Thursday, January 29, 2009

Review of Schlafly Coffee Stout

I've had the Coffee Stout a few times, each time I appreciate the creativity and craftsmanship. It tastes exactly as it sounds, coffee and beer. It's not bad - more of a novelty. I wouldn't work the sixer all night but it could be a good finisher. The last time I had it my comments were, "I could go for a piece of cheesecake".

Breakdown: nice and dark. moderate head. lingers on the tongue a bit (like coffee). coffee smell and aftertaste - well brewed, strong, black coffee (Kaldi's Coffee to be exact).

I like it

5 comments:

  1. thanks for the review. this was always one of my favorite stouts when i lived in kansas city. i went through loads one fall imparticular, usually sipping these at room temperature on my back porch with a book.

    however, on a recent trip to the schlafly taproom, i had a completely different experience. my beloved coffee stout tasted stringently acidic and somewhat burnt: not smokey, but burnt. the subtle notes of chocolate and creaminess i had remembered swirling in the aftertaste had been replaced with a burnt raisin, burnt coffee, burnt burnt flavor. us beer conneissuers like to immediately jump to the conclusion, if something tastes different in the beers we once loved, that something has changed in the recipe. and maybe that was the case. or maybe this was a bad batch. or maybe something in my pallate has learned to defy that which i once swore allegiances. who knows?

    your review here, if remarking on a recent bottle, helps me feel that maybe my bad pint of coffee stout there at schlafly was a solitary event. i hope so. that stuff carried me through three stephen king novels and an autobiography of a herpetologist.

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  2. it tasked like coffee and therefore wasn't that great.

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  3. the baker likes bitter things like beer and tobacco but not coffee...

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  4. Good review of the Coffee Stout...
    Maybe you got burnt out from over indulging in Kansas City. Maybe it was the change of environment or lack of lizard literature at Schlafly, who knows. Maybe Kaldi's did something different with the coffee - tried to copy Starbucks.
    I get on kicks where I can't get enough of a style and - pfft! doesn't sit right anymore.
    I hope my comments help, there's still hope my young hamster. Try from the bottle again.

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  5. This brings up a good point. i do like beer, but i don't think that it's bitter we are comparing here. i don't like dark chocolate, too bitter. I don't like coffee either. But, i do love hoppy beers. I don't think hoppy beers are bitter though, at least not in the way that ESB's are. Coffee doesn't necessarily get me on the bitterness. It's simply the taste.
    If you ground up tire into a powder and mixed it with milk...that's what coffee tastes like to me.

    I am beginning to like stouts, but i find myself drawn to cream stouts or creamy tasting porters vs. coffee or oatmeal stouts.

    not saying they aren't good to many, it just seems like mixing my least favorite flavors in with a beverage i love. If they ever make a good and plenty flavored beer, i just might contemplate an act of terrorism.

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