[Graham]

A month? Who was I kidding lol. Just chucked 5 bottles in the fridge to 'check' later

So, what did you think of it?

Well, it's definitely lager lol. It has a cracking body and a lovely mouthfeel. It's just seriously lacking in flavour. I'm not sure if it's because it's so young but to be honest I don't think it is.

It's very clean, very crisp but not very tasty.... and that's coming from a lager drinker lol.

Don't get me wrong, for a kit it's not bad at all. A bit more tweaking would see it being an excellent lager, the base is definitely there. Ideal for beginners as there isn't really a lot to go wrong, and with a little interference it could become a truely excellent pint.

Next time it will be 150g of sugar in the batch though, as 180 just led to too much head.

I agree with this. I brewed this with 1kg of Coopers Brew Enhancer 2. It is an excellent, refreshing lager, just a bit light on flavour. That said better than most of the **** you can get in the supermarkets or even the pubs where I live. I was actually quite pleased with the results especially as I fermented at 21 degrees C and I Know now this should be fermented at a lower temp. I primed each 500ml bottle with a sugar cube (tate and lyle).

I would do this one again.

Edit to add: On leaving this for longer in the bottle (the label says leave 3 months) I noticed the flavour improve a bit. Also dont serve it to cold. My first few bottles came out the garage on frosty nights and you could hardly taste them. The later bottles I drank were during a mild spell in January (after the three months had elapsed) they had a decent malty flavour with just the right amount of bitterness.

 

[BigDDunc]

Surprise, surprise, this one got tested a little bit earlier then expected :mrgreen: Albeit not by myself (that may change this afternoon). Two friends tried some last night, and their comments were "this is really great, tastes just like a European style lager" and they likened it to a San Miguel. They also said it could easily replace any mass produced beer (like San Miguel etc) at a party and no-one would know the difference. Very high praise, and if I confirm the same thing when I test it then I'll be purchasing another kit immediately.

 

[BigDDunc]

More of a critical review as I tried one myself.

Smell:
The nose is great, has a smell just as any mass-market premium lager would. No complaints there.

Carbonation and Head Retention:
Carbonation levels were OK with 6g sugar per 500ml bottle. I will test in the future, but I suspect my ideal level would at say 8g. The head retention was again on par with mass market lagers.

Taste:
The taste was initially perfect, however I thought it was a touch on the hoppy side with the finish. A bit too hoppy to make you think "Ah-ha, mass-market beer", which is essentially what this kit is trying to do. Now there maybe 2 reasons for this, firstly, it's still young, and this could calm down with a month or so in the bottle. Secondly (and more likely) is the fact I brewed this kit to the letter (with the Brew Enhancer 2) except I did it short to 20L not 23L. I'll test again in a month or so and update, but I suspect it was my fault and present thinking is I would definitely buy this kit again, except brew it to the full 23L.

 

[BigDDunc]

I feel I must add an update after sharing about 15 or so bottles of this with my mates last night. Despite it only being 2 weeks since I last tried it, the extra hoppyness which I thought was a problem before has long gone meaning it wasn't because I brewed it short, it just needed more time to mature.

I'll definitely be doing this kit again, and also brewing it short.

 

[mattrickl06]

I couldnt agree more - i tried this around 4 weeks after bottling and it smelled HB, tasted HB and looked HB.

Now around 8 weeks after bottling the taste is lovely, very much like a stella or similar, the home brew taste has gone and it is clear as a whistle - also the head retention is just right

 

[Brewing Boilerman]

I just put this on again. First brew was 500g light dry malt and 300 g brewing sugar. This brew i have gone with 1kg light dry malt and 300 g brewing sugar.