Kaffee Spøgelse (Coffee Ghost)
Mikkeller ApS

an absolutely dead sexy looking glass of beer from the tap at mikkeller in san francisco. big chocolate brown head puffy and lasting on top of a shiny inky black base entirely impenetrable to the light. the beer itself though, is not quite as prominent on the coffee as i had hoped it would be, and pretty dense wintery thick beer, aggressive in some ways, underdone in others, although i do like it a lot. the aroma is more of the burnt dark barley than it seems to be the coffee, i get a bit of it in there, a lighter sweeter sort of roastiness there. the hops are pretty intense though, and seem to out bitter both elements there, and the citrusy grapefruit peel thing they add to the flavor is working against the coffee in my opinion, not with it. way more a black ipa than a coffee beer, the hops are super intense all the way through, quite pungent even in the heavier deeper dark grain soup. its almost smart to have the coffee where it is here, at first i wanted more of it, but i have since come around to liking it in the background. these hops dont need to be messed with like that. tons of body, a nice char element and the citrus from the hops linger long in the finish, some coffee, not a ton. silky in texture, weighty and barren, cold, intimidating a little bit. cool beer, cool that its coming out of san diego mikkeller, they seem to be doing a pretty great job. this was different enough, but didnt wow me, especially as a coffee beer.