Ale specialist, Coopers, recently extended its push into the lager market with the introduction of Thomas Cooper’s Selection Artisan Reserve.
The new beer joins two other full-strength lagers in the company’s product list – Premium Lager and 62 Pilsner.
Artisan Reserve, however, promises to differentiate itself from mainstream Australian lagers – and in doing so appears more consistent with Cooper’s quirky image, built on its cloudy, bottle-conditioned ales.
The new brew weighs in at a higher than normal 5.5 per cent alcohol and is brewed entirely from malted barley – without the addition of sugar or other fermentable adjuncts.
Tim Cooper says the beer’s strong malt flavour, with its residual sweetness, and high alcohol content call for significant, balancing hops bitterness.
The beer is also unpasteurised, in keeping, says Cooper, with the company’s bottle-conditioned ales.
The proof of the lager, however, will be in the tasting. Hopefully, I’ll have a bottle in time for next week’s reviews.
Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2014
First published 5 February 2014 in the Canberra Times