Hotbox Maduro
Cigar City Brewing

a neat partnership with the oskar blues guys has yielded a pretty cool beer, done just one time from what i understand, its cigar citys maduro brown with some of the hotbox coffee oskar blues does blended in, on tap at their new chuburger location, and pretty tasty! i was excited to see this, and remain excited for the launch of cigar city more widely in colorado. this is a good reminder that they make an incredible brown ale, and its awesome how light it is here, still packed with chocolate malt flavor, a richness of feel from the oats, and a pleasing dryness, but here enhanced by the coffee. now i am a coffee beginner, not quite a novice, but not a wealth of knowledge either, but i have not yet found hotbox coffee to be among the best in town here, i find it overly strong, acidic, and sometimes burnt tasting, just less refined than the better roasters are doing. i think the less than amazing coffee kind of shows here, and this would be a way better beer with say, corvus cold brew blended in instead of this hotbox, which to me has a burnt note deeper than the malts in the brown and more bitterness than it needs. that said, the addition of coffee into maduro brown at all is a great idea, and i really like what it adds, not too much, but it really works with the base beer. this is one i could see taking off as a wider introduction to the relationship between the two breweries. for now, i think its only available at chuburger, so worth going down there to try. i really liked it, and hope the hotbox coffee improves a bit as time moves along. cool collaboration!