homebrewandbeer.com

Just wanted to say hi to all down under Ive just joined this great forum. I am a newbie however I have got my 1st brew underway details in my sig.

Welcome to the forum. Hope you enjoy your visits, and find something useful in it.

I'm missing the cold brewing weather already. Bloody yanks and poms have it now.

Anyway, welcome to the forum.

Poms have it all the time

Was just thinking that they could do all year round lagers... such an bugger that lagers are consumed in the heat but require cold!

Welcome Dave - good to have some UK presence. Am quite surprised that you say that there are hardly any homebrew stores over there - I was under the impression there were a number of brands that are UK based - Muntons etc. I too was shocked about the amount of global impact aussie brands (esp Coopers) have.

I think Coopers are the biggest exporter in the world.

I didn't know that Coopers exported their home brew cans overseas. Good to see another Australian product getting out there int he global market.

Some coopers kits are great. I find though you may need to add your own hops, as they tend to lack in hops flavour a bit.
Drinking a coopers pilsener at the moment with which I added the old tea bag of Sazz hops. Turend out not bad, and the saaz hops certainly help you get a good nights sleep!

I think it is a damn shame that the Coopers kits are being exported. Coopers makes great beer, but the HB side of things is pretty ordinary. For what they charge in the overseas shops for a kit you would want it to be better than that IMHO.

Then again the Muntons kits are not much better

scanman wrote:I didn't know that Coopers exported their home brew cans overseas. Good to see another Australian product getting out there int he global market.

I believe they are one of, if not the biggest home brew suppliers in the world.

kevnlis wrote:Coopers makes great beer, but the HB side of things is pretty ordinary. For what they charge in the overseas shops for a kit you would want it to be better than that IMHO.

I disagree - what brands would you suggest offer a better general range of products, either here or overseas? Also, the yeast which we will often replace with a saf/wyeast is brilliant and taken for granted and is bought separately overseas by homebrewers like we do with saf here.

Pale_Ale wrote:

kevnlis wrote:Coopers makes great beer, but the HB side of things is pretty ordinary. For what they charge in the overseas shops for a kit you would want it to be better than that IMHO.

I disagree - what brands would you suggest offer a better general range of products, either here or overseas? Also, the yeast which we will often replace with a saf/wyeast is brilliant and taken for granted and is bought separately overseas by homebrewers like we do with saf here.

I agree to disagree, the Coopers Irish stout and the Sparkling ale are great kits.

i can vouch for the Cooper's Brewmaster Irish Stout being a good foundation for a fantastic brew. I modified one into a milk stout with lactose on top of various other things i added - malt, hops, etc - and also added 6 shots of fresh espresso to the brew when bulk priming.

i call it my milk coffee stout


oh, and i also started with a Cooper's kit.

Pale_Ale wrote:what brands would you suggest offer a better general range of products, either here or overseas?

Coopers has a great number of kits to choose. But more and more I find them very unreliable. There is too much variation in the kits for them to be used as a reliable base if for instance you wanted to repeat a recipe at a later time or pass it on to a friend. This variation may be intentional, I do not know, certainly some of the kits have improved in the flavour and aroma hops department.

Beermakers, Black Rock, Brewcraft, ESB, Morgans, etc. These are all great alternatives and IMHO better than Coopers.

Pale_Ale wrote:Also, the yeast which we will often replace with a saf/wyeast is brilliant and taken for granted and is bought separately overseas by homebrewers like we do with saf here.

I agree, Coopers yeast is great stuff, if you do not want to go the extra money for a saf or liquid.

I have tried the Brewmaster Irish Stout and found it had a strange flavour in it, I never could put my finger on it but it was there both times. I actually like ESBs Extra Special Stout as a base.

Kevnlis wrote:I think it is a damn shame that the Coopers kits are being exported. Coopers makes great beer, but the HB side of things is pretty ordinary. For what they charge in the overseas shops for a kit you would want it to be better than that IMHO.

Then again the Muntons kits are not much better

I wont say i was ever the biggest fan of coopers but i always loved the muntons line when i brewed kits and always found them to be excellent quality but i guess its just one of those things that comes down to personel taste, as far as coopers go the bavarian lager with a kilo of ldme and 20gms or so hallertau mmmwwwaahhh yum..

Sorry Leigh, I was not very clear about the Muntons thing. I was reffering to price, not the quality of the kit. The kits are good, but overpriced IMHO.