I like Coopers. I like their beer and I like the company. I respect the fact that when they say they have stayed true to their traditions, it’s not just a well-crafted-but-largely-fictional back story to their brand. They make ales, good ales, and it has been a struggle for their business to do so as tastes and fashions have changed. The only reason they have been able to pursue the course that they have is by being a family company. True, they make a ‘premium’ lager and it’s pretty good within the class in which it sits…but being the tallest pygmy in the tribe doesn’t make you a giant. So I am eagerly awaiting the chance to taste their new Coopers 62 Pilsner, soft launched yesterday at the Balaklava Cup in South Australia.
It’s a pilsener-style beer and seems to fill the gap temporarily occupied by Grolsch in the Premium Beverages lineup (Premium Beverages is Coopers’ distribution business which also distributes Budweiser – the InBev-Anheuser Busch one, not Budvar. For a brief period in late 2007 to early 2008 Premium Beverages also distributed Grolsch. This agreement lapsed in May 2008 after Grolsch was bought by SABMiller. SABMiller purchased NSW-based Bluetongue at around the same time.)
Coopers 1862 is set for a major launch in Sydney in the next week or so, followed by a national roll-out. Press release below (I include these seperately as a lot of media releases cross my desk and I can’t stand to see it when they are published almost in their entirety uncredited – which happens all too often. See how often you see these words crop up over the next few weeks…PR Bingo).
Coopers 62 Pilsner
The Cooper Family introduces the perfectly individual pilsner
September 2009, Sydney: The Coopers Brewery has introduced the latest generation into their family of beers. Renowned for brewing award-winning ales and stouts since 1862, the Cooper Family has created Coopers 62, a full-flavour Pilsner made with the same uncompromising passion they are renowned for.
Glenn Cooper, Chairman and Marketing Director of Coopers, said “The launch of Coopers 62 Pilsner is an extremely exciting project and it’s our first step into this category. Coopers 62 Pilsner has been painstakingly perfected and tested, and offers Australians the option of drinking a home grown yet world class pilsner.”
Coopers 62 is the perfectly individual pilsner for the beer drinker who knows who they are and what quality tastes like. It is targeted towards a discerning and self-assured individual, who enjoys a quality premium domestic or imported lager.
Based on a classic Bohemian-style Pilsner, Coopers 62 has a straw-to-golden colour and dense, rich foam. Hopped, using a combination of traditional Saaz and Hersbrucker varieties, it has a medium-bodied palate and is generously fermented to produce a well-attenuated lager.
The hop flavours of Coopers 62 are perfectly balanced by an all-malt recipe of Australian-grown malted barley to finish with a residual sweetness, typical of this style of beer. The end result is a crisp, full-flavoured taste with a smooth, satisfying finish, brewed just for you.
great sessioning beer and a good move for summer.
I could only find it at Liquorland last week in Melbourne which I thought was an interesting choice of store for their soft launch roll out.
Thanks Mat…I’m surprised it was available there too, I understood the launch wasn’t for a week of more.
Had a taste a week or two back and the result was – Meh. Well made and inoffensive but there are so many decent to good pils/pale lagers out there that I very much doubt that I would ever purchase it. The packaging looks like a try hard kronenburg rip off as well – a disapointing angle (imo) for Coopers.
Have to agree Ian. I tried it yesterday and was pretty underwhelmed. That said, I tried it on the radio show again last night and it met with very strong approval from the host and producer. Now, neither of them professes to be a certified beer judge, or even a connoisseur – but if they’re reflective of the greater beer market it stands to do pretty well.
I also wonder, in my own case at least, whether the esteem in which I hold Coopers caused me to judge this not-too-bad beer more harshly because I hold them to a higher standard? I had hoped that Coopers would deliver something more distinctive – what they have come up with is something perhaps best described as prosaic. Is that a bad thing?
But will they ever buy it amongst the sea of similar beers …. I doubt it. Ask them in a month or two and I will be shocked if they have ever even come close to purchasing a bottle.
Nothing wrong with simple beers, but simple with distinction can work too.
I tried it, actually hated it! Found it very bad, difficult to drink.
BTW: I like every kind of beer, from stout through to pales / lagers / pilseners / belgian. I’m not sure what made me think it was so bad.
Have to agree – fromone of the staunchest Coopers advocates Iwas a tad underwhelmed. Doesnt come close to Squires or even little creatures for mine. To say I was disappointed is an understatement – Though i was able to console myself with a bottle of the green labelled brew of the gods!
This beer is not a pilsner and is very bland. It reflects the cold filtered beers that have become popular with the teenage set. I can barely taste hops and I can barely taste malt. Must cost a fraction of what it takes to make the Coopers Ales, but I suppose that is the idea.