Black Butte Coffee Porter, Tasting Session

Coffee Porter on a Weds Afternoon?

Aroma: Starbucks on a Sunday morning. Whole coffee bean, hints of vanilla, toffee and caramel

Appearance: Black, burnt toffee highlights around the edges of the glass.  Thick pillowy head, tan in color with lighter in color bubbles.  I really am liking the appearance in my stout glassware with this beer.



Flavor: Very clean, understated bitterness with small vanilla notes.  No tannins, which I expected from the coffee addition.  Small amount of roasted barley flavors.  Very crisp, hard to explain.  I'm sure the final gravity helps the impression of the "crisp" feeling. 

Mouthfeel: Medium to thin in body, about were I wanted to be.  I've kept the carbonation lower (1.8 vols) and its working out nicely. 

Overall Impression: I love this beer, very clean, the gravity is right where it should be.  It is a great example of what "could" be done with coffee in beer.  If I was to brew this again I would lower the coffee amount by 1 oz, but most people that have had this beer say to raise it, or keep it the same.  I've bottled a couple in big 750ml's for aging to see how they handle storage over time.

Brewing Timeline/Notes:  This was a great beer to brew, for one adding the coffee in the mash was awesome.  For one, it made the garage smell insane.  With that, I am starting to understand a lot more happens in the mash than we would like to think.  I get no coffee bitterness in the final product at all.  I've cold pressed coffee into the secondary, added it to the boil (bad idea) and this clearly tops them all in every way possible for creating a Coffee forward brew.

Here is the link to the original post and recipe.