Double Bean Blonde

Some bodega: pours lightly amberish gold with a whitish head. Aroma is cocoa and coffee. Taste is somewhat sweet and the chocolate and coffee tastes is there for sure. Lingering aftertaste.

12oz bottle poured into keg shaped glass. I fished this out of a discount cart a little while back and its been sitting in my fridge for 5ish months. Bottled on 2/22/2016, so not even a year old. Fortunately, there is a bunch of adjuncts that overpower the aroma and fight any sign of potential age. The cocoa nibs and are strong and the coffee is dry. The combination makes it very gimmicky, I mean it is. FWIW, if I had to have cocoa nibs and coffee on a blond beer this would be it. The coffee is not offputting at all, which is hard to pull off. The nibs may be too strong but make it sort of a "blond stout." But at the end of the day, this isn’t really what I look for in a beer, even a gimmicky beer.

Ever so slightly hazy golden blonde coloured body with a rich, six centimetre tall off-white head, purely microfoamed - very nice indeed. Aroma of ridiculously strong (for the style) coffee chaff with some decent toasted malt and bitterness that is very noticeable up front - strong and pungent, way more than the appearance indicates. Light to Medium-bodied; Assertive dry and pungent coffee flavours that show up as the dried coffee fruit (similar to a ’coffee tea’) along with some mellow spent grounds flavours along with earthy and cardboardie finishes. Aftertaste shows bitterness, earth, grass, coffee (of course), some light sweetness and a purely bittering finish with the coffee and light malt noticeable. Overall, a nice and enjoyable beer that gets way more flavour and style out of the a relatively lighter type of beer, but shows well and is well worth sampling if you can find it! I sampled this twelve ounce bottle purchased from Whole Foods in Fair Lakes (Fairfax), Virginia on 15-May-2016 for US$1,99 sampled on 12-Decembe-2016 in honor of COL William Vogt, who was laid to rest today here in Arlington National Cemetery, a one-time resident of Saint Louis and die-hard Blues fan, who will be missed - Love and Rest in Peace!

12 ounce bottle, 6/27/16. Hazy yellow, large foamy off-white head, good retention. Aroma of coffee, roast and pale malt. The taste is coffee and pale malt. Medium bodied, moderate carbonation, simple but well executed.

Bottle. Cloudy pale yellow with small white foamy head, honey aroma, high carbonation, sweetish taste with coffee beans flavor, thin body, mediyum coffee finish. Interesting sharp coffee flavor.

bottle - Pours slightly hazy gold and smells of coffee and chocolate. The flavor is on the sweet side with the coffee and chocolate coming through well. Personally I’ve not been a huge fan of the golden beers with coffee, chocolate, and sometimes even some roast flavors added, but it’s fairly good.

On tap at Bottleworks. Pours a light gold with a thin head. Aromas of chocolate (almost white chocolate) with a hint of coffee. Flavor is a decent mix of chocolate and honey like malt. A little more chocolaty than coffee-based.

Bottle sent for review. Normally, beers made with coffee or chocolate nibs, not to mention both, are usually much darker than this, but it turns out that’s because they’re based on a dark style like a stout. I learned otherwise with a "Dirty Summer Blonde" chocolate beer made by the former Walter Payton America’s Brewpub (now Two Brothers Roundhouse) in Aurora. This ale pours out just a little bit hazy, showing a little opaqueness in the thicker part of the glass, with a rich brassy color, so it does come in a little darker than a Blonde Ale. It kicks up a spongy but quickly diminishing white head of foam. The smell is surprisingly lacking in both coffee and chocolate flavors. Instead there’s just a nice malt mix, goes without the sweetness that can come a blonde or golden ale. The flavor is pretty mild on both the coffee and chocolate front. I really get just a very slight note of chocolate, and then a bit of coffee flavoring in the aftertaste. I’m hypothesizing a cold brew was added, or the beer just sat on the beans and cocoa nibs in the secondary, or before bottling. Toward the end of the bottle, I’ve decided the coffee and chocolate are really supporting the malt backbone. Instead of being sweet, this has some substance to it. Not quite a "dry" flavor, but a savory, more complex mouthfeel.

12 oz bottle purchased as part of a mix a six from Friar Tuck in O’Fallon, Missouri. Bottled with love on 01/27/2016. The pour is hazed yellow orange with a ½ inch white head that falls with lace and foam. The aroma is bitter coffee, soft roast, bit of sweet dark chocolate. The taste is bigger on the chocolate, which has dark chocolate and milky sweet cocoa. In addition to the chocolate, the bitter soft roast of coffee is evident, moving towards some floral and cracker malt in the back. Really no roast in the flavor, which is interesting. The palate is medium bodied, soft natural carbonation and coffee floral finish. Interesting beer, flavors come together nicely.