I need opinions on adding coffee to certain styles

Most any of those can take on coffee. The trick is the coffee you add. Some coffee beans taste like nuts and chocolate and roast. Some taste like lemons and klementines. Some taste like dark fruits like cherry or plum. Some are acidic. Some are full bodied and very oily. Some are soft, some are harsh, some are bold, some are subtle. The key is to find a coffee that will play up the natural aspects of the beer. A citrus hop forward beer or crisp lager/cream ale would probably do well with an acidic citrus forward bean. The Brown would do well with a nutty to chocolaty bean with lower acidity, or a dark fruit, or a blend of the two.

 

I personally think that a coffee cream ale could be great if it's well balanced.

 

Get a few Jager Bombs in `ya before you think about drinking coffee beers in the sun on the beach. Nobody'll drown.

 

Let us know how it turns out, love that beer and it is hard to get around Houston, found it today and picked up a growler. Interested in how you apply the coffee, they specifically mention that they use cold brew

 

Ive never understood how using coffee beans during the brewing process is any better than adding coffee to finished beer. How are you going to get the proper extraction from whole beans in cold beer? Cold brew requires 2-3 days extraction using fairly fine grind. And beer cannot extract as well as water. Good coffee flavour is usually found between 19%-21% extraction of coffee contents. It's a pretty small window and difficult to get right.

From what I understand, adding finished cold brew just before bottling makes the most sense.

 

I make a Coffee Porter regularly and can say that good coffee flavour extraction takes about 2-3 days using whole beans. Alcohol is a better extractor of flavor than water. Adding cold brew to the coffee after the fact (whether at bottling or in the glass) dilutes the beer.

 

By waiting a couple days and then removing the beans. It works just like dry hopping.

Many people do it that way, but many dry bean. Have you tried it?

 

No, but coffee is so picky about how it's prepared I doubt it would bend the rules just for homebrewers. A whole bean has a tiny percent of the necessary surface area for proper extraction. And alcohol will extract different compounds from coffee, it won't just extract "better". Plus, whatever flavour compounds are in the wort already will affect extraction.