Thursday, January 8, 2009

Coffee in Beer

I can honestly say I haven't had many coffee beers, only three that I can think of. Kona Pipeline Porter, Redhook Double Black, and a homebrewed AG batch which was the only beer I ever dumped a portion of.

Both the commercial beers have been good in their own way. The Pipeline Porter has a more prounouced and sweeter coffee flavor, whereas the Double Black is definately more bitter and reminiscent of an espresso shot. I think the Pipeline Porter would be a coffee beer that would appeal to the majority, but in my opinion the Double Black is outstanding as well. For a larger brewery like Redhook, they did an excellent job on this one.

What other coffee beers are out there, and what did you think of them?

2 comments:

Sickpuppy said...

The Southern Tier Jahva is an excellent coffee stout!

http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/3818/28578

donaldosborn said...

Bell's Java Stout is good.
Surly Brewing (MN) now cans their Coffee Bender (coffee version of their Bender beer) and it is quite nice.
Dark Horse (MI) makes a coffee doppelbock that is great. Perkulator, I think (great name, coffee + ator, for bock).
I'm sure there are a slew of others.

As for homebrews, I've made award winning coffee stouts (two diff batches) by making aout 4.5 gallons of beer and adding 1/2 gallon of strongish coffee at bottling/kegging time. There are other methods, but that one works well for me.