Turkish Coffee Black Lager
Pigeon Head Brewery

i did not try the regular black lager in here, i wanted to as a reference point for this one, and because their pils was so fire, but i was seduced by the turkish coffee, jumped right into this one and never looked back. cool beer, cool base beer for these flavors, cool everything in here, fun spot, clever brews. a little cloudiness through the dark, short tan head from the tap, plenty of carbonation. it smells like pretty darkly roasted, strong, bitter coffee, with some age on it, a little coffee fade in the nose for sure, a shame, but its there, not quite green pepper and paper, but definitely off from rich cocoa and oily beans, some green cardamom too, maybe light nutmeg, cinnamon, and vanilla, but its the cardamom, a chai note, and the coffee dominating some roasted barley and a hint of european grain character, the lager yeast is subtle to my senses. the flavor is similar to the nose, i love the warming eastern spice complex this has, more than just cardamom it seems but that drives it. the coffee is bitter and lightly acidic which breaks down some of the body this starts with, oxidation makes the strong coffee linger weirdly too, but overall the beer is yummy, with a lot of roast, light smoke, no middle sweetness at all, a bready yeast note coming through, nice minerality at the center of it, warming spices with the java at the end, dry cocoa, light sharpness despite the smooth drawn out lager character, slight dustiness. this is good, but it could be better than it is too, not as refined as the pils they make, which would be a big step, and fresher, perhaps lighter roasted coffee too, even if that isnt quite the turkish way, the roasted barley brings enough of that. still, cool recipe, well spiced, and its neat that its a lager. fun winter offering.

Thanks to Sheldon for bringing a crowler of this to March Madness 2017. 1st review of the beer here on BA.

This is basically their black lager with coffee. Black beer pours black. But not stout viscosity black, this is right in the schwarzbier wheelhouse. Has about 1/3" of tan head. The aroma is discernibly different, the coffee isn't massively pungent, but it does constitute an upgrade. Saaz hops in the background.

Taste also bouyed by the coffee infusion, again, an improvement (and I like the base lager even if not rated super high). Good mixture of old school bittering hops, lager yeast, roasted malt and coffee taste going here. Carbonation high but nice coming out of a crowler, they just aren't as reliable as a can or bottle of beer carbonation wise.

I think they should can this up. For whatever reason they don't have a lot of variety in their cans, but this one should get the call up.