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"Flat White" Coffee Cream Ale

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akueck

akueck

Certified Mead Mentor
Certified Mead Mentor
Jun 26, 2006
4,958
11
0
Ithaca, NY
We drank a lot of flat whites in NZ while it rained on us, thus the recipe name and general theme inspiration. The impetus for this one is the "Iron Brewer" contest I set up at work. I drew coffee as the special ingredient, and I'm up against one of the VPs. On the plus side, he's a newbee. On the down side, he's doing a stout--it's hard to screw up a coffee stout. Anyway...

Tiny batch, ~2 gallons

2.5 lbs 2-row
0.5 lbs flaked maize
0.25 lbs white wheat
0.25 lbs lactose
6 g Kent Goldings (5.6%) 70 mins
Coffee--to be added at or near bottling
Nottingham yeast

Mashed at 150 F.

That's it! Awfully simple recipe, but a little weird for being a light beer with coffee in it. Who knows, it might be terrible. I did get to use my outdoor propane 60,000 btu burner for the first time though. ;D
 
Interesting. You could try (as a different spin on your ingredient) a very light roast coffee, or perhaps even some unroasted beans. I'm thinking of the light, almost grain-like flavor that I've had with Starbucks newer "Blonde" roasts. But to be perfectly honest, I'd look for a local roaster and leave the Starbucks stuff out. I've not been impressed with the quality of the beans that they use for their very light roast coffees.
 
Do you have an air popcorn popper? For the last year, I have been roasting my own coffee in one. You could control your roast level and you can't get any fresher. Not to mention your choice of beans increases.
 
I am looking for a light roast, although I'm not confident I'll find one I like in the next week. I did have a *really* good one from Hula Daddy in Kona, but I'm not about to pay for that now ($$$$$). This weekend I'll probably go on a hunt. I may go green beans if I can find them, or I'll settle for medium roast.

Popcorn maker? Does it make all the popcorn you make later taste like coffee?

And I'm staying far away from Starbucks. I just don't like their coffee, although I haven't tried the "blonde" one.
 
I have still been using mine for popcorn. Despite coffee residue that is visibly coating the inside of the air popper, I do not taste it in the popcorn. I've picked up a cuple backup poppers at garage sales, I should de,dedicate one for popcorn, but I think I will procrastinate until I notice a problem.
 
Bought three of the lightest roast coffees I could get at the local store. After a cold steep of some tasters, it's down to El Salvador "Cerro Las Ranas" and Ethiopian "Yirgacheffe". I think both could work with the beer, depending on how exactly it tastes when it's done fermenting. Or perhaps I'll blend the coffees. The Cerro Las Ranas is more vanilla/nutty and the Yirgacheffe is more berry/cocoa.
 
Alright, I went with Wayne's suggestion and racked half the beer onto the Frogs (las Ranas) and half onto Yirgacheffe. 15 g of coarsely ground coffee for each, about 3 quarts each.

The beer by itself is kind of boring, but it has a light sweet note and a distinct corn thing going on. Obviously it wasn't going to be too exciting without the coffee. I'm thinking I might want to add more lactose, but I can do that even on bottling day.
 
You know, I've gotten really lazy with the beers. I didn't measure the OG, and I probably won't measure the FG either. Oops. I boiled the snot out of it though, so if I had to guess it might be in the 1.050 range. My efficiency seems to be somewhere near 75%, although again I'm lazy and I haven't bothered to track it in a long time.

If I'm industrious enough tomorrow I'll do a taste test of each.
 
Wound up with the worst cold/flu I can recall, so finally got around to bottling today. My taste is still off, but I can say the two are totally different. In the blend, the Cerro Las Ranas totally took over; I wound up bottling the two halves separately.

In terms of the concept, light beer with coffee, this turned out pretty well. The coffee is there but not dominant, and the beer character comes through with identifiable "cream ale" type flavors. We'll see how it tastes with bubbles.

I did not add any more lactose, as the cold-steeped coffee did not impart much bitterness.
 
This actually turned out really well. The coffee aroma and flavor were strong but not overpowering. Pleasant to drink, but you have to really like coffee!

I would add more lactose next time though, and personally I would shorten the contact time with the coffee or maybe grind the beans less. But I'm not a huge coffee beer person.
 
Unfortunately the other guy didn't have time to make his coffee beer. So I suppose I won!
 
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