The Barley Whine

Beer debates, more civil than sober

Best Coffee Beer Part 2

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No Really, What Is The Best Coffee Beer?

More Coffee Beers
Best Coffee Beer Part 2 Lineup

The Premise

After our first tasting of coffee beers, we realized that the surface had only been scratched by our efforts. With so many coffee flavored beers currently being brewed, our attempts to find the world’s best needed a much larger sample size. And any excuse to taste coffee beers in the cold months makes sense to the BW cabal. This is our effort to review more of the world’s coffee beer population. So why are there so many beers using coffee? And what is the origin of coffee in beer? Who do you think we are, Woodward and Bernstein? You’r way off pal. Let’s get to tasting.

Methodology

At a recent party Dave and I moved furtively to the kitchen with a trio of fellow craft beer aficionados. We then poured (not 100% blind) mostly even drams into small sampling glasses. Starting from the most genteel amber ale with coffee and Sam Adams lackadaisical creation (the only repeat from part #1), we moved to heavier beers before finishing with bourbon barrel aged imperial stouts. Notes were taken but no scores were tallied.

The Best Coffee Beer?
The Best Coffee Beer?

The Beers

  • Goose Island – Bourbon County Coffee Stout 2011:  This is a super hyped beer. Brewed with Chicago’s own Intelligentsia Anjilanaka beans, a coffee geek choice, and barrel aged in Elijah Craig 18 year barrels, this beer uses world class ingredients in a style defining brand. Huge fruity coffee, massive vanilla and bourbon with roasted malt flavors with no bitterness. Lives up to the noise and then some. 14% ABV.
  • Founders – Kentucky Breakfast Stout:   Smelling of coffee and sweet chocolate, pours a khaki strong head with good retention. The taste is cold pressed coffee combined with semi-sweet chocolate. Finishes with a bitter chocolate/hoppy bite. The mouthfeel is thick but slick from the oatmeal, and well carbonated. A world class blending of flavors, brewed to perfection.
  • De Struise – Damnation II Mocha Bomb:  A dark chestnut pour with bubbly tan head. Smell is surprising mix of malts, coffee, and hops. Some sweetness, coffee, and hops with biscuity malts. Some astringency from the roasted malts and hops. Coffee is mostly in the finish. Body is creamy, smooth and thick. The 12% ABV is well hidden. Superb beer.
  • Long Trail – Brewmaster Series Coffee Stout:  An imperial stout at 8% ABV. Lots of chocolate roasted malt flavors and potent, smooth coffee. Good body, a bit of oil and only a hint of java bitterness. When we think of good coffee stout, this is it. Seek this out!
  • Fort Collins – Common Ground:  Tasted second. An American amber ale. Taste is Fat Tire with coffee from the well regarded Jackie’s Java. Nothing wrong with that. The big dark malts play to style and pair well with the coffee notes. An uncommon, but solid coffee beer admixture.
  • Dark Horse – Perkulator Coffee Dopplebock: “Hear that? The percolations are imminent. No need to come in… cease your ingress!” -Mr.Burns.  Strong coffee nose. Taste is of bad church coffee and huge sweet caramel malts, finishing bitterly.
  • Samuel Adams – Black and Brew: First beer we tasted. Still dark and smelling of coffee. Still bland and lacking much of the body or roasted elements of a stout or any fresh coffee. But check out the snake in this video review of this beer!!!
  • Cigar City – Cubano-Stlye Espresso Brown Ale: Appealing espresso roasted coffee nose. Unfortunately this beer was infected, very sour: drain pour.

Conclusion

Your morning caffeine fix does double duty after hours not just in dark beers but complementing dopplebocks, even amber ales. As a flavor additive to beer, coffee beans can add wonderful roasted tannins or harsh bitterness. Just as they do with with a straight cup O’ joe. But that seems almost a facile point. The true revelation from this second tasting is that we found even more great and mediocre coffee beers, and yet there are so many more to taste. So where is the Peche Mortel by Dieu Du Ciel or Mikkeller Beer Geek Breakfast? Where are Wake ‘n Bake or Victory at Sea or Wolavaer’s Alta Gracia? We hear you loud and clear. Tomorrow is another day, and with it we will need our coffee. And soon enough after that we will again need to do another tasting of coffee beers. All in the quest to find the world’s best coffee beer.

Best Pumpkin Ale Part II

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The Premise

Like the Bollywood addiction to re-interpreting Hollywood films like The Matrix 15 years after the fact, we are also known to return to the scene of the crime.  What is the best pumpkin ale is a question we explored recently, with Southern Tier’s Pumking coming out on top. And while The Barley Whine could never drink all of the pumpkin beers brewed in the U.S. this year, there are so many great ones available we felt another round was only fair to give a better sampling of all the variety in this style. So let us get right to it: Best Pumpkin Ale Part II.

Methodology

As always, we blind tasted brews of a similar style, rated between 1 and 10, with .5 as the only allowable decimal. Beers are ranked based on style, not metaphysical eminence as libation.

 

Best Pumpkin Ale Tasting II
Pumpkin Ale Tasting II Lineup

The Beers

Rivertown Pumpkin and Cigar City Good Gourd
Tasting II Winners
  • Cigar City – Good Gourd: #1 (tie). Brassy in color with a mild savory/sour nose. Sweet roasted malty notes battle a subtle boozyness (8.5& ABV) as the front palate is hit with a gourdiness, modest spice, and just enough hops to balance the sweet. Tied for our favorite brew. Unfortunately not distributed in our locale.
  • Rivertown – Pumpkin Ale: #1 (tie). Translucent brown with a soapy, spicy aroma. Minimal spice in flavor with subtle nutmeg, but huge pumpkin fruit taste. Not too sweet, with some maple.
  • St. Ambroise – The Great Pumpkin Ale: #3 . Light brown, smelling strongly of pumpkin pie spices. Taste is classic pumpkin ale with more p.p. spice and a lot of sweetness. Dry finish did not appeal to everyone.
  • Thirsty Dog  – Pumpkin Ale: #4. Another light brown brew with solid spice scent. A bit thin as a brown ale, with nutmeg, allspice, cinnamon and pumpkin. Like St. Ambroise this plays right to form and does it well.
  • Jolly Pumpkin – La Parcela: #5. A curve ball. Funk/sour on the nose, big time. Cloudy gold, this beer, in the middle of all the pie inspired samples, tastes super sour. Some gourd, spice, and possibly oak creeps in, but this is a lot of sour. Everyone liked this, but not everyone got the ‘pumpkin ale’ nature.
  • Buckeye Brewing – Pumpkin Dead: #6 (tie).  Translucent brown, with weak carbonation. Pumpkin is there and spice is present but barely. Overall some hops in the finish but nothing to write home about.
  • Tommyknocker – Small Patch Pumpkin Harvest Ale: #6 (tie). Dark brown, almost opaque, the darkest by far of the nine sampled. With a roasted malt and spiciness in the nose, this beer brings only a slight p.p. spice profile along with a roasted malt backbone. Not much pumpkin or anything else.
  • Shipyard – Smashed pumpkin: #8. Sweet nose, smelling of mothballs. Its like a pumpkin pie that has been sitting in grandma’s dresser. The p.p. spice and pumpkin fruit are there, but booze and more mothballs dominate. Good carbonation and a clean finish.
  • Buckeye Brewing – Pawpaw:   #9. “The North American native pawpaw (Asimina triloba) is a temperate tree fruit in the mostly tropical custard apple family, Annonaceae.” according to Kentucky State University. It is the largest fruit native to North America, and has a tropical fruit flavor. The beer was a translucent amber, smelling of Juicyfruit and caramel. Taste was of mild sweetness, but with no pumpkin or p.p. spice. None of the tasters had a history with the pawpaw fruit to know if the flavors were legit.

 Conclusion

Round two brought us more diverse, delicious beers. The Rivertown Pumpkin brought more pumpkin flavor than anything previously tasted, and the Cigar City Good Gourd was a complex, modestly sweet delight. In our area neither of these beers are easily available, although the Rivertown more so than the Tampa based CC. The Canadian St. Ambroise was a very nice brew you may find at your local store. In the Cleveland area, Thirsty Dog has bottled a complex treat that delivers at a higher level than more famous, nationally distributed competitors. While Southern Tier’s Pumking may be the most universally palatable of all pumpkin beers, this tasting revealed four more autumnal ales worth hunting down for pumpkin lovers. If you can find any of the top four, they will not disappoint.

Cigar City Jai Alai IPA Beer Review

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Cigar City Jai Alai IPA

Of the southern breweries unavailable in Cleveland, Tampa Bay’s Cigar City is one of the most intriguing. Founded only a few years ago, this craft brewer is a rarity in a state where frozen drinks are king. And CCB wasted no time however getting the beer world buzzing.

In addition to creating exciting new brews like their recent Imperial Milk Porter that was aged in whiskey barrels, CCB has partnered with the Bruery on a collaboration Belgian ale, and started two innovative series. One of these began by tapping into the Ybor City cigar rolling history. This upstart created a limited line of beers aged in cedar known as the Humidor Series. One of the first to get this treatment was their regular IPA, the Jai Alai IPA. For our first Cigar City tasting we decided to hold off on the fancy wood-aged stuff and try the regular, available year round version of the Jai Alai IPA to give us a taste of what CCB is starting with. On a recent trip down south we decided to pick up the Cigar City Jai Alai IPA to see what the Google+ like excitement was all about.

Cigar City Jai Alai IPA Beer
Cigar City Jai Alai IPA 2011 Poolside

Made with 6 different hops, this is an American styled India Pale Ale without question. The hops are huge and the alcohol by volume at 7.5%  is much higher than most AIPAs. The malt load is sticking closer with tradition however. A small brewer shooting for world-class greatness in craft beer fans favorite style. Did they achieve it?

TASTING NOTES

Steve’s Take: Big white head gives way easily. Bouquet is a blast of citrus and herbs. Taste is a wonderful delight of ….hops and a balance of sweet almost bready malts. Finish is a biting. A hop lovers delight.

9.5/10

Dave’s Take: Tropical fruit/grapefruit hops. Nice balance. Good drinkability and mouthfeel. A solid IPA.

9/10