Coopers Brewery Tour: Lisa lifts a glass in the Adelaide City region of South Australia
'We are now engaged in the Brewery business....' So wrote Thomas Cooper to his brother in England, after establishing a brewing business in the new colony of South Australia way back in 1862. Almost a century and a half later, Coopers Brewery is now a multi-million dollar operation exporting beer all over the world. Tours of the brewery begin in the Coopers Museum.
Frank Akers, Coopers Brewery: "This is a great place to start the tour. We talk about the history of the brewery which began with Thomas Cooper putting his first brew of Sparkling Ale down in 1862 and growing the business and passing it onto his sons and the Cooper family continuing the tradition on right up to the present day."
The museum charts the history of this iconic family business - from its humble beginnings at Norwood in 1862 and it's expansion to Leabrook - where it operated for 120 years and became a big part of the local community.
Frank Akers: "The story is that he made it as a tonic for his wife who was ill at the time. And apparently made a little bit too much and had to share it with his neighbours and it grew from there."
It's amazing what you learn in places like this. You know the saying rule of thumb? Well, it's suggested it comes from the early brewers using their thumb to test the temperature of their fermenting ales.
Frank Akers: "This is one of the old jarrah fermenters. We were using these up until the early 1980s when we went to stainless steel for ale fermentation. It gives you a great perspective on how huge it is really. Yes, well the modern ones are much larger of course but back in the 1980s we were still doing it this way."
It's all a lot different now of course. In 2001 Coopers moved to the purpose built state of the art brewery at Regency Park which combines modern techniques with Coopers' long held brewing traditions.
There might be a lot of stainless steel and technology but the raw ingredients are the same as those Thomas Cooper used all those years ago - water, malted grain and hops. When they're carefully mixed in the right proportions and heated - a natural reaction follows. After being stirred like a giant tub of porridge in the Mash Tun, the wurt is filtered and sent across the brew house to the kettle.
The huge swirling head of beer in the kettle make an intriguing sight as the wurt is boiled at 104 degrees and hops are added to give the beer the right level of bitterness. Next, it's piped outside to the giant fermenting tanks where the sugars are converted into alcohol. Ales are left to ferment for about 4 or 5 days while lagers can take as long as a week.
Frank Akers: "The tanks hold about 170,000 litres and the top one third of that tank is empty space to accommodate the big foamy head that ale produces in the first 24 to 48 hours."
Then it's off to the bottling plant where the production line fills, caps, labels and packages each brew. The capacity of the Packaging Hall is enormous. The bottle filler is capable of filling 12000 bottles per minute - that's about 20 per second. And if you were to line up, side by side all of the bottles that Coopers fill per year they would stretch more than 7,000 kilometres.
The brewery tour ends with the obligatory taste test of course. And it's also the perfect opportunity to solve one of the beer drinkers' biggest dilemmas - should you turn or roll Coopers Original Pale Ale. So, what's the answer Frank?" "Well Lisa, after much late night research it's been determined that the best way to enjoy a pale ale is to gently roll it - cloudy but fine."
Frank conducts brewery tours on Tuesdays to Fridays. You need to be over 18 of course and the cost of $20 per person goes to the Coopers Brewery Foundation, which supports various charities. Bookings are essential.
Coopers Brewery Tours
461 South Road
Regency Park
Bookings Ph 8440 1800Published 19th July 2009
