What Was Your Very First Brew?

[~MikE]

coopers lager kit, with dextrose and can yeast. this is when i started with my brother. he liked it, i was far from satisfied.

 

[The Big Burper]

Anyone remember Viking Ale?

Done in a plastic garbage bin.

Bewwdddiiifull :huh:

 

[jojai]

last Christmas, internet ordered a coopers kit with coopers lager (my gf got it for me, don't really know why... cheap beer probably). Fermented it at 25C and had a "she'll be right" attitude, it was horrible, cidery and sour. Quickly got sick of being unimpressed with kit quality, found this website, moved onto AG (although a very basic set up, my beer is better, not perfect, but certainly better than kits). A not so long journey Think it's time for a drink.

 

[opposition]

Coopers lager, must've been so hot it went through airlock at a rate of knots!!!

The good guys at coopers sent me a pale ale kit as reimbursement. Came out splendid!

Now got 7/8ths of my all grain equipment!

And yes, i too am addicted!

Dean

 

[Barry]

Coopers real ale K&K back in the early 1980's. Brewing mate went to Queensland, 4 kids under 6 years old. great red wine for $5 a cask (red wine glut) and fairly ordinary homebrew caused me to stop in the mid 1980's. Started again in Jan 1997. First was a very Coopers lager with the kilo of sugar and a very nice 30oC+ fermentation nearly stopped me for the second time but the second, which was a Coopers bitter, was drinkable. So here I am.

 

[Black Dog Brewery]

I was 18 yo and had just moved in to my first place and couldnt afford to buy beer and pay rent. On the eve of being evicted I decided that maybe I should pay the rent and hence my pursuit of brewing began. It is too long ago to remember (25 yrs) the brand it was but I bought a kit and can of goo and headed for the sugar aisle of the supermarket. Needless to say it was crap and not too many brews later I found a cheaper place. Over the last 25 years I have stopped and started brewing many times but what I would say is that in my experience it wasnt a great first brew that kept me brewing more the fun of trying to get it right. I really have only enjoyed my brews since I discovered hops, liquid yeast and bulk malt extract.

Cheers BDB

 

[mikem108]

2003- Can of ESB wheat beer and a brewing starter kit from what was ESB in Randwick. Fermented in the bathroom with the yeast from under the lid, came out drinkable.

 

[Steve]

Brigalow Lager brewed in the laundry airing cupboard next to the hot water tank, sat on a heater pad with a jumper over the fermenter and a beany over the lid and airlock! :lol: I cant remember what it was like....im sure it would have been a tad fruity!
Cheers
Steve

 

[Maple]

My first was a Thomas Coopers IPA Kit with 1kg of DME and 20g of Fuggles hops, followed closely by my venture into steeping grains for another 5 batches, into partials for a few months, and finally into the AG scene. made the transitions as funds allowed, every step getting better results than the last. Hobby turned obsession is how the missus sees it.

 

[andrewg1978]

My First Brew............... I thought i had suppressed this memory



I was at Uni about 10 years ago - my house mates and I thought it would be good to do a home brew.

Motivation - Tight arse (as students we thought we could save a few bucks)
Ingredients - Cheapest possible (I wonder where we went wrong!)
- Coopers draught I think it was with 1kg white sugar.

Method - Brewed in an esky with a towel inside the lid to seal. This was brewed in the middle of summer up to 40deg temp in a back room - possibley in direct sunlight.
Outcome - Came out absolutely shit house! 3 in 4 were like vinigar. the 1 in 4 was not much better

It wasn't until I caught up with one of my old house mates a couple of years ago and tasted some great pale that I realised how good micro brews could be. Since then have given the bottles away and only use kegs - have not looked back

 

[Cortez The Killer]

Here are my notes from that fateful first brew B)

You'll probably note that I hadn't yet developed some of the finer points of my brewing technique at that point...

======

1. Coopers Lager

Started 01.10.05 Bottled 07.10.05

1 can Coopers Lager
1kg Coopers Brewing Sugar

Brewing Notes: Followed instructions per Coopers Starter Kit.

Tasting Notes: After two weeks in the bottles beer is still yeasty and tastes a little bit like cider. After a month in bottles was a very easy drinking beer.

======

 

[the_fuzz]

Malt Shovel Lager

Brewed in the middle of summer - I had no idea about temp control - didn't taste to bad, obviously couldn't have been that bad anyway as I kept going.

 

[Benniee]

Probably around 11 years ago I guess...

Coopers Draught + 1kg white sugar. Fermented using the kit yeast, but surprisingly done at around 18 to 20 degrees (which was the stable temperature under the house all year round). Drinkable, but very much like "homebrew".

The brew didn't last long at all as my mates came round and got stuck in - which is good, I have always brewed to share with friends.

I can still remember "improving" my beers by switching to dextrose

Good thread - I've enjoyed reading it and remembering where I started from.

Benniee

 

[pjwhite5]

My first was a Morgans blue mountain lager with a hallautau hop bag, that I got with the startup kit from "The Brew Shop" Bill the owner in 2006 gave me some great information to get me started and the beer turned out fantastic, I drank the last bottle only about 3 months ago, I don't know how I left it so long and it was still a great drop.
I have been brewing K&K's, extracts and partials and only 2 weeks age brewed my first AG via the BIAB method.

I have to say why would you want any other hobby

Cede

 

[PostModern]

I brewed a Coopers lager kit back in 88 or 89. We used to use the kit plus a kilo of sugar and ferment on top of the hot water service to "keep it warm enough". Man... couple of dodgy batches, a couple of bottle bombs and I gave it up for more than 10 years. When I got back into brewing in the 21st century, first brew was a Morgans Pub Series Old ale with 500g LDME and 500g DDME. Under primed it, but it was a great beer.

 

[petesbrew]

First one was either the Draught or the Lager, supplied with the Brewing Sugar in the coopers kit, bought for my birthday.

By my standards now it probably tasted crap, but at the time it was beautiful. I made it myself, and enjoyed every bottle.

 

[reviled]

My first brew came about after reading an ad in the paper for brewcraft, that in combination with our first baby on the way and lack of funds approaching, I thought brewing was the way to go...

Got me a brewcraft starter kit which consisted of Brewcraft Munich Lager and #60 German Lager kit converter, didnt boil it or anything, just mixed it into the fermenter and I was away smiling B)

It tasted pretty yeasty, wasnt my favourite, but the wierd thing was, after only a week to two weeks in the bottle it tasted really good, then after two weeks it was horrible all the way up untill 12 weeks untill it started to taste good again...

 

[greg_549]

I was seventeen and still livin with the parents, my old man has always had an awesome setup with 6 or 7 kegs and two fridges with taps on front, connected with gas bottles. Anyways the wise old boy thought he would teach me the fine art of homebrewing so away i trotted and bought a coopers pale kit and a packet of white sugar. Into the back shed father proceeded to screw up the ingredients by throwing in the entire two kilo's of sugar i'd bought. Only rrealised this after he thought it was strange for it to be bubbling very angrily for about a fortnight and saw the packet on the bench. He is a standard coopers lager and coopers draught in a keg guy, has been for 10+years despite my best efforts.

Anyways, beer turned out incredible, is prob in my top 2-3 after fifteen plus brews. Very very strong and still sweet, always paranoid about the bottle exploding in your face though.

 

[Thommo]

Conned Mum into buying me a Home Brew starter kit after my last exam in the HSC (1994.) No idea what brand the kit was...maybe Wander? Bought the kit from the home brew store in Drummoyne, before it became part of TCB.

Then a year or two later Shawn opened TCB in Thornleigh, near where I lived, and the obsession took off from there. Before you knew it I was adding hops to everything. my favourite way back then was Pride of Ringwood!!! :lol:

EDIT: Fat fingers, small keyboard.

 

[wakkatoo]

Hard to remember but it was more than likely a coopers lager or stout and was definately done with a kilo of table sugar. It was either one of those cos that's what dad brewed back in the 80's. All I remember is that they tasted like crap and in hindsight it was because of the sugar and my level of sanitisation was nowhere near what it is now. As a result of the beer being so bad, I shelved the homebrew kit for a couple of years and came back to it when I found out about kegging. Did a bit more research, bought a keg system and my first kegged brew was Coopers lager with a kilo of brew enhancer - was a hell of a lot better than previous efforts and I was hooked!

Had to buy my hb supplies from coles / big w as the local HBS consisted of one shelf at the back of a pet shop :blink:
When I moved to Cairns and found the local HBS there, I was in love , suddenly I could experiment!!