Like everyone with a soul, the first thing we think about every day is coffee, the solver of all life’s problems. Brewers are incredibly territorial, and each morning engage in the “Dance of a Thousand Filters,” a death match with only one loosely upheld rule – turn your back on brewing coffee and you will not get any coffee. Sometime this ritual can last minutes even hours while the jet black potion drips down into the waiting pot, under the gaze of a hundred waiting eyes. It has been said said (by Confucius, I believe*) that beer is food for ideas, and coffee is the fuel to make them happen. The two are something of a Ying and Yang, but share a discernable number of similar qualities, the most prominent of which being their intense and complex flavor profiles. With “Spresso” we looked to combine the best of two already incredible worlds and rituals, providing a full on espresso experience, in a hefty, well rounded Imperial Stout. We know something about beer, but when it comes to coffee, our long time friends at Caravan Coffee Roasters are the caffeinated captains of bean wizardry, and we brought them on board for the brew.

After running tests and trials, a consistent pattern of feedback emerged – “MORE COFFEE.” So, when it came to brewing this beast we ended up infusing around 80 kilograms of coffee into the beer in two parts. Part of the wort was drawn off and infused with the first 40 kilograms of ground coffee at around 92 degrees Celsius. Then a month later we infused the fermenting beer with the remaining 40 kilograms as whole beans at around 10 degrees Celsius. It finally emerged from its coffee catacomb a full on, roasty, bittersweet beast with a subtle hickory and treacle richness. The perfect marriage of the two things that get us through the day.

*We do not believe this.