Question about array of Bourbon County ABV's

More berries, coconut or coffee = less base beer, so lower ABV?

 

My guess is that the addition of any adjuncts (coffee, berries, etc) affected the ability of the yeast present to attenuate fully (or they didn't want it to for flavor reasons- a slightly sweeter base beer might taste better with coffee even if it means slightly less alcohol).

The differences within the same type of BCBS surprised me, and it might have to do with barrel-aging (although the amount of alcohol picked up from a barrel is pretty minimal). If they did two distinct batches, it could also be blamed on yeast attenuation.

 

With coffee I am not sure if it is a question of attenuation or if the base beer gets diluted by the addition of coffee in the instance of using a cold pressed coffee. If it's "drybeaned" than I've obviously got nothing.

 

It is possible that they brewed up different batches for each of these beers to complement the additional ingredients.

Using berries will add fermentable sugars to the beer to add to the alcohol content. The addition of Coffee will not add fermentable sugars to the beer, only flavor. Since these are added after primary fermentation, only the berries would have an affect on the yeast. Since the berries add a sugar source for the yeast they will continue to work on the beer.

 

too many variables in play to answer this factually. simplest way is to rationalize it, obviously these are batches. every batch in natural form would be expected to differ no? just as the abv & barrel influence would be expected to differ slightly per individual barrel. if the variants were all the same, you'd have to wonder what steps were taken to bring them level.

 

Depends on the type of sugars present in the berries. Not all are fermentable by ale yeast, which would leave them in the beer without increasing alcohol content.