Ralphius - Coffee
Free Will Brewing Co.

2022 Vintage. 375ml bottle purchased as a single for $20. Free Will releases the Ralphius series every year on Black Friday, so this is almost two years old.

Look: The beer is jet black with very little visible carbonation. There is a wispy mocha colored ring of bubbles around the rim of the glass. It would have been nice if it had a bit more of a head.

Smell: It smells like an aged bourbon barrel imperial stout. Up front, I get some umami and dark dried fruit notes including figs, black cherries, and prunes. Dark chocolate and woody bourbon notes on the finish. Coffee aroma is minimal.

Taste: Up front, it's very strong and a bit aggressive. However, the finish is surprisingly smooth and leaves a nice warming feeling in the chest. It actually took a little while for this beer to open up. Ultimately, I got a nice coffee caramel flavor and the beer is not overly sweet. Nice notes of fudge, coffee, and dark roasty, toasty notes. Surprisingly, the beer has very low bitterness.

Feel: The mouthfeel is medium plus. It's by no means thick but it's not really thick either. It has a velvety smooth mouthfeel. Carbonation is relatively low, but it works for this type of beer.

Overall: This took a little while to warm up to me, pun intended. It actually has a lot of complexity and the bourbon barrel aging has been very nicely integrated into the rich imperial stout base. The coffee adjunct also has been blended seamlessly into the beer.

From the label:
Coffee Ralphius
Imperial stout aged for one year in bourbon barrels with coffee
14.4% alc. by vol.
This variant showcases locally roasted coffee beans from Speakeasy Coffee Co. aged for a year in various bourbon barrels - featuring notes of mocha, espresso, and a fresh bag of beans
A total of - 1,000 bottles were produced

It's very similar to regular Ralphius, thick, roasty and with a noticeable bourbon aroma and flavor. Docking a little on taste because I didn't feel the coffee added much.

 

Poured from a bottle into pint glass in February 2023. I drank this about 2 months after purchase. There is date of 2022 on the label.

Appearance: Very dark black with a thin dark brown/red head. Head was about 1 finger high, and lasted a minute. It leaves a little lacing on the glass, and ended with a thin tan head still on the beer.

Smell: Nice aroma of dark fruit, bourbon, and coffee. There is also some cocoa, caramel, and some other sweet aroma like black licorice, but overall the coffee and bourbon dominate the others. It is a very nice balance of aromas.

Taste: There is a nice balance between the coffee, bourbon, and sweetness like licorice flavors. There is some dark fruit flavors like cherry, as well as smokie roasted flavors, some caramel and vanilla flavors, chocolate, and only a little amount of bitter hop flavors to enhance the taste and add some complexity. There is a strong alcohol presence, which matches the 14.4% on the label, but which contrasts to the ABV listed below. It is balanced nicely by the sweetness. The taste is an excellent mix.

Mouth-feel: Thick like liquid licorice, but with a smooth body. Not overly smooth like a Milk Stout.

This is a very good, complex, Imperial Stout, and it has a variety of flavors that adds a nice complexity to the beer. Although this is a big beer, it is very smooth and enjoyable to drink. This sweetness and bourbon flavor is a nice balance to the high alcohol content. Ralphius is one of my favorite stouts overall, and this coffee version is also great. My current favorite stouts are:

Founder's CBS
Goose Island Beer's Bourbon County Brand Stout
Weyerbacher's Sunday Morning Stout
Founders Breakfast Stout
Free Will Ralphius Imperial Stout
Fegley's Bourbon Barrel Aged Insidious
Hoppin' Frog's BORIS Oatmeal Imperial Stout - Barrel Aged
Bourbon Barrel-Aged Czar Imperial Stout
Samuel Smith Oatmeal Stout

Enjoying this beer on a Saturday morning, first since the great beer spill!

Very nice beer, like all the Ralphius variants I have had. Poured into a small tulip glass. Not much initial head but a good brown head develops leaving good curtain lacing. All this with a rich dark brown, almost black, body. Boozy, coffee smell and taste. The taste is luxurious and includes cinnamon and dark chocolate. Drinking it with a wonderful boudin roll, all locally sourced with my dog Ralphie at my side. God blesses me!

 

Absolutely phenomenal aroma, replete with notes of bourbon, coffee, and the base stout. Brown sugar, molasses, oak, coffee, chocolate, vanilla, raisin, nuts.

Huge and rich on the palate, holding little back. Sweet, but not overly sweet; the coffee adds a lovely bitter balance, particularly after mid sip, as does the oak once the sweeter aspects of the bourbon fade. Tasting notes match the nose.

Another fantastic Ralphius entry, as good as any flavored BA stout out there.

2022 edition - 14.7% ABV (Or so I think; my eyes are really struggling to make out the text on this label. Either I got old real quick or black on brown is a bad color scheme.)

A little more head than anticipated, though it dissolves to a ring real quick. Other than that, there's really not much to judge. It looks the part. Smells the part as well. It smells like a giant imperial stout that spent a long time in bourbon barrels. I'm not really getting much coffee. Or, more accurately, any coffee. Either they did the coffee portion of the show before the barrel-aging and it completely fell off or this is a mislabeled bottle. I do taste some coffee so I'm leaning toward the former. It comes in somewhere in aftertaste land. Drinks slick up front with rich fudgy chocolate. Really quite sweet, but it's reasonably balanced by a charred-barrel booziness. Long, complex, oily finish. Maintains a thick mouthfeel. Vanilla extract notes. Kind of a prickly carbonation on the tongue. Huh. This is good (and I would have been completely bonkers over it 5 years ago) but I think maybe I'm kinda over gigantic barrel-aged stouts. At least to some degree. I'm still going to enjoy sipping this, but I expect it to get far, far too sweet as it warms.

EDIT: Yep, crazy sweet a couple hours later.

 

The base beer is so rich and fudgy that the coffee has a hard time coming through. It is there as a welcome accent but I would have liked more of it. As mostly Ralphius, this is still enjoyable as hell.

Poured from a bottle into a Dogfish Head tulip

L: Inky black oil-slick of a pour. Thin/barely-there off-white head. Thin ring of lacing.

S: Rich and roasty. Cocoa and espresso.

T.F: Just like it smells. Rich and roasty. Burned sugars and cocoa. Strong coffee notes... lighter vanilla and bourbon. Boozy with molasses and char. Thick and oily on the tongue... low carbonation.

O: I love the Ralphius series... and the coffee really worked nicely with this iteration. Great flavor... and a slow dessert sipper. Great stuff. Dangerous with the ABV

I have mixed feelings on this variant.

On one hand, the thing that I LOVE about the standard version of Ralphius is that the bourbon really comes out and blends well with the classic heavy stout flavors of the offering. This variant does not have that quality - in fact, I thought the essence of the barrel was VERY weak.

However, the coffee notes are spectacular! The nose is filled with notes of sweet chocolate and Kahlua. The flavor also has strong notes of coffee liqueur and molasses. The mouthfeel is boldly sticky.

My conclusion is that this is very different from the standard Ralphius and I LOVE both for different reasons.

375 ml bottle, capped. 2019 edition

Pours inky jet black, tan head that fades to nothing. Boozy aroma of a mix of espresso, dark chocolate, a little smoke, and bourbon. Taste is similar, bold and complex, a touch of sweetness a d a bit of black cherry. Feel is thick and viscous.

Unbelievable feel for a high abv stout. Great base flavor. Complex. Smooth.

 

L - 1.5 finger mocha head atop a black body.

S - bourbon is detectable from several feet away. Vanilla, molasses, dark fruits, a little coffee, chocolate.

T - oh my. Chocolate and coffee lead the way, followed by a punch of bourbon. Oak, vanilla, char, molasses. Low bitterness. Moderate-low sweetness. Moderate booziness.

F - medium-full body with appropriate carb.

O - would never guess this was 17% abv.

 

 

Pours a rich, dark-chocolate brown with a half finger of dark tan head. It leaves a little wisp across the top and thin sheets of lacing.

Chocolate and bourbon with vanilla and almond biscotti notes stand out in the aroma. There’s some light breakfast-roast coffee behind.

Chocolatey tasting with the perfect amount of alcohol heat to it. Restrained coffee comes through in the finish. The almond-tinted bourbon flavor lingers in the aftertaste.

Very slick mouthfeel with just enough carbonation.

Excellent base beer. The chocolate and bourbon burn in this are great, and the almond notes are a fun change-up from many other BBA stouts. The coffee is much more mild than I’d expect from such a fresh bottle, though. October 2018 bottling, released yesterday.