Years ago, our brewmaster and wood cellar-manager spent a trip to Chicago at the Festival of Barrel-Aged Beers trying every specialty stout and porter they could find. The trip was illuminating, amongst the sugar highs and thicc boys, they were able to glean lessons about what sorts of adjuncts were more, and less, successful in these beers. Coconut, chocolate, vanilla, nuts? Bring them on. Chile and spices? Use a light hand. But, one ingredient performed worse, way worse than all of them: coffee. The coffee stouts tasted sour, thin, peppery and unpleasantly acrid. They left that trip knowing that there was one red line in the sand that they’d never cross: no barrel-aged coffee stouts.

Turns out, we live in the age of fractured media, competing truth-bearing discourses, and short memories. So, despite these lessons learned just a few years ago, it seemed like a good idea to make a barrel-aged coffee stout. But this isn’t just a random stab in the dark. We blended this beer with our friends from Maplewood, and they are the ones, we mean really like the only ones out there, who know how to do this coffee and Bourbon stout thing right. During their visit, we pulled casks from our cellar with some seriously high age-statements to build up a base beer that is rich on the palate with many coffee-adjacent notes. The final step was choosing a coffee to dovetail into this blend, and we settled on a classic-leaning one from Good Coffee. The La Cueva blend brings notes of toffee, candied apple, and cognac to the table.

Were we wrong and foolhardy to backtrack on our vow from eight years ago? We’re cool with rethinking our past positions, but at this point no more reason to talk about it. Let’s get on with the action. Kiss kiss, bang bang, taste taste. It’s up to you.