Fear not dear reader, the above picture is not of a headless little person whom I keep under my stairs. It’s just a plain old plastic fermenter dressed up in a flannelette pyjama top. Don’t try and tell me that you haven’t seen one before.

Okay, so maybe you haven’t seen one before. The top is a little trick I learned to ensure the beer brewing inside doesn’t fall victim to exposure to light. I discovered it after a brief stint where the fermenter was stuck in the garage. The fermenting beer started to smell a bit rubbery and, after a bit of thinking, I realised it was getting exposed to light – every single time the garage door was opened, a light came on. And so the pyjama top came out and the rubbery smell went away.

Anyway, in this fermenter was a recipe for a clone of this year’s divine Coopers Extra Vintage Ale. From none other than Coopers themselves. It’s an extract with specialty grain and the recipe had me doing something I’d never done with grain before. Rather than doing the steeping on the stove at a certain temperature for an hour, they had me put it in a bowl lined with a new cleaning cloth, cover it with water and stick it in the fridge overnight.

Seemed to go okay – except for the bit where it overflowed and left a puddle of grain water at the bottom of the fridge. The wife was most unhappy about that.

It took a while to come up with a name for this beer. Usually I come up with the name during the creation stage or, at the worst, during the making of the wort. But this time I was still struggling when bottling the beer but I needed a name to write on the bottle caps. Seems I’d run out of time, and so the beer was named Time’s Up. Also, I think the concept of “time” fits in well with a clone of a beer designed to be aged for a while.

Curiously, the alcohol content was lower than expected. It was supposed to end up about 7 per cent but I’ve got a beer just under 5 per cent. Seems to be a theme with my beers, getting them past the 5 per cent mark is a bit tricky.

The hydro samples have tasted okay, but not with the depth of fruitiness that made me so love the 2013 vintage. It’s been a bit over a week in the bottle, which means it’s time for me to crack one open and try it. Yeah, I know I’m supposed to leave it for two weeks but I can’t wait that long to see how a home brew has turned out.

So how has it turned out? Not too bad I have to say. Sure it’s not as good as the real deal, which is to be expected when you make a beer with extract, but it’s still tasty. And after the disappointment that was Snake Plissken, my lolly snake beer, I’m glad the next beer I made was drinkable.

It’s not as fruity in the aroma or flavour as the real deal, but the tropical fruit notes you expect from Citra and Centennial are there. As is the lingering but not overwhelming bitterness. There’s a thick maltiness there too, which is not too bad at al. Also, I’d have to say it tastes a bit stronger than a beer that’s around five per cent.

In homebrew terms my marker of quality is “would I pour a glass of it for a guest?”. I’d definitely do that with Time’s Up.