Coffee + Beer

Dark. Smooth. Not at all intimidating.

Our coffee milk stout was one of our favorite original recipes for its drinkability despite being a dark stout.  This beer drinks as smooth and refreshing as a cold brew coffee and makes for a great nightcap, but we wouldn’t judge you if it becomes your breakfast beer of choice.  Is there a better pair than coffee and beer?

We partnered with Garrett Hill, owner of Apothecary Coffee Co. and manager of 309 Coffee, to incorporate some local coffee into our beer.  Garrett gained experience in coffee roasting through an intensive course in Portland, Oregon.  After moving to Georgetown, he partnered with a few others in the local community to get 309 Coffee up and running. Using locally roasted coffee to brew our stout was always important to us, so it only made sense to partner with a local Georgetown roaster.  When we approached him about a possible collaboration with our coffee milk stout, he set up a QC (quality control) cupping in order to put our heads together on picking which of their coffees would pair best with our stouts.  A QC cupping is a specific process of smelling and tasting different roasts of coffee in a very particular fashion in order to pick out the various tasting notes and evaluate the batch quality.  The process entailed carefully smelling the coffee grounds dry, then wet, then tasting them in liquid coffee form. The technique of tasting the coffee involved slurping sips of coffee from a spoon and pausing to contemplate what flavors were noted.  Obviously, there’s more to it than that, but you should learn the technique from the expert (not us). This was a totally new experience for us, and fortunately Garrett showed us the ropes and educated us throughout the process.

Ultimately, Garrett designed a specialty espresso blend for the coffee milk stout, due to its toasty, chocolate notes which would pair well with the aromas given off by the chocolate malt and roasted barley.  For our pumpkin spice latte, we went with the Guatemalan variety, which had more tasting notes of dark fruits and figs which would complement the spices in the beer.  To round out the beers, we threw in some flaked oats and flaked barley for added head retention and creaminess.  We look forward to sharing these coffee + beer collaboration brews at our Tap Takeover with 309 Coffee on Saturday, November 16th from 3pm – 7pm.