Beers Brewed with Barrel Aged Coffee

Sorry to hijack your thread but does anyone know what the process for barrel aged coffee is? It's not clear to me why aging coffee would make it it better. Are the green unroasted beans aged, and then roasted?

I tried a barrel aged coffee a couple years ago from Dark matter, which is the shop that makes the barrel aged coffee for Middlebrow. The coffee was aged in wine barrels for one of the Goose sours (maybe Lolita?). It was kinda of weird and tasted like green grapes. I see barrel aged coffee from time to time but I avoid it because of my initial bad experience.

 

Here's another one for you @Naterobsnyk4 (albeit kind of an obscure brewery)
http://www.vabeertrail.net/event/bourbon-barrel-aged-coffee-liberty-or-death-porter-release/

 

Link to "Barrel Aged Coffee" http://www.deathwishcoffee.com/products/barrel-aged-premium-coffee-beans This sounds like something I would seek out in a coffee flavored beer. To be honest though, on the first read of this thread, before some research, the concoction did not sound right... coffee is at its best when freshly roasted and ground (blending of different types and many other steps involved not being mentioned for brevity's sake)

 

If your research didn't already produce this, the coffee actually ages in the barrel before roasting. A roasted bean would not only stale, but do a really poor job of absorbing the barrel's flavor.

If bourbon-barrel-aged-coffee-beer isn't confusing enough for you, Dark Matter Coffee had, for a short time, a coffee that sat in Dark Lord Barrels. Dark Lord, interestingly enough, used Dark Matter Coffee in the brewing process.

Barrel-aged-beer-with-coffee-barrel-aged-coffee? Of course it was incredible.

 

There are different ways to make barrel-aged coffee. Some of the roasters place the green coffee beans in the barrel and then roast them. You can alternatively brew the coffee then put that into barrels. Like anything, it can be great of not so much. I had Caribbean Rum BA coffee (BA coffee beans) from Dark Matter and thought it was amazing. Like Irish Coffee without the Irish. Also had BA brewed coffee from Mostra and that was amazing as well. So just depends what people do and if you like it. I dont see wine barrels making good coffee, but rum and bourbon have been amazing IMHO.

 

I recently had this on draft at the brewery and took a few bottles home to age, as well. The base porter is pretty solid on it's own and the coffee beans used made this beer much better. I didn't get much, if anything, from the bourbon barrel but it is a solid beer as is. Triple Crossing is making some pretty darn good brews down here in Richmond and this is no exception. If you can find some, give it a whirl.

 

If you are looking to create some of the same flavors as coffee, a new oak barrel can be toasted to create that effect. We have a few clients who use higher toast levels on stouts, for example, in order to create some coffee-like effects on the flavor. The benefit to new oak is that the barrel can be customized, and re-used to create flavor based series as the barrel begins to absorb certain flavors during each brew.