Collaboration in Coffee Form
What does it mean to "Elevate Your Craft"? To us, it means continual inspiration, an obsession with freshness, and quality. We like to get ahead of the curve and swerve you alongside in the passenger seat.
"Barrel Ground" is an imperial coffee stout that holds a special place in our hearts. The project involves a couple of our local flavor-focused friends, Burlap and Bean Roast House and Dad's Hat Rye.
We all started together, with green, unroasted coffee beans (hence the can art), and stuffed them into a Dad's Hat Rye Whiskey barrel for 4 weeks. While the beans are green, they're porous and prone to picking up external aromatics, so why not throw these vulnerable young beans into a Rye Whiskey environment - rich with notes of vanilla, toffee, and brittle treacle.
Peru la Florida is the bean variety, farmed and produced entirely by women. After barrel aging, the beans were expertly roasted by Burlap and Bean in Media, PA. We then infused them into a thick malt-base, absolutely molasses. Fermentation specifications lend rich notes of Amontillado Sherry beneath the freshly brewed coffee notes that complete the narrative of our collaborative and locally imagined "Barrel Ground".
Here's a shot of the roasty malt bill used in the mash tun. This process extracts sugars, colors, and roasty flavors from dark malts. The final result is a customary stout profile in the brew kettle, where bittering hops are added. Even though our stouts are rich with sweetness, they are also high in bitterness, which is measured by IBU - International Bitterness Units.