Tag: Espresso

Beer of the Week: NW Peaks Early Morning Espresso Stout

By Iron Chef Leftovers

untitle8dFebruary was stout month for NW Peaks and we got a returning favorite in Stuart and a new beer – Early Morning Espresso Stout. This beer is brewed with beans from Ballard Coffee Works, who are one of the places around Seattle that you can find NW Peaks beers, so this was a collaborative effort as well as the first time that NW peaks is brewing a coffee beer. I was excited as it was a combination of a brewery I love and a coffee roaster that produces some of the best quality beans in the city.

From the NW Peaks website:

The Name. The mountain. Early Morning Spire is set in a magical location of the Eldorado, Inspiration, and Mcallister glaciers. It is actually situated slightly off the glaciers in Marble cirque. Early Morning Spire offers great rock climbing in a remote place, so remote that it is best to take 3-4 days to climb (the approach is via Eldorado – nearly summiting – over a col into the marble cirque). While it has great rock routes, Early Morning spire can be done as a scramble, although getting from the glacier to solid rock might be treacherous depending on conditions. The name derives itself from a group that had to bivy near the summit (cold, unprepared), which caused them to summit just after first light.

The Espresso. We made this an espresso stout so what better name than Early Morning Espresso Stout – two of our favorite beverages made into one. We collaborated with one of our great customers – Seattle Coffee Works (Ballard Coffee Works) who puts out one of the finest products in the Seattle area. In the end, we chose to use their Emerald City toddy – delicious by itself – to accentuate the flavor and aroma of the coffee.

The Beer. Early Morning Espresso Stout was brewed to feature the coffee from Seattle coffee works. The base beer has a mild roast character, low body, and slight sweetness to support the espresso. The espresso flavor is at the forefront and brings in minimal acidity and coffee astringency. Instead, the cold toddy really adds to the flavor and aroma of the beer without contributing any harshness or excessive acidity. The result is a 5% ABV smooth, light bodied, light roasty stout with a great espresso flavor and aroma. Watch out, there will be a lot more caffeine in a pint than other versions, making it a great choice to have at first light.

 

The beer pours jet black with a beautiful tan head and eye-popping notes of roasted malt and ground espresso dominating the nose with just barely perceptible notes of chocolate hiding in the background. The beer starts out slowly, with hints of sugar, milk chocolate and light fruit notes before giving way to building coffee profile – it starts out mellow before becoming a deep, rich espresso. The bold coffee slowly fades into the finish, joined by a barely perceptible bitterness, touches of milk chocolate, caramel and malt coupled with a silky mouth feel. Coffee is definitely the star of this beer but it knows when to give way to the other flavors, producing a deep, rich beer. In talking to the head brewer about this beer, he would have liked to dial the coffee back just a bit to let the beer stand out more, but I think the balance was nice to the point that this beer would be an easy sell to even those who don’t like coffee beers.

NW Peaks Early Morning Espresso Stout hits the snooze button with 5 alarm clocks out of 5.

Beer of the Week: Elysian Brewing Split Shot Espresso Milk Stout

By Iron Chef Leftovers

Living in Seattle, which does have a slight (and justified) reputation for being an over-caffinated city, you would expect that you would see more coffee based beers, but you don’t. For the 2012 Seattle Beer Week, Elysian Brewing was selected to come up with the beer for the event and they produced Split Shot Stout – marrying the city’s love of coffee with its love of beer. I generally will try anything new that Elysian puts out and I really think that their dark beers tend to be their best work. I have tried Split Shot both on tap and in 22 oz. bottles, and the review is for the bottle release. The beer runs around $6 at your local bottle shop (although it is often on sale at mega marts with a better beer selection).

From the Elysian Press Release on the beer:

In Seattle, beer and coffee grew up together. They’re like siblings, jealously balancing the day between go-go and go-slow, dividing the hip and tattoo’d into brewers and roasters, barkeeps and baristas. Split Shot Coffee Milk Stout combines the talents of Elysian Brewing and Lighthouse Roasters, and commemorates not only Seattle Beer Week as its official beer for 2012, but the fact that it took a lot of talk and lot of Lighthouse coffee to get Elysian off the ground back in 1996. Split Shot has a radically complicated malt bill, with C-15 and C-45 dextrine malts, Franco-Belges kiln coffee malt, Black, Roasted and Chocolate malts and flaked oats. It’s bittered with Magnum and slightly sweetened with milk sugar. OG 16 (1.065); alcohol 7.25% by volume., Split Shot is the official beer for 2012 Seattle Beer Week. Available in select Seattle area restaurants, bars and stores, on draft and in 22-oz. bottles.

Split Shot pours with a tan head and a pitch black body. There is absolutely no question what this beer is from the smell – coffee and lots of roasted malt dominate and that is from a foot away from the beer. Up close, this beer smells like a coffee shop roasting its beans – heavy espresso with hints of smoke and grains, taking me back to my bachelor days when I lived near Lighthouse coffee and would smell them roasting beans in the afternoon. The beer has a creamy mouth feel, like taking a sip of espresso with a good crema. Lingering coffee dominates the palate, with a slight bitterness and just a hint of malt and milk sweetness on the back end – this beer could easily be confused for an iced espresso. The coffee is strong but not completely overpowering, but I would still not recommend this beer unless you really liked coffee. As the beer warms, the coffee becomes more restrained and notes of chocolate, sugar, barley and grain start to appear. I would recommend serving this beer between 40 and 45 degrees if you like slightly bitter coffee and 45 to 50 degrees if you want to taste the full range of flavors that this beer has to offer.

If you like coffee and beer, get your over-caffeinated self to a bottle shop and pick this one up, you won’t regret it.

Elysian Split Shot Stout shakes itself down to the local coffee shop with a delicious 4 grande, non-fat mocha with whips out of 5.