Brewing with Coffee and Laurelwood's Espresso Stout

The New School Brew Blog

Recently there has been a spate of new Coffee Beer releases, like Bridgeport's Cafe Negro, Breakside's coffee-infused Dry Stout, and the newest version of Laurelwood Brewing's Espresso Stout. I recently picked up a few bottles of these for a review panel, but soon discovered that we had already reviewed the Laurelwood brew in the early days of The New School, way back in last March (it received a coveted 4.5 from the Yalie). Seeing as how we had reviewed it previously, I thought it would also be nice to chat a little with Laurelwood Brewmaster Chad Kennedy about the creation of the beer and how he approaches using coffee in beer.

Last year's Espresso Stout, photo by "SNOB" Ritch

Just the other day "SNOB" Ritch and I were talking about using coffee in beers and how it rarely seems to improve a brew. We are both coffee fans and stout fans, so combining the two has always been an obvious proposition. Having brewed at least half a dozen coffee beers myself using a variety of methods, I know how hard it can be to integrate coffee without adding too much roast, burning, or simply picking up too much acidity or oils. So I asked Laurelwood Brewmaster Chad Kennedy how he went about approaching making this brew:

"We chose a blend of coffee from Portland roasting called mocha java. I spent a good bit of time with the roasters there doing cuppings and trying different methods of making coffee before we came upon this blend for our beer. I didn't want to just pick a coffee or a roaster and go for it. Portland Roasting is a great local roaster with similar values to our company. They pioneered Farm Direct sourcing- paying farmers direct rather than diluting their profits through middlemen. Also, they do an incredible amount of philanthropy in areas where they buy coffee. These regions and their farmers have historically been quite disadvantaged- living without adequate water supplies, for example.

I believe this is the 4th year we've worked with Portland Roasting. I'm not sure how others do it, but we use a cold extract method in producing coffee to accentuate flavor and aroma while minimizing bitterness. In my opinion, this produces a smooth beer with loads of coffee character."

Cold pressing Coffee

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