Beer and Sport » Beer

Coopers Pale Ale

Moses — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 03:39:24 +0000

Your Shout!

As recently as 2002 Coopers Original Pale Ale was only available in NSW by the case from the bottlo. These cases generally sold around the $50 mark, which back then was a proper premium beer price and almost double the price of VB/New.

In recent times it has become widely available on tap, I’d say the majority of pubs in NSW now offer it and it’s my first choice pub beer. Cases can be picked up for $40 – $55 if you look around. I guess the higher pricepoint for such a period of time makes people think of it as a premium beer, that they now sell it at the same price as VB/New/Carlton makes it seem a bargain. I’ve always thought it a bloody good beer and have been happy to pay a little more for it.. mind you I’m not complaining!

According to Hopsy

The South Australian brewer is responsible for some of the finest beer in the country. The Original Pale Ale is naturally fermented in the ‘Burton-on-Trent’ style, then a secondary fermentation creates the trademark sediment that gives ‘Pale’ its fine cloudy appearance. This beer has no as no additives or preservatives and has a 4.5% alcohol volume. As the beer has natural sediment, the beer is best served by rolling the beer along a bench gently to mix the sediment before drinking. The sediment is quite natural and adds a bit of flavour to this delightful beer.

To translate and simplify this from my very limited knowledge (corrections and elaboration is more than welcome in the comments), Water, Hops and Sugar and mixed in a huge copper fermentation tank, then Yeast is sprinkled on top. After several weeks at room temperature primary fermentation finishes when the yeast has converted all the sugar into alcohol. We now have warm flat beer, suitable for export to the UK.
This is poured into the same bottles that will be eventually sold. A teaspoon of sugar (likely Dextrose) is then added into each bottle and the caps are crowned on. The yeast in the beer gets another feed from this new sugar, producing carbon-dioxide. With the cap on the bottle, pressure builds up and forces bubbles into the beer.

By contrast, kegged beer doesn’t require secondary fermentation, as once the beer is poured into the keg high pressure CO2 is connected for a few day until the beer is bubbly enough. I have no idea how the kegged Coopers Original Pale Ale is carbonated, but would love to find out.

Beer Island

Moses — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 03:31:42 +0000

The Beer Blokes have postured a great hypothetical – if you could have only three beers on a dessert island for the rest of your life, what would you take? Head over there and submit your answers

Day 1 at the SCG review

Moses — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 02:15:29 +0000

The meeting point was set as the Crown hotel, about 5 minutes from the SCG. After several Coopers Pale Ale’s and Tooheys Old were enjoyed as breakfast beers, the topic turned to smuggling of alcohol into the ground.

Step 1 - HipFlask on head

Step 2 - Cover with hat

Tomm went with the HipFlask on the head trick, nice how his hat covers this one up so nicely.

Filling the Barnoculars

Next up were the Barnoculars, which were filled with 16 shots of Johnny Red. Nice.

Finally I’d opted for “I’m not happy to see you, that’s actually a HipFlask of JD tucked away in my Box Jocks”, don’t worry there’s no pictures of this one. All our efforts were in vain however as security was píss-poor. We could have just stuck half bottles in the pocket and walked straight through, they made a token effort to look in the bags and that was it!

Have some Pie

Once at the ground and settled in our seats we grabbed some Beer and Pies. My wife found her pie a little hot so shared it with the two guys in front.

Dale Steyn Moping

Dale Steyn fielded right in front of us for the morning session, and never once smiled. He was impressed by the worst sledge I’ve ever heard however when a guy behind us yelled out “Hey Dale, you bowled pretty well in Melbourne”. He just replied “Thanks, I did”.

Moses with the ladies

KRudd with the ladies

Kevin Rudd was obviously watching me get in photo’s between two ladies and copied my moves. Johnny Howard was up there as well, which is probably better than him trying to bowl in the nets. Last time I saw an ex-PM at the cricket it was the reformed non-drinking Bob Hawke. It was funny how quickly he jumped off the wagon when 30,000 Aussies started chanting “Here’s to Hawkey, he’s true Blue”. Quickest skull I’ve ever seen, he can be an anchorman in my boat racing team.

Ranga McDonald

Here’s McDonald after he got SMASHED in the head so hard his helmet came off. He was generally entertaining to watch, and we started a new slow-chant when he does anything of note: “RANGA RANGA RANGA RANGA”. Comedy Gold.

This is taking far longer than I’d banked on, part 2 of the review tonight maybe…

couple of Beers

Moses — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 15:51:00 +0000

Went for beers at The Oaks tonight, two different blokes confused me for Katich. Must be the cheap wine and the three day growth.

When a third asked my name I introduced myself as Katto.

He said “Katto the cricketer?”

To which I replied, “Indeed, hope you saw some of the 1506 runs I made this year”.

Pissed bloke came back with “Is that really how many runs you made? That’s a shitload”

To which the right honourable Simon Katich/pissed Moses replied “That’s why we won the Shield.. agian. Godddammmm NSW ROCKS! Now buy me a drink Ho”

I hope any of you would have done the same. The Carlton Draught he bought me was fair compensation for my blogging during the game.

Ken, Oath.

Superb new Beer advert

Moses — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 23:33:00 +0000

You just have to check out this superb new viral marketing campaign from VB.

This is gold, sure to be the biggest thing since Carlton’s big ad.

Be sure to also check out the behind the scene’s video, turns out this was performed by the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and conducted by Cezary Skubiszewski.

All of the instruments had to be purpose built, including the VBLOPHONE (pictured).

http://www.vbsymphony.com.au/view

The Inverted Food Pyramid

Moses — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 07:53:00 +0000

This graphic was made by my mate Timbo as a tribute to the balanced diet I enjoyed while living in the UK. I highly recommend adherance to the inverted food pyramid for all sports fans trying to maintain peak couch fitness through the Rugby World Cup.

Sticking this one out is actually less work than you might imagine – I find pre-marinated Ribs from the supermarket are minimal fuss and T-Bones on the BBQ also go pretty well especially now that we’re coming into Spring.

Hoggard launches his own beer

Moses — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 01:08:00 +0000

With this blog being about Beer and Sport, there’s no way I could let this story pass through to the keeper.

It seems that Matthew Hoggard has been working with the boffins at Marston’s Brewery and they’ve come up with a new ale named after the big fella – Hoggy’s Night Wathcman Ale.

“I can recommend a pint of Nightwatchman. It’s the perfect way to unwind after a day’s play. It doesn’t get better than having a beer named after you.” – claims Hoggard, clearly having forgotten the open topped busses and knighthoods of 2005.

Potentially forseeing the danger of Boony bringing up a 52 beer challenge, Hoggy’s ‘Blonde Full-Bodied Ale’ has been brewed to the weak as piss alcohol content of 3.8%. Interestingly this is still more than the acclaimed Nightwatchman’s List A average of 3.58!

Marston’s became the official beer of the England cricket team last year and toured with the national side during the Ashes in Australia. In September last year, the brewer placed tongue-in-cheek notices in major Australian newspapers lamenting the ‘death’ of Australian cricket – before England went on to lose the series in a whitewash.

Marston’s has also signed a three-year deal to become the official supplier of beer to English test match grounds.

A hard earned thirst needs a mid-strength beer

Moses — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 05:30:00 +0000

Fosters Australia have recently decided to drop the alcohol percentage of VB from 4.9% to 4.8%, and are expecting to save $20m a year in excise tax. Additionally they are increasing the cost of their beers by 2%, no doubt forecasting massive rewards for their shareholders.

One thing the marketing bigwigs at Fosters may not have counted on however is the ill-will this will cause in VB drinkers who will no doubt see this as a blatant money grab.

Just last week I was getting some work done on my outboard motor by a mechanic in exchange for a case of beer. I asked him what he wanted, to which he replied “VB”, only for one of his workmates to say “Hey you don’t want that shit VB, the c*nts are dropping the alcohol in it”. He settled for Carlton Draught, and with just that one small business switching over VB have lost around 6 cases of beer a week.

I find it that a company who’ve spent so much on market research in the past can honestly believe that people drink VB for the taste! Seriously, this is the funniest thing I’ve heard since the Bulls smashed the Eddie Jones’ Reds 92-3 in Pretoria.

“It certainly doesn’t affect the taste, which is very important to our VB drinkers,” VB spokesman Ben Wicks said. “The taste will stay exactly the same. Our master brewers have done a lot of work to make sure of that.” Source

NEWSFLASH: VB is drunk by tradesmen and labourers for the express purpose of getting shitfaced.

By my calculations the new formula VB is 2% weaker than the iconic 4.9% edition, which in terms of alcohol intake equates to one beer in every two cases. When you also take into account the 2% price hike, it’s fair to say that Fosters are now selling a 23 beer box.

How long before they reverse this decision?