New Coopers Kit: English Bitter

[michaelcocks]

OK so 2 days in we are sitting at 1010, initial tasting from gravity reading is that it certainly has English tones - very hoppy more of a southern English bitter than northern (they tend to be more malt driven) Probably doesn't have enough crystal in for my taste to balance hop properly, but I'll give it time before I consider tweaking with some infused and 1 min boiled crystal...

At $26 odd bucks it's pretty expensive (I am including the cost of 500gm malt as per recipe...) That gets up to the cost of ESB very fine traditional English Bitter (less the yeast..I usually have stock of these so get $3 reduction...) Still if you are like me and all the HBS's are a fair distance, then picking up a can with the groceries certainly has it's appeal, and you can get it past the SWBO (Chief of finance and war...) I expect and hope that Coopers will reduce the price in line with all the other International series kits...

Cheers

Michael

After bottling and carbonating for two weeks the brew tastes great - Very, very clear - Still very much a Southern English beer (hoppier than the more malt driven Northern English beers) Might soften over time but will be a surprise to those how have only tried Boddingtons, Caffreys, Tetleys, Kilkenny, Newcastle Brown (why do we only get Norter English or Irish beers here ?) Needs more caramel backbone for my taste but overall very good alcohol deffinately low to mid. Finished at 1008 - about 3.x % a session beer. I carbonated to English style (half of Aussie lager) Good English hopd aroma.

Nice to see it is coming down in price.

Cheers

 

[DKS]

At $26 odd bucks it's pretty expensive (I am including the cost of 500gm malt as per recipe...) That gets up to the cost of ESB very fine traditional English Bitter (less the yeast..I usually have stock of these so get $3 reduction...) Still if you are like me and all the HBS's are a fair distance, then picking up a can with the groceries certainly has it's appeal, and you can get it past the SWBO (Chief of finance and war...) I expect and hope that Coopers will reduce the price in line with all the other International series kits...

Cheers

Michael
[/quote]

Crazy prices
I saw this Friday arvo at Coles Morayfeild for $10.something. The problem must be with Coles I suspect. They dont know what theyre doing.
Maybe youll get lucky at your local Coles if you like this one. Thanks for updates on brew. :icon_cheers:
Daz

 

[Stixor]

Just noticed that my local Coles is selling the English Bitter for around $13 a can now.

 

[Hutch]

Just finished fermening one of these, and very impressed with the results so far.
I must confess though that I only used the kit as a base, pepping it up with 2kg Maris Otter, and some additional aroma/flavour hops (Northdown and First Gold). I also threw WY1187 Ringwood into the mix, which I'm very impressed with (cheers MikE!).

So although I bastardised the Coopers instructions, I do have a few comments worth noting:
* The Colour is quite dark for a Southern English Bitter. I would guess around 28EBC made to the kit instructions. (Mine is certainly almost a Brown Ale in colour, made to 21Ltrs).

* Bitterness is a little on the high side IMO. 590IBU in the kit dilutes to +40IBU in the fermenter. Made to their suggestion (+ 500gm DME), gives well over 1:1 BU:GU ratio - getting a little high for an ordinary bitter. This is part of the reason I added a sizeable amount of Grain, to increase the OG up to "Special Bitter".

So, other than decreasing the IBUs and color a fraction, I recon Coopers have another great kit to add to their already decent international lineup.
...and as always, kits are best when they are fresh. At $13, and only a few months old, I reckon now's a great time to put one of these down, just in time for winter!

 

[mwd]

From another Ozzy Forum ex Coopers, Coles had the pricing wrong and the English Bitter is the same price as all the other International Beers in the Coopers Range so from my local Coles anywhere from 9.99 to 13.99 depending on the phase of the moon seems to be about right.

Nothing really to put you off giving it a go.

Edit: Already price corrected on page 2 of this thread forgot to go backwards in thread.....

Might give this one a try with a hop update/upgrade with Bramling Cross as an experiment.

 

[syd_03]

Saw this at my local cole for $20 od a few weeks back.

Saw it today for 13.76 as per price noted above.

Not sure why the introductory price was so high though.

Saying that my local HBS still sells the Coopers Australian pale ale for $18.90.

I will grab one and throw one down next week sometime. Will be adding malt and later hop additions as usual.

Who has a good recipe for me?

Has anyone got one that has been in the bottle for 4 or more weeks? If so how does it go and what did you do to it?

Cheers

 

[samhighley]

Not sure why the introductory price was so high though.

As I pointed out earlier in this thread, Coles made a mistake with the pricing.

This had nothing to do with Coopers. Coopers pointed out the mistake to Coles, and they've corrected it.

Sam

 

[Dave86]

I put one of these down on the weekend, not to instructions however as I was going for an irish red ale type of beer. Ingredients as follows;

1 Coopers English Bitter Kit
4.5kg coopers light LME
1kg Morgans choc malt masterblend (OT: apparently these will be going out of production)

Boiled up 75g of NZ styrians and goldings (total) with the choc malt can

Made up to 40L and fermented @ 18 degrees with two sachets of US-05

OG:1054, 25 IBU from the can (and a couple more from the mini-boil) and 35.4 EBC or 13.8 SRM (according to my obsessive calcs)

A bit pricey at almost 80 bucks, but it still comes out at less than $20/case

Will report back in a couple of weeks once its in the keg