Coopers Extra Strong Vintage ale 2011

Coopers.... How good is Coopers.....  We have, in the past reviewed a few of these and this is one of the best vintages I have tried as a young beer.

As usual the head is off white, has big bubbles and disappears pretty quickly. This leads to a smooth rich, lean mouth feel. Normally I find the coopers vintage to have a strong vegemite bitterness when young, this beer is different, its softer.

There are hints of apricot and caramel which are so smooth that it feels like this beer could be a couple of years old already and almost no bitterness, it tastes developed and there is more than average sediment for a young beer.

As I drink it I am reminded that the alc volume is 7.5%, not because of overpowering fruit flavour, but because I am feeling a bit pissed and I have only had about half the beer (how fantastic to realise I have the other half to go...).

This is exceptional. All the flavours are so subtle, it is just so easy to drink.

Graham, if your out there, could you put a box of this vintage aside so we can try it in a few years? If I try that it will only last the rest of the week.

Dan

Deus - Brut des Flanders

Cuvee Prestige 2006
750ml
$55
France/Belgium

I had this on Saturday night with a few friends and it really split the room. Quite a unique style of beer, made in Belgium in the top fermenting style then taken to France (the Flanders region) to be aged on yeast lees like a champagne. The notes on the bottle don't say how long it spends ageing in their cellars but by the taste I would suspect it was at least 12 months.

On the nose it offers a really heady sweet orange and scents of hay. The yeasty bready notes are really dominant and ou get almost wheaty cardamom smell.
Really fine bubble and if you pour it too quickly it gets a really mean head on it. The palate offers much the same with an almost sour back palate like a Belian gueuze beer.

Not my favourite beer in the world but well worth a try and probably better when matched with food. I'd like to try another vintage to see whether like wine they are vintage varient.

Graham

Coopers Vintage 2004-2008 ( A Retrospective)

Recently Dan & I got together and tasted our way through four vintages of Coopers Vintage. Oh and what a night it was, discussions were had, points were made and whole lot of shit was spoken.

The following are tasting notes we made through the night and we take no responsibility for the mess our notes ended up in by the end of the night. Bearing in mind that the older the ale the stronger the alcohol.

The night was started with......

2008 Coopers Extra Strong Vintage Ale

Beautifully disguised alcohol, champagne, ruby, tobacco, light yeast and vegemite, great muddy colour, marmalade and cumquat

2007 Coopers Extra Strong Vintage Ale

Richer than the '08, slightly more fizz (ie the bubbles seemed bigger), caramel and licorice, not nearly as impressive as the rest of the beers

2006 Coopers Extra Strong Vintage Ale

Getting a lot of residue and shit in the bottom, it's now occurred to us that we have no idea how long yeast can live, more apricot and sweet fruit than the '07, Dan think's it's a link

between the older the beer the more it tends to taste like a really good Trappist beer.

2004 Coopers Extra Strong Vintage Ale

Dirty brown, caramel and burnt apricot, really flat, no carbonation left, which really detracts from the flavour

So summing up, I (graham) really liked the first 3 beers but my clear favourite was the 2006 for all of the balance and rich flavour it offered.

Dan - the thing I enjoyed the most from this experience was understanding the way flavours change in beer as it ages, I think beers made in this bottle conditioned style are exciting to experience through a tasting where you get to see young and old side by side, and the best thing for me was the ability to see the change from a light black ale into a rich stewed apricot festival of a beer.

Cheers

Coopers Extra Strong Vintage Ale

Vintage - 2008

alc/vol - 7.5%

price - $4.65 single/ $90 carton

I've been absolutely hanging out for this to be released so I could review it. Every year (almost) Coopers release the Extra Strong Vintage Ale, I have vintages going back to 2004 and I will review them all over the next few weeks to give you an idea what they look like with a few years age.

Based on the fantastic Chimay Grande Reserve (blue), the vintage ale has a secondary bottle fermentation, which means the beer gets stronger and more complex with age.

A fantastic golden brown colour with very little head when poured. A nice spicy fruit cake nose, with chocolate and mocha notes.

A fine bead when you first taste it, like the Eisenbahn beers the 7.5% alcohol doesn't seem apparent. I would really like to know what they have done differently to the last few vintages, this has a strange steeliness on the front palate, following through with more mocha and slight bitter finish. I can almost see a bit of asparagus green edge (which funnily enough I don't mind)

As always I'll be buying a carton to put in the cellar, but somehow I don't see this as being the best vintage I've tried of this beer. As I said before I'll pull a few bottles of old vintages out of the cellar and write a few reviews over the next couple of weeks.

Graham