I'm curious whether anyone has ever aged a beer that had coffee added to it. I brewed a pretty basic English Barleywine last winter for consumption this winter. I'd like to brew another this winter, starting an annual tradition, but I don't want to use the same recipe each year. I'd like to try to brew a dark English Barleywine this year. I'm on a bit of a coffee beer kick right now also, so I'd like to explore the possibility of infusing the beer with coffee. Will coffee hold up after a few years of aging in a beer, or will the flavor diminish to the possible detriment of the beer?
Only beer I add coffee to is imperial stouts, but a barleywine could be interesting. I always blend with cold brewed coffee in the bottling bucket. Short answer: it will slowly diminish over time, but will not be detrimental to the flavor. I have one left that's over a year old and the coffee flavor is there but it's taken a back seat. The first few months it will taste like straight up coffee but will blend nicely over time. How are you thinking of adding it?
I've had coffee stouts and a coffee brown ale, all of which were amazing. I've never had a coffee barleywine, but in my head it seems like it could be a good idea. Cold brewing and adding to the bottling bucket is exactly what I was thinking also. I did a coffee stout a couple months back where I cold-brewed and added after active fermentation was complete (about a week into fermentation), and that turned out very nice, but in hindsight I figured there wasn't much point in adding to the fermenter as opposed to just waiting until bottling.
I did a RIS about 4, maybe 5 years ago, that I split a couple ways. The coffee version was delicious at 1 year and the coffee was faded but still noticeable at 4 years. FWIW, I cold steeped the coffee and added it at bottling time. I can find more details if you are interested.
From what I've read, you get a smoother coffee flavor from blending with cold steeped versus 'hot brewed' coffee.
Go for it. The coffee will fade, but still should make a good beer. Maybe go a little strong on the coffee to start with, knowing that it will fade? I've never really aged a coffee beer. But first thing that came to mind was KBS. That has coffee, and still tastes damn fine after many years.
Side note - I took about 1/2 gallon out of a dry Irish stout and added coffee. Totally a badass pellicule on top of it now. Gonna let that work for a while and see what we get!
After my comment last night about my coffee RIS, I went digging around in the basement and found that I have two bottles left, so I dropped one in the fridge and I just opened it. I brewed this 12/22/11 as a partigyle (RIS from 1st runnings and dry stout from 2nd). The RIS OG = 1095, one gallon got 1.5oz of cold steeped coffee (16oz water) added at bottling on 2/5/12. So brewed/bottled almost 5 years ago. With that background, when I poured the bottle, I immediately got a whiff of coffee, it is subtle but there. The taste is muted, but there is obviously coffee there, not just a big stout. So, based on this one "experiment", I'd say that aging a big coffee beer is worth it, especially if you think you will drink it in a year or two.
