2017 Advent - December 22: The Other Half RIS w/ Barrel-aged Coffee

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mumblecrunch
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2017 Advent - December 22: The Other Half RIS w/ Barrel-aged Coffee

Post by mumblecrunch » Wed Dec 20, 2017 11:21 pm

So the way this was supposed to work was Liverdance and I brewed 10 gallons of this RIS together in mid-October (read: I mostly stayed the hell out of the way so I wouldn't get hurt) and we were going to each take half and treat it with a different barrel-aged coffee before bottling. One was the Burundi aged in a calvados foedre at 2 Crows and the other was an Ethiopian barrel-aged and roasted in northern Nova Scotia. For reasons I will not delve into here (but buy LD a pint some night at Stilly and he might tell you), kegging went sideways and only half the batch survived. Why he decided to let me carry forward with the exchange I dunno, but thanks and cheers to him for that :cheers3:

The recipe is effectively the RIS recipe from BCS but modified for the ingredients we had at hand. I don't think there's any Special B in it, I believe it's regular Munich not CaraMunich and I think there's a touch of Crystal 60 or possibly even 120. Yeast was US-05, somewhere around 35 - 40g. OG came in a little lower than expected at 1.090, but it also finished a little lower than expected at 1.020, so the ABV should be in the 9% range. The coffee was the Ethiopian and a much darker roast than the Low Point stuff. It came to me already cold-brewed; I'd estimate there was around 5 - 600 mL, maybe a little more. It was added to the keg, the keg was put in the refrigerator for a week or so, and then it was force carbed at 30 psi for 48 hours before bottling with a beer gun.

Having had a different RIS with the Low Point coffee earlier in the year, I'm pretty confident in saying this beer has a much bigger coffee character, probably owing to it being a significantly darker roast and it's boozier too, as the barrel was rum or whisky rather than calvados.

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Re: 2017 Advent - December 22: The Other Half RIS w/ Barrel-aged Coffee

Post by John G » Fri Dec 22, 2017 6:46 pm

Really liked this beer. It was cleanly brewed, not too hot alcohol despite the high gravity. It was sweet, but not cloying - well balanced with the alcohol. It has some great roast and toffee aromas. Flavour was rich, chocolatey and fruity. Reminded me of fruit cake soaked in rum. There is a market for this beer. I'd buy it. I'd like to see what some age would do to it - I'm sure it would evolve nicely.

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Re: 2017 Advent - December 22: The Other Half RIS w/ Barrel-aged Coffee

Post by John G » Fri Dec 22, 2017 8:54 pm

I let a glass of this warm up to room temperature and it started to express some more complex spicy and coffee notes. I enjoyed it most when it was warmer, so if anyone has yet to try it I recommend letting some of it warm up a bit to get more from it. Great beer, thanks for sharing.

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Re: 2017 Advent - December 22: The Other Half RIS w/ Barrel-aged Coffee

Post by CartoonCod » Tue Dec 26, 2017 9:59 pm

Nice black beer with a tan coloured head. Very tasty, can taste the coffee in here with what I am assuming is the barrel aged character, complex and fruity but hard to describe. I get a bit of booziness but in a good way that you would expect for this kind of beer. I also think it would be interesting to taste this beer after some aging but thats not to say its not great now! I'm really digging this one. Thanks!

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Re: 2017 Advent - December 22: The Other Half RIS w/ Barrel-aged Coffee

Post by RubberToe » Wed Dec 27, 2017 10:24 am

I really enjoyed this, thanks.
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Re: 2017 Advent - December 22: The Other Half RIS w/ Barrel-aged Coffee

Post by SFR709 » Wed Dec 27, 2017 3:05 pm

I really enjoyed this one, I shared it with the father-in-law in a couple glasses I picked up at Four Rivers Brewing in Bathurst they open mid-Jan. Solid beer and a cool idea!Image


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Re: 2017 Advent - December 22: The Other Half RIS w/ Barrel-aged Coffee

Post by jmacdonald » Wed Dec 27, 2017 6:39 pm

I also enjoyed this. Something about the cold weather that makes these nice to sip on.

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Re: 2017 Advent - December 22: The Other Half RIS w/ Barrel-aged Coffee

Post by Halifax_Jeff » Wed Dec 27, 2017 7:20 pm

really enjoyed this one. thanks

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Re: 2017 Advent - December 22: The Other Half RIS w/ Barrel-aged Coffee

Post by Buccaneer » Mon Jan 01, 2018 6:09 pm

Finally got around to this one. Fantastic. The only negative was a bit of acetone I picked up on the very last sip. I thought the level of coffee was perfect.

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Re: 2017 Advent - December 22: The Other Half RIS w/ Barrel-aged Coffee

Post by oceanic_brew » Mon Jan 01, 2018 8:54 pm

I had this last night with the ms. Delicious beer! Enjoyed every sip and had no complaints thanks!


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Re: 2017 Advent - December 22: The Other Half RIS w/ Barrel-aged Coffee

Post by mrlane55 » Wed Jan 03, 2018 9:11 am

Would love to try it.

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