You little beaut! (Coopers)

Coopers Brewery in South Australia is making some damn good beer above and beyond thirst quenching lagers more commonly found in bars down under. Will Hawkes reports

Australian beer does not enjoy the best of reputations outside of its home country. Regarded as bland and gassy, it is has become the brunt of jokes (most of which are too rude to repeat here) even as a number of brands, most notably Foster’s in the United Kingdom, have sold enormously well.

Despite – or perhaps because of – this reputation overseas, these lagers are cherished Down Under. Aussies take great pride in deriding ‘warm’ English beer: it’s seen as somehow effete to take too much interest in the flavour of what is swilling down your throat. One advertising campaign during the recent Ashes cricket contest promised that Tooheys New Super Cold was “served so cold it’s a Pom’s worst nightmare.” Another ad showed a fat, Union Jack-T-shirted ‘Pom’ cowering on his beer stall as a glass of the aforementioned drink sat on the floor nearby.

Not all Australians, however, regard good quality ale as a detestable Pommie affectation. One brewery in particular has fought ale’s corner for almost 150 years as lager, believed to be more suited to the arid Australian climate, gradually replaced the tipple of the old country in Australian affections. That brewery is Coopers of Adelaide.

The Coopers Brewery stands in the Regency Park neighbourhood, a few miles from Adelaide’s busy city centre. It is an impressive, modern sight: completed in 2001, the Briggs of Burton-built brewhouse has allowed the company to expand production to 55 million litres of beer a year (in 1990, production s.....

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By Will Hawkes

Section : International Brewery

Page number : 28