Coffee Pearl Stout
Back Street Brewery & Lamppost Pizza

 

 

Notes taken at the source itself. On to the beer:

The appearance is black, topped with a creamy tanned head, which leaves good lace around the glass. It has an attractive nose, consisting of coffee grounds, some licorice, and chocolate syrup. The taste is "melded" together well, chocolate covered coffee beans, sweet, not too sweet, and there's a touch of vanilla. What also helps is the very smooth texture of the beer and low astringency. In turn, that helps make the beer on the drinkable side.

Tasty coffee stout. Go get a pint or two.

This brew wasn't created from scratch. Rather, it's a brand-new version of Black Pearl Stout. A friend of the brewer came back from a trip to Guatemala with pounds upon pounds of fresh, whole coffee beans that Bob used in this brew.

Poured from a growler into a pint glass as I review this, but just got back from the brewery where we enjoyed several pints fresh from the tap.

Black as midnight. Lots of head, dark tan in color. Great head retention and long-lasting sticky lacing.

Just like black pearl except way more aromatic with the added powerful coffee fragrance. Mmmm - best part of waking up is some of this in my cup.

Great bitter coffee taste. Hints of oatmeal. Complex mix of malts, couldn't necessarily pick them all out but they're there and easily identifiable for one with greater beer knowledge than I. No alcohol present. Not because it's well-hidden, it's just not there. I always encourage Bob to jack up the abv of black pearl. This coffee version would be a real winner with a higher abv (he even admitted that there's enough space for another 100lbs of malt if he wanted to do it).

Soft and creamy but still has some weight to it. Somewhat of a dry finish, you can tell there is some astringency coming from the coffee beans.

Great beer. Especially when this is not even close to the brewer's favorite style. Stoked he did a coffee version of his milk stout and it came out this well.