Two beers for the barbeque
How to make the most of a BBQ: have a beer in your sauce and another in your hand. Makes two. In Australia, make those two a Coopers.
Trust the Coopers family of Adelaide to jump at the opportunity to diversify its product range. Some years ago the Coopers had branched out into jams, honey, cereals and radio stations (if this correspondent remembers correctly). Well, some of these diversifications did not really live up to expectations so they were buried. But rest assured that when Beerenberg, Australia’s best-known high-end jam producer, approached Coopers with the idea to make a barbeque sauce, Coopers did not think twice.
After all, what’s more Australian than Coopers beer and barbeque sauce?
Beerenberg Coopers Ale Barbeque Sauce is the result of a unique collaboration between one of the country’s best known brewers, Coopers Brewery, and sixth generation sauce and jam producer, Beerenberg Farm.
Launching the product at the end of October, bang on time for Australia’s summer BBQ season, Coopers managing director Tim Cooper said the sauce "has a nice tangy taste with the bitterness of the ale adding to the flavour profile – but that’s my bias".
The ale constitutes 40 percent of the ingredients but the alcohol is lost in the cooking.
The sauce will be distributed nationally by Beerenberg with royalties paid to Coopers going into the Regency Park brewery’s charity foundation.
It has been a busy year for Coopers. In October they completed the construction of their 7000 square metre warehouse extension at their Regency Park brewery. The warehouse extension is the second since 2001 when Coopers moved from its old Leabrook site and gives the brewery a total of 20,000 square metres of storage.
In the 12 months to 30 June this year, Coopers sales in Australia grew by 7.4 percent. Exports grew by 35 percent. The AUD 10.5 million capital expenditure programme was part of Coopers’ overall strategy to grow its share of the Australian beer market from 3 percent to 5 percent by 2011.
