AH, COOPERS!
We lived in a cottage in Petrie Terrace, Brisbane. A very old primitive suburb with poo lanes at the back of every house. What’s a poo lane? Well, the dunnies backed onto the poo lane, which gave access to the cart and the dunny-men to empty your ‘earth-closet’. A whole book probably has been written about dunnies.
Our dunny was still there, if dilapidated, combined with the remains of a laundry and copper, which still worked. The tiny weatherboard structure, baked by the sun of a hundred summers, was fragile tinder, due for demolition.
It became my brewery.
Long study of ancient recipes from many books, and a love of beer, and a most discerning taste, critical of almost every Australian commercial product, gave me an epitome to aim for.
It rarely happened.
Huge hundred-weight-and-a-quarter sacks of malted, cracked barley arrived for me at Roma St Station from South Australia. A difficult purchase; most maltings were tied to breweries. Malted barley is very light, hence the enormous size of the sacks.
The story of my brewery would take a book, but that is not THIS story.
My beer was first class. I was the most popular bloke in the street. I never had more friends available for testing the product. But I was dissatisfied. My beer tasted like Coopers. We loved Coopers, but it was my intention to reproduce some of the delicious beers of English childhood, before the awful decay set in and destroyed all the neighbourhood breweries. The times moved on, and I never achieved my aim, and Petrie Terrace was abandoned for another of many, many moves.
So most respected Coopers was neglected until this very day.
In the local bottle shop I stared, nostalgic, at a frige (no ‘d’ in refrigerator) containing Coopers long-necks; 750ml. (Oh how I miss pints and quarts) Daydreaming and reminiscing of former times, I bought two Coopers Brewery Sparkling Ales, big bottles, slightly more than two of those piddly ones in a six-pack.
Back home with Lucy, I wondered with some excitement how they would taste.
Lovely, absolutely lovely.
Thirty-plus years searching for the perfect brew had blinkered me from seeing the treasure under my nose. My brewery days are over; son Bart is now producing some excellent beer, but I will search no longer. If they don’t sell Coopers, I’ll save myself all that disappointing expence and tasting.
My first years in Australia, like my youth in England, saw the demise of all the small breweries. Except for the Coopers family in South Australia: still going strong, and exporting all over the world. I regret the foible of neglect for so long, but now I’m re-convertd. It’s very good stuff; no need to look any further.