Friday, March 09, 2018
It's a Coffee Beer World
In the chicken-or-egg scenario, the answer is clear: Craft breweries began to grow exponentially before craft coffee roasters did. But now that the local business segments are on similar trajectories, there may not be a better partnership in the alcohol industry.
What's more, coffee beers have become one of the most studied and talked-about trends among the many booming styles in craft beerdom. From a panel discussion at January's Big Beers, Belgians & Barleywines Festival to Saturday's upcoming Cool Beans Beer & Coffee Festival at Ratio Beerworks in Denver, the offerings are being pored over as much as they are being poured — and beer drinkers are the beneficiaries.
Once a pairing that seemed only to be made straight up with stouts and porters, coffee is appearing now in everything from lighter ales to sours. And brewers are adding lactose, dextrose and spices to make your coffee beer feel like it too is served with sugar and cream, or with the appropriate ingredients to label it Mexican Coffee.
The idea of adding coffee to beer is not a new one, noted John Holl, editor of Craft Beer & Brewing magazine at the panel he led at Big Beers in Breckenridge. But the way it's being used now make shock the sensibilities of those brewers who first experimented it with it in the early days of what then was called the microbrewing movement.
One needs look only at Carton Brewing of New Jersey, where owner Augie Carton makes offerings of 12 percent and higher meant to simulate the common ways locals take their java — "regular coffee" with cream and two sugars and Italian-style with a dash of amaretto. The resulting beers — Regular Coffee Imperial Cream Ale and Caffe Caretto — use lactose, dextrose, anise and licorice to mimic those tastes, and they taste more like strong Belgian ales than a classic porter with roast in it.
More locally, Epic Brewing, long known for the coffee it blends perfectly into its Big Bad Baptist barrel-aged imperial stout with cocoa nibs, has diversified its offerings with its Son of a Baptist and its Coffee Cream Ale, not to mention offshoots like its ridiculous Triple Barrel Big Bad Baptist. And while the brewery's earned its reputation by going for the extreme, there may be no beer in Colorado in which the coffee owns the flavor quite so much as the deceptively smooth and drinkable Son of a Baptist imperial stout.
Oskar Blues also has brought alcoholic life to the party with is Java Barrel-Aged Ten Fidy, which uses the barreling and the coffee to mellow the beer in a slight but necessary way and give it a sweet, surprisingly easy body for a 12.9% ABV beer.
And then there are the wide range of beers that are adding coffee to their spicy Mexican stouts, creating an even more complex version of a beer that tastes already like a distinctly foreign drink. Crazy Mountain's Rum Barrel Aged Spanish Coffee Stout is a prime example of this.
Not everything blends seamlessly with coffee, to be sure. Jordan Schupbach, Epic director of brewing operations, noted during the Big Beers panel (pictured above) that he tried to brew a coffee beer with a lager yeast and it didn't turn out. Left Hand brewhouse manager added that he used a light-roasted coffee with a more light-bodied amber ale and "it just turned out to be not a good beer."
And brewers continue to push the taste barriers still, finding offerings that pair with coffee in newer and more intriguing ways.
Ratio's festival, running from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday, will feature a coffee session IPA, a coffee chocolate rye scotch ale and a whiskey-barrel-aged Irish coffee American strong ale. The event, which aims to show off how many ways coffee can blend with beers to create new tastes, is as much education as it is imbibing.
Sure, the now-old-fashioned trick of blending dark coffee taste with a beer that also is as dark as night still works too. One need only try the Spaghetti Western Imperial Chocolate Coffee Stout, a collaboration between Prairie Artisan Ales and Italian beer maker Brewfist, to sense that.
But coffee beers are growing and diversifying, just as the coffee-roasting industry is. And that's a dark area worthy of having light shone onto it.
In the chicken-or-egg scenario, the answer is clear: Craft breweries began to grow exponentially before craft coffee roasters did. But now that the local business segments are on similar trajectories, there may not be a better partnership in the alcohol industry.
What's more, coffee beers have become one of the most studied and talked-about trends among the many booming styles in craft beerdom. From a panel discussion at January's Big Beers, Belgians & Barleywines Festival to Saturday's upcoming Cool Beans Beer & Coffee Festival at Ratio Beerworks in Denver, the offerings are being pored over as much as they are being poured — and beer drinkers are the beneficiaries.
Once a pairing that seemed only to be made straight up with stouts and porters, coffee is appearing now in everything from lighter ales to sours. And brewers are adding lactose, dextrose and spices to make your coffee beer feel like it too is served with sugar and cream, or with the appropriate ingredients to label it Mexican Coffee.
The idea of adding coffee to beer is not a new one, noted John Holl, editor of Craft Beer & Brewing magazine at the panel he led at Big Beers in Breckenridge. But the way it's being used now make shock the sensibilities of those brewers who first experimented it with it in the early days of what then was called the microbrewing movement.
More locally, Epic Brewing, long known for the coffee it blends perfectly into its Big Bad Baptist barrel-aged imperial stout with cocoa nibs, has diversified its offerings with its Son of a Baptist and its Coffee Cream Ale, not to mention offshoots like its ridiculous Triple Barrel Big Bad Baptist. And while the brewery's earned its reputation by going for the extreme, there may be no beer in Colorado in which the coffee owns the flavor quite so much as the deceptively smooth and drinkable Son of a Baptist imperial stout.
Oskar Blues also has brought alcoholic life to the party with is Java Barrel-Aged Ten Fidy, which uses the barreling and the coffee to mellow the beer in a slight but necessary way and give it a sweet, surprisingly easy body for a 12.9% ABV beer.
And then there are the wide range of beers that are adding coffee to their spicy Mexican stouts, creating an even more complex version of a beer that tastes already like a distinctly foreign drink. Crazy Mountain's Rum Barrel Aged Spanish Coffee Stout is a prime example of this.
Not everything blends seamlessly with coffee, to be sure. Jordan Schupbach, Epic director of brewing operations, noted during the Big Beers panel (pictured above) that he tried to brew a coffee beer with a lager yeast and it didn't turn out. Left Hand brewhouse manager added that he used a light-roasted coffee with a more light-bodied amber ale and "it just turned out to be not a good beer."
And brewers continue to push the taste barriers still, finding offerings that pair with coffee in newer and more intriguing ways.Ratio's festival, running from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday, will feature a coffee session IPA, a coffee chocolate rye scotch ale and a whiskey-barrel-aged Irish coffee American strong ale. The event, which aims to show off how many ways coffee can blend with beers to create new tastes, is as much education as it is imbibing.
Sure, the now-old-fashioned trick of blending dark coffee taste with a beer that also is as dark as night still works too. One need only try the Spaghetti Western Imperial Chocolate Coffee Stout, a collaboration between Prairie Artisan Ales and Italian beer maker Brewfist, to sense that.
But coffee beers are growing and diversifying, just as the coffee-roasting industry is. And that's a dark area worthy of having light shone onto it.
Labels: Big Beers, Brewfist, Carton Brewing, Coffee beer, Crazy Mountain Brewing Company, Epic Brewing, John Holl, Left Hand Brewing, Oskar Blues, Prairie Artisan Ales, Ratio Beerworks
Wednesday, December 07, 2016
The Three Baptists of Winter 2016
Epic Brewing's Big Bad Baptist is as close to a perfect beer as you will find in Colorado. Smelling like coffee and tasting like a whiskey barrel - without any overbearing alcoholic overtones, despite its 12.6 percent ABV body - it's a complex beer with a simple, almost creamy smoothness to it.
The idea of creating two spin-offs from the Baptist line - as the jointly located Denver/Salt Lake City brewery has done this year - is fraught, then, with both opportunity and risk, giving it a great starting point but also a ridiculous bar to cross in order to be something more than a Baptist hanger-on And the two new releases that debuted in November, Double Barrel Big Bad Baptist and Big Bad Baptista, show simultaneously that the experiment can work and that it can be burdened by the expectations that come from the original offering.
Double Barrel Baptist takes the whiskey-barrel, coffee-infused imperial stout recipe and ratchets it up with green coffee beans that are first aged themselves in whiskey barrels. Baptista, meanwhile, adds vanilla and cinnamon to the original mix, creating a beer reminiscent of traditional Mexican coffee.
The results are very different.
Double Barrel makes a very dark and full beer even darker, bringing to the forefront a heavier taste of the whiskey that seeps into all parts of its taste. It's a single-edged experiment, not as richly complex as Big Bad Baptist, but certainly a bold and daring offering that takes the coffee beer in a meatier direction as the type of snifter-occupying drink you should be sipping while watching the snow fall outside.
Baptista, were it to be a solo release, might strike a chord as a the richest beer to emulate a Mexican non-alcoholic drink yet. But coming from the Baptist line, it doesn't have that luxury. Instead, it comes across as a thick beer that its makers are trying to sweeten, true especially because the vanilla overtones dominate much more than the cinnamon. It's a worthwhile beer, for sure, but a big step down from its base beer.
And the Baptist? The 2016 version is on par, if not exceeding, the level of excellence set by its best predecessors. Not nearly as booze-soaked as its high ABV would portend it to be, the body is assertive without being overbearing, dabbling in whiskey, coffee and a hint of chocolate simultaneously and in harmony.
Therein lies the rub: Drinking Double Barrel or Baptista as stand-alone beers from any other brewery, people in the craft-beer community may be lauding them a lot more. But knowing the Triple-Crown-worthy beer that sired them, they feel more like intriguing experiments that won't ascend to the level of the Baptist itself, even if the Double Barrel especially is worth nabbing off the shelf.
Epic Brewing's Big Bad Baptist is as close to a perfect beer as you will find in Colorado. Smelling like coffee and tasting like a whiskey barrel - without any overbearing alcoholic overtones, despite its 12.6 percent ABV body - it's a complex beer with a simple, almost creamy smoothness to it.
The idea of creating two spin-offs from the Baptist line - as the jointly located Denver/Salt Lake City brewery has done this year - is fraught, then, with both opportunity and risk, giving it a great starting point but also a ridiculous bar to cross in order to be something more than a Baptist hanger-on And the two new releases that debuted in November, Double Barrel Big Bad Baptist and Big Bad Baptista, show simultaneously that the experiment can work and that it can be burdened by the expectations that come from the original offering.Double Barrel Baptist takes the whiskey-barrel, coffee-infused imperial stout recipe and ratchets it up with green coffee beans that are first aged themselves in whiskey barrels. Baptista, meanwhile, adds vanilla and cinnamon to the original mix, creating a beer reminiscent of traditional Mexican coffee.
The results are very different.
Double Barrel makes a very dark and full beer even darker, bringing to the forefront a heavier taste of the whiskey that seeps into all parts of its taste. It's a single-edged experiment, not as richly complex as Big Bad Baptist, but certainly a bold and daring offering that takes the coffee beer in a meatier direction as the type of snifter-occupying drink you should be sipping while watching the snow fall outside.
And the Baptist? The 2016 version is on par, if not exceeding, the level of excellence set by its best predecessors. Not nearly as booze-soaked as its high ABV would portend it to be, the body is assertive without being overbearing, dabbling in whiskey, coffee and a hint of chocolate simultaneously and in harmony.Therein lies the rub: Drinking Double Barrel or Baptista as stand-alone beers from any other brewery, people in the craft-beer community may be lauding them a lot more. But knowing the Triple-Crown-worthy beer that sired them, they feel more like intriguing experiments that won't ascend to the level of the Baptist itself, even if the Double Barrel especially is worth nabbing off the shelf.
Labels: Coffee beer, Epic Brewing, imperial stouts, spin-off beers
Tuesday, April 19, 2016
Samuel Adams: Still Got It
Thirty-two years into your lifespan as a brewery, you might think you'd get a little staid and just rely on people coming back for the drinks they know so well.
But while sitting down for an interview today with Boston Beer Co. founder Jim Koch, I realized that settling wasn't something that would come naturally to one of craft beer's true pioneers. And the brewery's new nitro series is evidence of that.
Boston Beer released three nitro beers a couple of months ago - an IPA, a White Ale and a Coffee Stout - in cans with widgets (for lack of a more scientific term) in them that offer pressurize the vessel with nitrogen. Though rare, other breweries have done this before, meaning that Koch thought his brewery had to develop truly unique beers for them in order to stand out.
And this was where Boston Beer really earned its stripes. Too many nitro IPAs that are found on tap are softer versions of a brewery's regular offering, with the hops taste ending up muted. But Koch said he understood that carbonation is an essential part of the IPA, and so taking that away required him to change the recipe for the beer entirely.
What he arrived at was a 100-IBU delicacy that lacks the acidic bite of many IPAs but packs a grassy taste that fills your mouth and makes its hops presence known. And it's so smooth that the beer could go down more easily and quickly than expected, as I found out today.
"It's been a lot of 'Wow, that's different.' Other brewers, they say "How did you do that?'" he said. "Not everybody likes it, which is OK. You have to be open and knowledgeable about transforming beer flavor."
The Coffee Stout too is notable. Though it carries a pillow-like softness typical of the genre, it's imbued with a deep roasted flavor that can be lost in some nitro efforts. It's quite a flavor bomb.
Koch was in Denver Tuesday for a signing of his new book, "Quench Your Own Thirst," which details his three-plus decades in the beer business, examining both successful philosophies and notable mistakes. There have been times that Sam Adams has seemed to fade from the beer scene over that period. But the new nitro series ensures it will continue to be a pioneer - and shows that the first craft brewery to do things correctly on a national scale still has some great tricks up its sleeve.
Thirty-two years into your lifespan as a brewery, you might think you'd get a little staid and just rely on people coming back for the drinks they know so well.
But while sitting down for an interview today with Boston Beer Co. founder Jim Koch, I realized that settling wasn't something that would come naturally to one of craft beer's true pioneers. And the brewery's new nitro series is evidence of that.
Boston Beer released three nitro beers a couple of months ago - an IPA, a White Ale and a Coffee Stout - in cans with widgets (for lack of a more scientific term) in them that offer pressurize the vessel with nitrogen. Though rare, other breweries have done this before, meaning that Koch thought his brewery had to develop truly unique beers for them in order to stand out.
And this was where Boston Beer really earned its stripes. Too many nitro IPAs that are found on tap are softer versions of a brewery's regular offering, with the hops taste ending up muted. But Koch said he understood that carbonation is an essential part of the IPA, and so taking that away required him to change the recipe for the beer entirely.
What he arrived at was a 100-IBU delicacy that lacks the acidic bite of many IPAs but packs a grassy taste that fills your mouth and makes its hops presence known. And it's so smooth that the beer could go down more easily and quickly than expected, as I found out today."It's been a lot of 'Wow, that's different.' Other brewers, they say "How did you do that?'" he said. "Not everybody likes it, which is OK. You have to be open and knowledgeable about transforming beer flavor."
The Coffee Stout too is notable. Though it carries a pillow-like softness typical of the genre, it's imbued with a deep roasted flavor that can be lost in some nitro efforts. It's quite a flavor bomb.
Koch was in Denver Tuesday for a signing of his new book, "Quench Your Own Thirst," which details his three-plus decades in the beer business, examining both successful philosophies and notable mistakes. There have been times that Sam Adams has seemed to fade from the beer scene over that period. But the new nitro series ensures it will continue to be a pioneer - and shows that the first craft brewery to do things correctly on a national scale still has some great tricks up its sleeve.
Labels: Boston Beer Co., Coffee beer, IPA, nitro
Saturday, January 23, 2016
Denver's Enhanced West Side
When talk of Denver's best beer neighborhoods comes up, River North, South Broadway and the beer-bar-laden downtown all jump to the forefront. But in recent months, some new arrivals are doing their best to make sure the city's west side is beginning to get its due.
It's not like the vast area west of Interstate 25 has been a craft-beer wasteland. Hops & Pie is one of the best beer bars in the city, offering a variety of hard-to-find taps. Hogshead Brewery serves spot-on English-style ales. And Diebolt Brewing, after a relatively slow start, is making some exceptional ales, particularly its fig-infused Algerian Biere de Garde.
But the introduction of two new breweries in particular to the scene in the past six months is beginning to raise the profile of the area, and deservedly so. And as such, it's worth paying a little more attention to Call to Arms Brewing and Little Machine Beer.
Call to Arms, the brainchild of three former Avery Brewing workers, opened in July with a full 14 taps and is getting accolades for its craftsmanship as well as its variety of beers. Located on the northern end of the increasingly hip Tennyson Street corridor, it's also very family-accessible, as Lincoln (pictured with coaster) was one of four kids there for early happy hour during a recent visit.
The vast selection of styles almost ensures that no one beer on Call to Arms' tap list stands out,
though the bold, dandelion-esque Son of a Beesting IPA that was on this fall stood above many others. But the surprisingly hoppy sessionable Clintonian Pale Ale, open-fermented Burkhalter dunkelweizen and Oats and Hose - an oatmeal porter with a hint of dark cherry - rank among the brewery's other standouts.
Even more impressive in many ways is Little Machine, which opened in October in the Jefferson Park neighborhood north of Sports Authority Field. It presents a more experimental vibe and has been able to score touchdowns with a few of its efforts.
Most exciting has been its Coffee Oatmeal Stout, a Nicaraguan-coffee-infused version of its solid Tractor Beam Oatmeal Stout that has both a big coffee flavor and an almost creamy undertone. Another more limited release, the Alternating Currant Kettle Sour, offered a hard-to-nail-down raspberry/blackberry feel in a way that did not overwhelm the taste buds.
Among its more regular beers, Little Machine's Colorado Stock Ale has a hop-forward taste for a pale ale that, at 5.3 percent ABV, could be sipped through the night. And its The Reason Saison, if not challenging to the palate, is malty and very drinkable.
Like in pretty much every neighborhood in Colorado, more breweries are sure to follow. But Denver's newcomers on the west side, following in the footsteps of a couple of their predecessors, are making the area worthy of a full-day tour.
When talk of Denver's best beer neighborhoods comes up, River North, South Broadway and the beer-bar-laden downtown all jump to the forefront. But in recent months, some new arrivals are doing their best to make sure the city's west side is beginning to get its due.
It's not like the vast area west of Interstate 25 has been a craft-beer wasteland. Hops & Pie is one of the best beer bars in the city, offering a variety of hard-to-find taps. Hogshead Brewery serves spot-on English-style ales. And Diebolt Brewing, after a relatively slow start, is making some exceptional ales, particularly its fig-infused Algerian Biere de Garde.
But the introduction of two new breweries in particular to the scene in the past six months is beginning to raise the profile of the area, and deservedly so. And as such, it's worth paying a little more attention to Call to Arms Brewing and Little Machine Beer.
Call to Arms, the brainchild of three former Avery Brewing workers, opened in July with a full 14 taps and is getting accolades for its craftsmanship as well as its variety of beers. Located on the northern end of the increasingly hip Tennyson Street corridor, it's also very family-accessible, as Lincoln (pictured with coaster) was one of four kids there for early happy hour during a recent visit.
The vast selection of styles almost ensures that no one beer on Call to Arms' tap list stands out,though the bold, dandelion-esque Son of a Beesting IPA that was on this fall stood above many others. But the surprisingly hoppy sessionable Clintonian Pale Ale, open-fermented Burkhalter dunkelweizen and Oats and Hose - an oatmeal porter with a hint of dark cherry - rank among the brewery's other standouts.
Even more impressive in many ways is Little Machine, which opened in October in the Jefferson Park neighborhood north of Sports Authority Field. It presents a more experimental vibe and has been able to score touchdowns with a few of its efforts.
Most exciting has been its Coffee Oatmeal Stout, a Nicaraguan-coffee-infused version of its solid Tractor Beam Oatmeal Stout that has both a big coffee flavor and an almost creamy undertone. Another more limited release, the Alternating Currant Kettle Sour, offered a hard-to-nail-down raspberry/blackberry feel in a way that did not overwhelm the taste buds.
Among its more regular beers, Little Machine's Colorado Stock Ale has a hop-forward taste for a pale ale that, at 5.3 percent ABV, could be sipped through the night. And its The Reason Saison, if not challenging to the palate, is malty and very drinkable.
Like in pretty much every neighborhood in Colorado, more breweries are sure to follow. But Denver's newcomers on the west side, following in the footsteps of a couple of their predecessors, are making the area worthy of a full-day tour.
Labels: Call to Arms Brewing, Coffee beer, Diebolt Brewing, Hogshead Brewery, Hops and Pie, IPA, Little Machine Beer, New Colorado breweries, West Side breweries
Friday, February 20, 2015
New Left Hand at Old Chicago
Sometimes you find gems in unexpected places. And that's exactly what happened last night during a visit to Old Chicago.
The longtime beer-themed restaurant chain is about a year into its Explorer Series, in which it partners with craft breweries to feature a temporary lineup of beers including one typically made specifically for the promotion. It's now two weeks into the installment featuring Left Hand Brewing.
Left Hand has expanded its portfolio significantly in recent years, ramping up its seasonal and limited releases and increasing the number of offerings it's putting on nitro. But in that growth, it hasn't broken out anything quite like De'Nile Coffee Ale, its new Explorer Series creation.
De'Nile is reminiscent of Beer Week Sauce, Left Hand's draft-only coffee porter that you typically find for special occasions like Great American Beer Festival week. But by putting this Allegro Coffee blend into a lighter-bodied base, it lets the coffee flavor shine a little more, unobscured by the extra bitterness often found in the roasted malts of most breweries' favorite base for the style, the porter.
In doing so, Left Hand has created what could be called an easy-drinking coffee beer, one that is accessible both to the coffee-adventurous who prefer their java in barrel-aged imperial stouts and to drinkers who like the flavor of coffee without the harshness that often accompanies it. And it's done so not in a wide-ranging release but in a limited edition found at just one restaurant.
I've written before about Old Chicago stepping up its game in recent years, and this Explorer Series is a good example of how that is happening. But it was interesting to see last night that its menu, at least at its Lakewood location, is stacked with smaller local craft breweries like Bonfire and Station 26 as well, and to learn that its St. Patrick's Day Mini Tour will feature Comrade Brewing's Defcon Red in Denver-area stores, right next to the Guinness and Smithwick's offerings you would expect.
The next suggestion for Left Hand: Don't let this be a purely limited-time offering. De'Nile would be a nice addition to the permanent collection.
Sometimes you find gems in unexpected places. And that's exactly what happened last night during a visit to Old Chicago.
The longtime beer-themed restaurant chain is about a year into its Explorer Series, in which it partners with craft breweries to feature a temporary lineup of beers including one typically made specifically for the promotion. It's now two weeks into the installment featuring Left Hand Brewing.
Left Hand has expanded its portfolio significantly in recent years, ramping up its seasonal and limited releases and increasing the number of offerings it's putting on nitro. But in that growth, it hasn't broken out anything quite like De'Nile Coffee Ale, its new Explorer Series creation.
De'Nile is reminiscent of Beer Week Sauce, Left Hand's draft-only coffee porter that you typically find for special occasions like Great American Beer Festival week. But by putting this Allegro Coffee blend into a lighter-bodied base, it lets the coffee flavor shine a little more, unobscured by the extra bitterness often found in the roasted malts of most breweries' favorite base for the style, the porter.
In doing so, Left Hand has created what could be called an easy-drinking coffee beer, one that is accessible both to the coffee-adventurous who prefer their java in barrel-aged imperial stouts and to drinkers who like the flavor of coffee without the harshness that often accompanies it. And it's done so not in a wide-ranging release but in a limited edition found at just one restaurant.
I've written before about Old Chicago stepping up its game in recent years, and this Explorer Series is a good example of how that is happening. But it was interesting to see last night that its menu, at least at its Lakewood location, is stacked with smaller local craft breweries like Bonfire and Station 26 as well, and to learn that its St. Patrick's Day Mini Tour will feature Comrade Brewing's Defcon Red in Denver-area stores, right next to the Guinness and Smithwick's offerings you would expect.
The next suggestion for Left Hand: Don't let this be a purely limited-time offering. De'Nile would be a nice addition to the permanent collection.
Labels: Coffee beer, Left Hand Brewing, Old Chicago
Tuesday, March 05, 2013
Four Things I Learned at the Boulder Strong Ale Fest
For those of you who have never been to one of Avery Brewing's on-property festivals, it is hard to put into words how decadent they are.
At this past weekend's Strong Ale Fest, tasting stations offering eight beers each left participants with the choice between, say, Pliny the Younger, Strange's award-winning barleywine or several oak-aged offerings. Quality, normal porters and saisons stood little chance of being requested.
Even as attendees got accidentally drunk from tasting so many high-alcohol beers - and I defend the use of the term "accidentally," no matter how many people laughed when I used it Saturday - there was much to be remembered. (Especially if you were one of those geeks, like me, carrying around a notebook.) Here are some of the highlights:
1) The beer trend of 2013? How about monster coffee stouts? Sour beers have been hip for at least half a decade, and the offerings at the last two Great American Beer Festivals showed that oak barrels aren't up-and-coming; they're here. But the coffee bombs are truly on their way up.
Pizza Port Brewing's Bacon & Eggs, made with 25 pounds of roasters, was as smooth as it was bulky and java-heavy. And Epic Brewing's Big Bad Baptist - coming soon to Denver - offered a full mouth of coffee and cocoa in a startlingly tempting 11% ABV package. They were just two of many such offerings in a show that may point the way to the next great trend.
2) It's OK to use fruit in a big beer. Really. Anyone who got the joy of trying The Bruery's Five Golden Rings this Christmas season realized a brewmaster could add pineapple juice to the mix and still blow you out of the water with alcohol.
Avery's Missionary Position - its Reverend Belgian Quad with guava and pineapple - was refreshing and, dare we say, almost light and easy for a 10% booze blast. And the grape must that Odell added to its Amuste imperial porter was smooth enough to make it stand out in a room of darks.
3) The new generation of double IPAs are far more earthy and astringently bitter than their forebears. Classics of the style, such as Firestone Walker's Double Jack and Avery's Maharaja were assaulting in their citrus-fruit and flower-petal qualities, making them dangerously easy to enjoy. But the new breweries on the block have a different idea.
Gravity Brewing's Acceleration Double IPA, for example, showed off its 9.8% ABV in the most malt-forward way possible. And Telluride Brewing's Fishwater Double IPA presented a caramel initial taste before rolling out its bitterness gradually. Both were head-turners in their surprisingly non-citrus character, though it's yet to be seen whether they were unique to the style or the new - and slightly less approachable - standard bearers.
4) Sometimes the hype is worth it. For the most part, the Fearless Tasting Crew avoided long GABF lines in favor of exploring unknown breweries, and it's never stood in line for hours to get a ticket for one 10-oz. pour. But on Saturday, two almost cliched offerings really stole the show.
Crooked Stave - it of the ridiculous lines at every festival where it's pouring - put up the best beer of the fest with Sentience, a tart wild quad whose whiskey-barrel aging accented its sharpness perfectly. And the hands-down best hop bomb there was, yes, Pliny the Younger; Russian River's line-inducing triple IPA was pure benevolence, sliding sweetly over tongues of everyone who made the smart decision to seek it out.
At this past weekend's Strong Ale Fest, tasting stations offering eight beers each left participants with the choice between, say, Pliny the Younger, Strange's award-winning barleywine or several oak-aged offerings. Quality, normal porters and saisons stood little chance of being requested.
Even as attendees got accidentally drunk from tasting so many high-alcohol beers - and I defend the use of the term "accidentally," no matter how many people laughed when I used it Saturday - there was much to be remembered. (Especially if you were one of those geeks, like me, carrying around a notebook.) Here are some of the highlights:
1) The beer trend of 2013? How about monster coffee stouts? Sour beers have been hip for at least half a decade, and the offerings at the last two Great American Beer Festivals showed that oak barrels aren't up-and-coming; they're here. But the coffee bombs are truly on their way up.
Pizza Port Brewing's Bacon & Eggs, made with 25 pounds of roasters, was as smooth as it was bulky and java-heavy. And Epic Brewing's Big Bad Baptist - coming soon to Denver - offered a full mouth of coffee and cocoa in a startlingly tempting 11% ABV package. They were just two of many such offerings in a show that may point the way to the next great trend.
2) It's OK to use fruit in a big beer. Really. Anyone who got the joy of trying The Bruery's Five Golden Rings this Christmas season realized a brewmaster could add pineapple juice to the mix and still blow you out of the water with alcohol.
Avery's Missionary Position - its Reverend Belgian Quad with guava and pineapple - was refreshing and, dare we say, almost light and easy for a 10% booze blast. And the grape must that Odell added to its Amuste imperial porter was smooth enough to make it stand out in a room of darks.
3) The new generation of double IPAs are far more earthy and astringently bitter than their forebears. Classics of the style, such as Firestone Walker's Double Jack and Avery's Maharaja were assaulting in their citrus-fruit and flower-petal qualities, making them dangerously easy to enjoy. But the new breweries on the block have a different idea.
Gravity Brewing's Acceleration Double IPA, for example, showed off its 9.8% ABV in the most malt-forward way possible. And Telluride Brewing's Fishwater Double IPA presented a caramel initial taste before rolling out its bitterness gradually. Both were head-turners in their surprisingly non-citrus character, though it's yet to be seen whether they were unique to the style or the new - and slightly less approachable - standard bearers.
4) Sometimes the hype is worth it. For the most part, the Fearless Tasting Crew avoided long GABF lines in favor of exploring unknown breweries, and it's never stood in line for hours to get a ticket for one 10-oz. pour. But on Saturday, two almost cliched offerings really stole the show.
Crooked Stave - it of the ridiculous lines at every festival where it's pouring - put up the best beer of the fest with Sentience, a tart wild quad whose whiskey-barrel aging accented its sharpness perfectly. And the hands-down best hop bomb there was, yes, Pliny the Younger; Russian River's line-inducing triple IPA was pure benevolence, sliding sweetly over tongues of everyone who made the smart decision to seek it out.
Labels: Avery Brewing, Coffee beer, Crooked Stave, Epic Brewing, Festivals, Gravity Brewing, IPA, Odell Brewing, Pizza Port, Russian River, Telluride Brewing
Saturday, September 18, 2010
GABF, Day Two: Cup of Joe, Anyone?The first time I put Cigar City Brewing's Final Push to my lips, I had to hold it up and make sure I was drinking what I thought. Here, after all, was a Russian imperial stout, and it was blacker than night. But the predominant taste was bold and roasted coffee. And, man, was it good.
Among all the brewing trends on display at the 29th Great American Beer Festival, which ends tonight, none seem more pronounced than the clever and tasty ways that beer makers are meshing coffee with their products.
A few years ago, coffee's main purpose seemed to be an add-on to porters, and the java taste was still faint, overshadowed by darker malts that seemed to compete with it for featured flavor status. Now, the beers, whether porters or stouts or bocks, should just be called "coffee beers," as that is their dominant personality trait.
What's more, there's nuances to this coffee. Pizza Port Carlsbad, for example, has its Coffee Monster, in which you can actually taste a slight sweetness of cream balancing out the heavily roasted aspect. Boulder's Mountain Sun Pub and Brewery is offering Onslaught, in which the coffee comes on thick and hard but actually fades into hops that appear on the back taste.
Regardless, if you like the combination of coffee and beer, these are high times to enjoy things - and to see how brewers will move this trend forward in the coming years.
Labels: Coffee beer, Great American Beer Festival, Mountain Sun
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
The Best New Beer of the Season . . .
. . . is not a seasonal at all. But if you haven't stumbled across New Belgium's Giddy Up!, released in the fall but just gaining popularity around holiday time, you're missing a beer that should go to the head of the pack among all of the dark and darker beer offerings of the season.
Brewed with lemon peel and infused with espresso, this is a genre-bending offer. Sure, it fits neatly into the overall category of coffee beers, but yet it's more than the very subtle lemon that appears on the backtaste that makes this stand out.
What catches your attention is a body that seems too light to hold the gigantic shot of java it's pumping across your tongue. That body feels partially creamy and partially just easy, ab antidote to the nearly sludge-like consistency of coffee beer makers who take it too far. Yet, the sharp taste - the coffee beans are grown in Brazil, espresso-roasted locally and then pressed into the ale - is a lingerer, enveloping your mouth like you were swirling around a caffeine boost, without burning your tongue.
In the line of recent New Belgium experiments, this ranks just about up there with the absurdly delicious and sour Eric's Ale - and far, far above the more subtle Skinny Dip seasonal. But I do have one qualm with it. You can get Giddy Up! just two ways right now: In mixed 12-packs and in kegs. (I discovered this beer last month at a dive sports bar in Greenwood Village, of all places.) This is a great beer and should be celebrated. Make it more readily available.
Labels: Coffee beer, New Belgium Brewing, Seasonal
