Mt. Carmel Brewing Company | Coffee Brown

Last Christmas, my extended relatives decided to gift me a few deliveries of The Microbrewed Beer of the Month Club. Opening these mail packages felt like a relic of a different era when getting craft beer required more effort and planning. It can be a fun gift to give to the beer fan in your life when they’ve had everything at the supermarket. I’ve received beers from breweries in New York, Pennsylvania, and Iowa that I never heard about before, but the best beer to come from these shipments was Mt. Carmel Brewing Company’s Coffee Brown.
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How Two Brothers Brewing Co. Succeeded Before the Craft Beer Hype

Back in 1996 when Two Brothers Brewing opened there were just a handful of breweries operating in the Chicagoland area and three closed within two months of Jason and Jim Ebel starting the brewery.

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Two Brothers Adds Three New Beers to Their Lineup

For over two decades, Two Brothers Brewing Company has been making solid beer and is a mainstay in the Chicago beer scene. Just recently, they added a new year-round beer to their rotation as well as two seasonal/limited releases.

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Off Color Brewing | Coffee Dino S’mores with Dark Matter Coffee

Over the past three to four months Chicago has seen a plethora of great coffee stouts released from local breweries. Off Color Brewing’s Coffee Dino S’mores made with Dark Matter coffee continues the boom we’ve seen of java-forward beer.

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Løkken Bryghus | Narvorn Coffee Whiskey Stout

Ever since a 6^th grade math teacher corrected the spelling of my name, I’ve had an itch to visit Denmark. Even though we all know the rhyme “I before E, except after C”, the majority of folks named Niel in the States spell it backwards – Neil. But not me, regardless of what Mrs. Something-or-other seemed to think. I later learned that my family has roots reaching back to at least the early 1800s in the Danish countryside, the origin of this funny spelling. Which made me wonder, “Is there a land full of Niel’s that spell their name the right way?” Fast forward 20ish years and I now live within an hour’s flight of the homeland. And though I didn’t find anyone sharing my first name, I did find lots of good beer.

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Burial Beer Co. Releases Seasoned Skillet and A Paranormal Vibe

Cover photo courtesy Danele Bova @Daneleheartshops

Tomorrow, Burial Beer Co. (Asheville, NC) will release Seasoned Skillet Donut Stout for the second consecutive year and A Paranormal Vibe Double IPA (DIPA) – the latest addition to their DIPA Earth Series. This comes as Asheville Beer Week announces last call for the week’s celebratory and beer-centric events. Read More

Pro Re Nata Farm Brewery | Beans Deep Coffee Stout

ABV: 4.6% | IBU: 41

If you’ve had a fever for a drinkable coffee stout in the summertime, Pro Re Nata Beans Deep will cure what ails ya. It’s a soothing beer at a bucolic brewery.

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Birra Amarcord | Mora Imperial Coffee Porter

ABV: 9%

Many years ago I was fortunate to participate in a group study exchange to Italy, where five Americans sent overseas for a month to see how our Italian counterparts live. Each of us were housed separately, with families, to allow for real immersion into the culture. On the whole, we were stuffed with homemade pasta, preservative-free (read: hangover-free) wine and an incredible amount of warmth and big smiles. While I did not indulge in any brews from Birra Amarcord, the bottle of Mora I recently consumed brought me back in a flash thanks to it being an Imperial COFFEE Porter.

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Funky Buddha Brewing | I’m So Excited, I’m So Scared! Imperial Stout

Cover Courtesy Funky Buddha Brewing

ABV: 10 | IBU: 40

It’s always a joy for me when a beer not only has a really good name, but the name is also perfect for the beer when describing it. Funky Buddha Brewery‘s I’m So Excited, I’m So Scared hits the nail on the jittery head with this imperial coffee stout; once I took a whiff of it I got excited, and it was so delicious upon tasting it I was a little scared! Read More

Boojum Brewing Company | Graveyard Fields Blueberry Coffee Porter

ABV: 5% | IBU: 22

When I first stumbled across Graveyard Fields by Boojum Brewing Co. over the summer, one particular quote from a friend stuck with me: “That’s some Willy Wonka $h!t right there!”
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Prairie Artisan Ales | BOMB! Imperial Stout

There comes a point in every hobby where you have to take things to the next level. This usually involves investing more time, energy and, most of all, money. I’m someone whose always resisted that for any hobby. With craft beer, it’s been a specific price point. When I started drinking I set a price I was willing to pay for a single bottle of beer from a store. Surely, I thought, I’ll never actually cross that line. Nothing can be that good. Well Porchdrinkers, Prairie Artisan Ales finally blew me to the next level of craft-dom with BOMB!, its imperial stout.

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Virginia’s Heritage Brewing to Launch Brewpub & Coffee Roastery

Heritage Brewing Company was started in 2013 via a Kickstarter campaign, so it’s fitting they looked to the same tool to help launch their next big move: An Arlington-based brewpub and coffee roastery, about 30 miles from their home location in Manassas, Virginia.

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Rankings for Goose Island’s 2016 Bourbon County Brand Stout

As the calendar gets ready to turn to November there probably isn’t anyone happier than Goose Island as they get ready to release 2016 Bourbon County Brand Stout. Following a tumultuous year that featured two separate refunds of four of the six variants of 2015 BCBS, the new lineup has been announced and craft beer fans around the country are getting ready for the Black Friday release.

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Bronx Brewery B-Sides | Uptown Coffee Milk Stout

ABV: 6.8 | IBU: 36

BREWING: January – February

I’m just going to get straight to the point: this limited release was so delicious that my weekend morning coffee ritual was immediately replaced by Uptown Coffee Milk Stout via the growler purchased.

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Two Beers Brewing Co. | Cold Brew Coffee Brown Ale

ABV: 5.2% | IBU: 18

Though all of us Seattle Porchdrinkers like to think that great beer is Seattle’s most popular exported beverage, there is one Seattle drink that may beat even beer in terms of reputation and recognition, and that drink is coffee. As the home of Starbucks, Tully’s and many other roasters, Seattle’s coffee industry rivals its beer industry for options, quality and appreciation. In acknowledgment of the popularity and similarity of the two industries, Two Beers Brewing Co. created the Cold Brew Coffee Brown Ale. Read More

Blank Slate Brewing Co. | Opera Cream Stout

ABV: 5.5%

A new year means new resolutions! For most people, it’s to eat better, drink less, etc. etc. I say this is the year to try more beer … Read More

5 Rabbit Cerveceria | Yodo Con Leche

IBU: 38 | ABV: 8%

Thankfully, we’ve reached a point in time where every single day on the calendar is now National _________ Day. There’s a reason to celebrate something every single day! It used to be that you’d have to accomplish something or there had to be something historically important to reflect upon. No longer are we beholden to that oppressive outdated schedule! National Donut Day, National Pizza Day, National Love Your Red Hair Day (personally, I celebrated by reflecting the sun off my skin and into peoples’ eyes).  Read More

Mt. Carmel Brewing Co. | Coffee Brown Ale

ABV: 6.0% | IBU: 38

If you have been as busy as I have been, going from meeting to meeting, email after email, and working past 5 most days, you need … Read More

Evil Twin Brewing | Ashtray Heart

ABV: 8.9%

I miss smoking in bars. My clothes and hair don’t reek every night, and the lack of clouds of noxious oxygen thieves in bars dulling taste and smell might have done more to promote the rise of craft beer than any other external factor – but the romance of the dive bar is largely sustained by the haze that lingers around dim light bulbs. There was a certain je ne sais quoi that many establishments lost once they cleaned up (while others revealed even worse smells that the smoke was hiding). In my eternal hunt to recapture this hazy atmosphere, I stumbled into one of my favorite dive bars in Brooklyn (low lights, great bartender, amazing jukebox, check-check-check), and discovered Evil Twin’s Ashtray Heart. With one sip, I found the gritty but smooth feeling I was missing, with none of smoking’s greatly-enhanced chance of lung cancer.

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Fullsteam Brewery | Fearrington Winter Coffee Pecan Porter

ABV: 6.0% | IBU: 32

Today we have another installment in Fullsteam Brewery’s plow-to-pint series, the Fearrington Winter coffee pecan porter. In the previous installment, I discussed Fullsteam’s commitment to using locally grown produce in their limited edition brews. Fearrington Winter upholds that commitment. Inspired by southern pecans and nearby Pittsboro’s Fearrington Village coffee beans, Fearrington Winter embodies the dark roastiness and toastiness of a porter without being overly bitter. Read More