Quaffee
Snowbank Brewing

a collaboration with verboten, this is a belgian quad brewed with local coffee, hence the name. its a solid beer, a need get together between these two breweries, and something i really liked a lot. we dont see coffee work its way into belgian styles all that often, so the leading point of interest for me here is the relationship between the chocolatey espresso notes of this and the spicy, estery belgian yeast. i dont really quite get the malt depth i look for in a quad, that toasty and sweet dried fruity toffee layered complexity, its more simple than that, but perhaps some of its nuance is covered up by the coffee, which is dark and strong in here. loads of cocoa swirling around, a light raisin note, and some brown sugar sweetness. the yeast has left some sugar in here, this is sweet beer, but its also added a neat spiciness to the beer that gives it a distinct belgian character without the cotton candy/bubblegum thing a lot of these american made belgian styles have when they get to this strength. the coffee adds needed bitterness too. there is a ton of body, and less carbonation than we would find in most belgian quads, but it works. very wintery, hearty, and warming, with a little alcohol sting in the finish. clever beer, i like the coffee in an unconventional style for it, and i think both of these breweries are on the up and up. fun brew!