#3 - Coopers IPA [Kit]

While getting into brewing I was simultaneously getting into craft beer. In fact it was during a few drinks in one of  my favourite pubs, Mulligans, where I decided to start brewing. Previous to this my only real taste of anything out of the ordinary was an occasional Erdinger, Paulaner or Hoegaarden.  I enjoyed these beers immensely of course but regarded them as a treat rather than something I would drink frequently. I was hoping to achieve an Erdinger-type taste with brew #2 and it was fine flavour-wise...Yet by the time it came to drinking it I had already been frequently drinking a massive range of hoppy beers while it was conditioning. I felt it tasted very bland (which I now unfortunately think of Erdinger now too) after experiencing the roller-coaster of flavour from the craft beers.

Getting to the point.... this was why I decided to brew an IPA which at the time and still is now, my favourite type of beer. Given that I was getting a bit snobby with my tastes I didn't want to settle for the "standard" coopers ale yeast and went for an apparently fancier 'Safale US-05'. I chose to use 1kg of dry malt extract which wasn't a bad decision but I feel that a future brew using 1.5kg of liquid malt extract would make a better brew with a higher alcohol content.

This is an image of the beer after 2 weeks in bottles. I was blown away by the taste and head retention after such a short period of time. This brew was one of the best kits of I made and one of the few I would make again repeatedly for a delicious session beer. I found that the hop flavour definitely faded over time. The last remaining bottles after a period of about 4/5 months seemed very lightly hopped when compared to the original taste I remember from the first month.

Stats:

Started - 13.5.11
Racked - NA
Finished - 16.5.11
Bottled - 16.5.11
Code - 1003
Yeast Brand - Safale US-05
Yeast Code - 022013IWB
Y-Temp - 24.5
Beer/Product Type -  Coopers Selection IPA
Malt/Sugar Type - Spraymalt Light 1kg
Volume -  24.0
OG - 1042
FG - 1016
Proof  - 4% (Including 0.5% for priming)