I've mentioned my eldest daughter before. She's the one who likes going into churches, paying no respect to my atheism. Now this weekend, she has started to drink coffee. Coffee is the only foodstuff I don't like, but wish I did. Until five years ago I couldn't stand cheese, but now I love the stuff - the stronger the better - but I cannot get past that coffee barrier.I'm partial though to the taste of coffee in beer. I have had beers which are brewed with coffee beans and liked them, so I would strugle with the correlation except there are coffee beers which are too much for me.
One is fresh Mikkeller Beer Geek Breakfast. This is just too rich for my palate. I've drank the beer slightly beyond it's best before date and it's really lovely; the coffee flavours and the hops working in perfect harmony, but I guess the coffee lost its intensity as the beer aged. The other one I've struggled with is bottled Meantime Coffee. This was just 100% coffee. No beer flavours at all iin the bottle I had.
Last week though I had the cask version at the Wetherspoons festival. The coffee is there of course, but it's much more mellow, and works nicely. I'm convinced this is a different recipe even if it does use the same Fairtrade Rwandan coffee beans. They must be at a lower ratio.
Other beers brewed with coffee I've liked, off the top of my head, are Dark Star Espresso Stout, Darwin Java Jolt and Founders Breakfast Stout
I'm interested in recommendations for really heavy coffee flavoured coffee beers that I might try to see if I can get over my issues. I may even start liking coffee itself one day.
7 comments:
Try Alesmith Speedway Stout, Dieu Du Ciel's Peche Mortel, or Southern Tier's Jah-Va. All are spectacular.
Peche Mortel is awesome, Alesmith is great - Jah Va - I can miss.
Having been to two of these breweries, and drunk all of them mentioned - and a big coffee head
Mikkeller, Founders, Peche Mortel, Mikkeller Lunchable, Alesmith...
Valley brewing did one, aged in a port barrel that was pretty good.
Triple Rock did a coffee imperial porter that was awesome. And, I think Iron Springs.
Coffee Oatmeal big stout is next on the brew list here.... Samples on the way Mark.
Matt, will be in town SD, from 23rd Dec. thru 8th Jan.
I'm going to be featuring coffee and chocolate beers all through this month on my blog. Tried the Dark Star and the Meantime beers yesterday and have a few bottled goodies waiting. And if anyone wants to send me Speedway Stout, you know where I live ;-)
I believe the Meantime Coffee recipe was indeed tweaked a bit not so long ago (the name changed from 'Coffee Porter' to 'Coffee Beer' at the time) so it's probable that the earlier bottled example you had was a bit rougher.
I've just had the Mikkeller Viking's Return for a second time and found that to have a wonderfully strong bitter coffee palate very much to my liking. That should definitely be on your list if you're yet to scoop it.
*Or other way round, Coffee Beer to Coffee Porter. Or maybe I'm just talking crap and they're completely different beers. The bottled version is 6% compared to the 5% cask, I've just realised.
I have been brewing a coffee porter recently (for a local coffee company as an Xmas give away). A big problem with coffee beers is that often brewers don't know much about coffee, add the coffee in ways that horribly over extract all sorts of undesirable flavours from the coffee.
One thing I have noticed with the one I have brewed is that as the beer has aged there is a fair bit of acidity from the coffee giving the beer a tart edge.
The Bottled Meantime Coffee Porter (I believe it was Coffee Porter when I tried it) was one of the best coffee beers I have tried.
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