Blue Collar Coffee Stout All Grain Recipe Kit Northern Brewer

Your Two Favorite Brews in One Glass!

Blue Collar Coffee Stout is a working beer for the masses. Created in conjunction with our friends at Backstory Coffee Roasters in St. Paul, MN, this stout features their most popular coffee offering, Narrator Coffee Blend. The roasty base beer lays a sturdy foundation for the coffee blend to come along and do the heavy lifting. Flavors of rich malt, berry, and bittersweet cocoa round out the flavor profile while being only moderately bitter. Blue Collar Coffee Stout is the perfect beverage to enjoy after a long day of work – or for breakfast if that’s your thing.

Brewing Notes:

• Style: Stout / Spice, Herb, Vegetable Beer
• Fermentation Range: 64-70°F
• Original Gravity: 1.064
• SRM: 40
• IBU: 32
• ABV: 6.5%

Tasting Notes:

• Aroma: Moderate roast with medium low chocolate hints with a dominating coffee aroma. Low esters with no hop aroma.
• Appearance: Opaque black color with a dark tan and persistent foam head.
• Flavor: Low malt sweetness with moderate dark caramel and medium-high roast character. Prominent smooth coffee flavor.
• Mouthfeel: Medium body with moderate creaminess.

Backstory Coffee Roasters:

Northern Brewer is proud to partner with Backstory Coffee Roasters to provide high-quality coffee for coffee beer recipe kits including Blue Collar Coffee Stout, Brunch Stout, and Pumpkin Spice Latte Stout. Backstory prides itself on working closely with growers from around the world to source unique coffee beans and roasting them to flavorful perfection at their small roastery in Saint Paul, MN. Those are the well-cared for beans that you will find in our beer kits. In this video, Backstory owner-founder Micah Svejda talks about BCR’s coffee philosophy and coffee’s connection to beer lovers.
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Notes from Brad, Northern Brewer Head Brewer:

“Sometimes there is nothing better than a cup of coffee in the morning, or a beer after a long day’s work. Who says you can’t have both at the same time? We are proud to release this recipe kit, and even prouder of our partnership with Backstory Coffee Roasters. In the spirit of “keeping it local”, we found the absolute best coffee we could for this recipe. Backstory Coffee Roasters is located in Saint Paul, MN, and has been producing amazing coffee since 2014. Their secret is meticulous attention to detail, from sourcing the finest green coffee beans possible, impeccable diligence during the roasting process, and mindful scrutiny of brewing the perfect cup. With such care put into the creation of this awesome coffee, we had to put it in a beer that lives up to the quality of the star ingredient.

Utilizing Backstory’s Narrator Coffee Blend, this smooth stout delivers everything you could ever desire in a coffee beer. Characteristic roast, faint dark caramel notes, and nuances of bittersweet chocolate and rounded out with a wallop of smooth coffee with nutty and chocolatey flavors. The base beer is something of an English/American hybrid, utilizing English malts but brewed to a decidedly more American strength. A single hop addition at the beginning of the boil provides enough bitterness to balance the slight sweetness of the malt underpinning, and the classic British ale yeast provides a host of esters that serve to add an enticing complexity to an already elaborate beer.

For optimal results, be sure not to steep the coffee too hot to avoid getting any harsh flavors. Ideally, after the boil is conducted it is best to allow the wort to cool to approximately 200 degrees F before adding the coffee. This is the temperature that many coffee aficionados agree is the ideal temperature for getting the best flavor from coffee grounds without extracting any overly bitter or harsh notes. As far as fermentation is concerned, this particular yeast strain (if using liquid yeast) will tear through fermentation and then drop out of suspension quickly. Although these are great traits for an ale yeast, this one is notorious for producing diacetyl. Be sure to allow the beer to rest for a few extra days after fermentation has completed allowing the yeast to clean up the diacetyl and leave a wonderfully delicious beer in its wake.”