I love coffee, and of course I love beer, especially stouts. Naturally I'm a big fan of the combination, especially when done right. I think that coffee beers that are successful are a delicate balance of coffee presence and the chocolatey-roasty qualities of a stout. When done wrong however, they are unbalanced and have either aroma and no flavor, or the acidity of the coffee fights with the roasted malts to overpower the subtleties of the stout.One of the things I love about homebrewing is being able to brew a beer, tweak it, and having it come out better another time around. While its hard for me to always be 100% satisfied with my final product, I can say that I would rank Stout Chocula in the top 3 beers I've ever brewed.
I had attempted an oatmeal stout in October, the Norseman. The Norseman turned out great in a couple areas and fell short in several others. It was the first time I had brewed with oatmeal and I felt like the mouthfeel was perfect, it also had some nice chocolaty notes going on, but was not nearly dark enough or roasty enough. I had brewed with coffee before too, but wasn't in love with the result. I think the coffee ended up being too bitter and acidic in the beer. This time around I did some things differently and feel like the changes worked. For starters I used cocoa nibs in the secondary, which really brings out the chocolate and adds some nice texture. Also the coffee cold pressing worked better this time around and really brought the aroma to the forefront. These two things come out in the beer. The oatmeal helped add some nice mouthfeel as one would expect, and I did a partial mash/steep mix that I had read about in a BYO article from Chris Colby. He discussed steeping the dark malts so that they don't add acidity (mashing dark malts in a partial mash changes the ratios compared to an all grain batch) and so I mashed the base malts, and steeped the dark malts. The end result was the color I was looking for and the beer is not too acidic. One last twist, is that I brewed with decaf coffee. I chose to use a local coffee, Peace Coffee's Dark Roast. I chose to go decaf so I could enjoy this beer at night! Overall, I'm quite pleased. Onto the review:
Stout Chocula pours dark chocolate brown/black with a two finger light khaki head. Aromas of coffee come out right away, nutty and roasty like a fresh brewed cup, followed by some chocolate and caramel notes too. The first thing you notice in the flavor is the coffee, but that soon becomes chocolaty and malty sweet. Faint hints of vanilla, nuts, and milk chocolate. The coffee isn't as present initially, but comes through in the finish. It finishes with some lingering milk chocolate sweetness. The mouthfeel is perfect I think, creamy with a nice milkshake quality. At 6% its not nearly as chewy as a bigger stout, but still smooth and full.
Here's the partial mash recipe:
Steep: 1 lb Organic Chocolate
2 oz Organic Roasted Barley*
.25 lbs Organic Black Malt *
* Organic co-op Seven Bridges has expanded their grains, now they thankfully carry black malt.
Mash @ 152 for 1 hr:
2 lbs Organic Munich Malt
. 5lbs Organic Crystal 60
1 lb Organic 2-Row
.5lbs Oatmeal
6 lbs Org. LME @ 60
. 6 0z Organic Pacific Gem hops (13% AA) @ 60
Wyeast 1084 Irish Ale
In the secondary: 4.5 oz Organic Cocoa Nibs, boil in 1.5 cups of water, drain, and put in secondary. 10 oz or so of cold pressed decaf dark roast (For those not familiar with cold pressing at home, very simple, just add 1/2 lb of coffee grounds to a container, fill it up with 24 oz of water and let it sit overnight. Then strain it through a coffee filter.) Plus .5 tsp of vanilla.
On another note, for my spring break I'm headed to Tuscon, Arizona. Excited to try some West Coast beers, hit up the Nimbus Brewing Company, and go to a store called Total Wine that my dad raves about for their incredible selection. Planning on dropping some cash in that store. I hope to post next week on my experiences out Az.
Salud!
Bearded Brewer
