industry alcoholic beverage founded 1862 founder thomas cooper headquarters adelaide australia products beer homebrew owner the cooper family website http www.coopers.com.au coopers pale ale coopers brewery limited the largest australian owned brewery 1 is based in the adelaide suburb of regency park . coopers is known for making a variety of beers the most famous of which are its pale ale and sparkling ale . the brewery sold 69.7 million litres of beer in the 2013 financial year . 2 it is also the world s largest producer of homebrewing equipment . its shares are primarily owned by the extended cooper family and the company s constitution and classes of shares makes it difficult to sell shares outside the family . contents 1 history 1.1 1862 norwood 1.2 1881 leabrook 1.3 1897 partnership 1.4 1923 incorporation 1.5 changes of the 1960s 1.5.1 1962 sa brewing share swap 1.5.2 1968 gold crown lager 1.6 1970 profitability 1.7 1987 125th anniversary 1.8 1993 1995 lion nathan takeover of sa brewing and coopers reclamation of family ownership 1.9 2001 regency park 1.10 2005 lion nathan takeover bid 1.10.1 liquidity of shares 1.11 2011 largest australian owned brewery 1.12 2012 150th anniversary 2 beers 2.1 pale ale 2.2 distribution 3 the cooper family 3.1 thomas cooper 3.2 tim cooper 3.3 glenn cooper 3.4 family trivia 4 company structure 4.1 cooper & sons 1862 1897 4.2 thos cooper & sons partnership 1897 1923 4.3 cooper & sons ltd 1923 1988 4.3.1 directors 4.4 coopers brewery ltd since 1988 4.4.1 directors 5 see also 6 references 6.1 notes 6.2 bibliography 7 external links history edit 1862 norwood edit the brewery was established by thomas cooper in 1862 at his home in the adelaide suburb of norwood . he brewed his first recorded batch on 13 may 1862 . 1881 leabrook edit in 1881 the brewery relocated to larger commercial facilities at leabrook . 1897 partnership edit thomas died in 1897 . in his will after bequests to his wife daughters and youngest sons he left all his property to his four eldest surviving sons john christopher samuel and stanley under instructions to carry on my business as brewers under the form of thomas cooper & sons as partners . 3 1923 incorporation edit each time one of the partners retired or died a new partnership agreement needed to be drawn up . this became unwieldy so in 1923 the partners decided to incorporate with limited liability . an agreement was drawn up where the capital of the company was declared as 39 000 and 39 000 1 shares were distributed . 15 953 of the shares were designated as class a and 15 953 as class b . directors were to be appointed equally by holders of a and b shares . 4 changes of the 1960s edit the company went through the doldrums during the recession of the late 1880s a boom time in the 1920s the doldrums during the great depression and mixed fortunes through world war ii and the 1950s . by the 1960s the brewery was still producing much the same products as in the 1880s but the brewing environment and consumer demand had changed . 1962 sa brewing share swap edit there had been much consolidation of breweries in south australia since coopers was established and the south australian brewing company and coopers & sons were the only breweries remaining in adelaide . as both were attractive takeover targets in 1962 after 100 years of cooper family sole ownership the two companies decided to do a mutually beneficial share swap in order to reduce the risk of takeover . the traditional south australian market leader had been the south australian brewing company . the share swap gave sa brewing a 25 % interest in coopers c and d class shares and coopers received 291 404 sa brewing shares 2.65 % . the coopers board of directors was increased from four to five with sa brewing s d shares having the right to elect the fifth director . 5 after consulting the sa brewing board and receiving their support coopers sold their sa brewing shares in 1984 at a substantial profit . sa brewing continued to hold their 25 % interest in coopers . 6 1968 gold crown lager edit in the early 1960s demand for coopers ales was flat had been for years in the past and looked like it would be for years into the future . the company strongly considered adding a lager to their range . the older members of the board were highly resistant to such change and as this would be in competition with sa brewing the new board member was also resistant . it was not until 1967 that the board voted to go ahead with the new plant with the sa brewing representative not voting . after 105 years of only brewing ale and stout gold crown coopers first lager was available for sale in 1968 . 1970 profitability edit in 1970 the retail price of a bottle of coopers ale was 41 cents 7 11.82 cents 28.8 % was brewery costs 19.55 cents 47.7 % was excise and taxes 8.75 cents 21.34 % went to the retailer 0.88 cents 2.16 % was the brewery profit . 1987 125th anniversary edit to celebrate the 125th anniversary the board commissioned adelaide historian alison painter 8 9 wife of john painter an engineer employed by coopers in 1968 to oversee the upgrading of the brewery plant and the reduction in plant maintenance costs 10 to write jolly good ale and old the history of the coopers brewery 1862 1987 . 11 1993 1995 lion nathan takeover of sa brewing and coopers reclamation of family ownership edit sa brewing holdings subsequently diversified into manufacturing and wine and then refocused to form southcorp southcorp wines and sa brewing . sa brewing was acquired by trans tasman lion nathan in 1993 . after two years of negotiations in 1995 family members purchased all of the d class shares with their right to elect a director and some of the c class shares and coopers brewery ltd purchased the remainder of the c class shares . 12 thus sa brewing had a seat on the cooper s board of directors from 1962 to 1995 but in 1995 the cooper family once again became sole owners of the company . 11 2001 regency park edit in 2001 the brewery relocated to much larger premises at regency park . 13 since 2003 the regency park brewery has used a gas turbine based cogeneration plant to supply steam and electric power requirements . fired with natural gas with a thermal efficiency of 80 % the 6.2 million plant produces power with a 90 % reduction in greenhouse gas emissions compared to a separate electricity generation and steam production plant . the plant is operated by agl energy and is rated at 4.4 mw . generation above the brewery s electrical load of 1.2 mw is fed back into the grid . 14 2005 lion nathan takeover bid edit in late 2005 lion nathan made an unsolicited takeover bid for coopers which was strongly opposed by the board and by the cooper family . it was ultimately rejected at an extraordinary general meeting when the holders of 93.4 % of the shares voted in favour of permanently removing the 3rd tier purchasing rights of lion nathan effectively preventing any current or future takeover bid . 15 16 17 18 liquidity of shares edit due to various restrictions imposed by the company s constitution the selling of coopers shares is a tedious and complicated exercise . the constitution restricts and defines who can buy shares . shares may not be owned by competitors there are tiers of rights to buy shares and the constitution also imposes other terms and conditions . a further complication is that although all shares have the same voting rights on the floor of a general meeting the four classes of shares have different rights to nominate directors . the process of selling involves several steps a seller declares to the board that they wish to sell x shares of class y the first tier rights of purchase are to existing shareholders . if there are no first tier buyers the second tier rights of purchase are to the coopers employees superannuation fund . from 1962 to 1995 the third tier rights of purchase were to sa brewing . from 1995 to 2005 the third tier rights of purchase were to lion nathan . at an extraordinary general meeting in 2005 the third tier rights were removed from the constitution . the price of the shares is determined by an independent valuation . i.e. not by negotiation between seller and buyer . a significant issue of the takeover bid was that the offer was five times the last price determined by an independent valuation . as a result of the lion nathan saga the company has improved the liquidity of shares by offering regular buy backs . prior to the takeover offer there were 117 shareholders of 1 353 358 shares . by the end of 2010 the number of shares on issue had reduced by about 20 % to 1.15 million held by 129 shareholders . 19 2011 largest australian owned brewery edit with lion nathan wholly owned by kirin brewing company since 2009 and fosters owned by sabmiller since 2011 coopers is the only wholly australian owned major brewery . 1 2012 150th anniversary edit coopers released a limited edition celebration ale to celebrate the 150th anniversary as well as celebratory labels on their other beers . beers edit brewhouse at regency park coopers beers are widely available on tap in south australia victoria and new south wales and in some bars in the rest of australia as speciality beers . they are widely available in bottles and to a lesser extent cans around australia and new zealand and occasionally at specialist importers in other countries . the distribution of the beers outside of south australia has been largely promoted since 2003 by the subsidiary premium beverages pty ltd. coopers bottled beers are characterised by their secondary fermentation technique some yeast remains in the bottle after bottling thus the bottled beer contains some sediment . there are three schools of thought with regard to the sediment some drinkers like to mix the sediment throughout the beer by tipping or rolling the beer before drinking while others prefer to decant the beer into a glass leaving most of the sediment at the base of the bottle . coopers have made such choice a strong element in their marketing strategy . some find that mixing the sediment results in a shaken beer and prefer not to mix the sediment at all simply opening the bottle and drinking . the action of drinking from the bottle serves to distribute the sediment anyway without shaking one s beer up . coopers also produce a large range of homebrew kits . among these are english bitter dark ale real ale and lager as well as several others . coopers homebrew kits provide the starting place for many new homebrewers across the world and are a highly successful brand . coopers beers 20 beer abv available label colour details tap bottle can sparkling ale 5.8 % y y red an english style golden ale . it has a distinctive cloudy appearance due to the sediment being left in the bottle . the sparkling ale has a slightly different flavour and higher alcoholic content than the pale ale . pale ale 4.5 % y y green a pale ale . best extra stout 6.3 % y y yellow a stout . dark ale 4.5 % y y brown a dark ale which in other parts of the world is called a brown ale . mild ale 3.5 % y y y orange a midstrength ale .