New Glarus Coffee Stout

Brewed By: New Glarus Brewing Company in New Glarus, Wisconsin

Purchased: 12oz bottle from a 6-pack bought at Woodman's in Kenosha, WI; 2014 

Style/ABV: American Stout, 4.8% 

Reported IBUs: ?

Mmmm mmm love those trips across the border. About New Glarus:

New Glarus is the rare, gorgeous "Midwest" brewery, founded in 1993 by Deborah Carey, the first woman to found and operate a brewery in the United States. She raised the capital for the start-up as a gift to her husband, Dan Carey, who is New Glarus' brewmaster and co-owner. Dan Carey has a long history working in the brewing industry, including an apprenticeship at a brewery near Munich, Germany and a job as the Production Supervisor for Anheuser-Busch. The brewery began as an abandoned warehouse using old brewpub equipment. In 1997, Dan Carey purchased coper kettles from a brewery in Germany. In May 2006, New Glarus opened their new (current) facility on a hilltop in the village of New Glarus. The facility looks like a Bavarian village, and is gorgeous. The expansion has allowed the brewery to continue to increase their production, and expand their operations. For more information, check out their brewery page or Wikipedia. 

The Coffee Stout is a Winter Seasonal, and lawdy cheesus, what a good choice this beer is. Who doesn't love coffee stouts? (The answer is Hitler, that's who). Anyway, this beer is brewed with Wisconsin water, roasted malts, American hops, and organic coffee from Just Coffee Co-Op. Are you as excited as I am? 

New Glarus Coffee Stout

This one pours the part of a Stout...black, opaque body...you know the drill. There's some brown tones visible on the edges of the glass, and the beer kicks up two fingers of creamy, dense, tan head. As the head drops off you're left with nice lacing and sea foam covering that is spotty like...well, we won't go there.

The aroma here is big toast, caramel, chocolate, cocoa, and coffee. Again...this is a very New Glarus approach to the style, with an emphasis on the sweeter, German-style malts.

The taste delivers the goods, with big coffee hitting your palate in a big way. The coffee is assertive, fresh, vibrant, and fucking good if I had to get crass. It's a ground coffee flavor, with some mild earthy notes and some hints of wood and creamer. It never gets into espresso range, and it's not quite sweet enough to be hazelnut. Along with the coffee is tons of toast, cocoa, caramel sweetness, and malty sweetness that screams "New Glarus made this beer." It's good though.

This is medium to light-bodied, and at 4.8% or whatever, this is super drinkable. Palate depth is good, and complexity is pretty good for the style. You get a lot of roast, toast, and munich malts up front; that rolls into big earthy coffee, coffee, more roast, and some wood/vanilla; the back end has lingering coffee, caramel, some hints of chocolate...it finishes earthy and dry, with the coffee. It's good, but not amazing.

Rating: Above-Average (4.0/5.0 Untappd)

I'm feeling a Light Above-Average on this. What I find impressive is that this beer is around ~5.0% ABV and it still packs as much flavor as it does. And it does get better as it warms...so drink this one warm. Still, there are many coffee stouts out there, and this one can only go so far in a very competitive pack. Having said all that, I would have no problem pairing this beer with chocolate desserts, burgers, or even a steak. It's a good beer and easily one of my favorite New Glarus offerings. I hope they brew this again, and I would buy this again.

Random Thought: Yuuup...there's more coming, but I think that's all for tonight.