Vanilla Nut Coffee-Chocolate-Ale

My latest home brew experiment has turned out well. By now, I should probably stop calling them experiments and just refer to it as home brewing. After all, trying new brewing ideas and techniques really is what home brewing is about.

Coopers Ale

This time I decided to try a variation on the coffee lager that I had made previously. The major difference in this batch is that this time around I went with an ale and not a lager. I really wanted to make an ale this time since I actually prefer ales. To kick things off, I used a Coopers Ale pre-hopped wort concentrate kit. This is something that I have had in my cupboard for a few months now and it was also past its expiry date. Home brew supplies in Taiwan are hard to come by so I didn’t want to let it go to waste. The wort concentrate comes in a sealed metal can, I didn’t think there would be anything wrong with it and there wasn’t.

Vanilla Nut Coffee

Instead of using a plain dark roast coffee, like I did last time, I wanted to try something a little more exotic. I went with a vanilla nut coffee that I picked up at Costco, here in Taipei. I added just over a litre of coffee to the primary. This coffee is great as a morning coffee, therefore, I wanted to give it a try in a beer. Makes sense, right?

To give the beer a little more complexity, because there isn’t enough going on in there already, I also added some chocolate powder. I used a table spoon of Hershey’s unsweetened cocoa powder. I was hoping that this would hit the back of the palette, accenting the coffee in the front of the palette. Unfortunately, I can’t taste even the slightest taste of chocolate. Perhaps next time I should scale up the amount of chocolate powder and go a little lighter on the coffee. The subtleties of the coffee are lost in the ale, which means, it is also hard to detect the vanilla in the ale.

Last time I tried my hand at a coffee beer I used brown sugar instead of regular sugar in hopes of giving it a little more of a caramel taste. This didn’t work out so well last time. I actually thought that the brown sugar gave the coffee lager an odd taste, this time I opted not to use brown sugar. However, I have made a honey brown lager using brown sugar and honey, it turned out great. I have had a lot of positive comments on that beer from people who have tried it. I guess using brown sugar can be hit or miss when brewing. As an aside, I don’t like sugar in my coffee at all. This is a personal preference that could also have an influence on my tastes.

For my next batch, I have decided that I am going to just make an IPA without any tweaks. I like my experimental (ok I said it again) beers but some people prefer a simple beer. One of the things a home brewer loves to do is share their beer with friends and family – just not too much of it – so I like to keep something on hand for people who prefer simplicity in their beers.

As I write this, I have a mead that is in the carboy now and I hope to have that bottled in a few weeks. I am sure that I will have something to say about that as well. Stay tuned!

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