The beer: Cold Brew (Hopewell Brewing, Chicago), a session coffee ale.
The back story: Coffee and beer have proved to be a seamless fit, usually for the sake of adding a muscular and roasted accent to the beer. But Cold Brew, released by Logan Square’s Hopewell Brewing in mid-May as a limited seasonal run, is a unique take on coffee beer on a couple of levels. For one, it is arguably coffee as much as it is beer. Even the language on the Cold Brew can is relatively light on beer descriptors because it is so coffee-forward, meant to replicate, you guessed it, cold-brewed coffee. Also, Cold Brew ignores coffee’s brashest edges, taking aim instead at an easy-drinking refreshment that threads a needle for beer and coffee lovers alike. Employing a Peruvian bean sourced from Chicago’s Metric Coffee, it succeeds brilliantly.
What Hopewell co-founder and brewmaster Stephen Bossu says: “Cold Brew is a fun project for us, partly because we didn’t set out to do the traditional coffee stout, highlighting the bigger, roastier, heavier flavors. We were trying to encapsulate that feeling in spring when you switch from hot coffee to cold brew. That feeling when you’re drinking cold brew for the first time on a warm day is magical.
“I don’t think much about what the base style is for this beer because it doesn’t start as a particular style and then become Cold Brew by adding coffee. It’s a complete concept from the start. English mild might be the closest, but even that isn’t quite right. We’re going for a mellow character: nutty, bready notes and a touch of sweetness, but keeping the whole thing mild. Something without any edges — basically a platform to let the coffee talk through.
“We don’t go to Metric and get just any coffee. We go to them with a specific idea and they come back with specific coffees and farmers in mind. The one we wound up with has that whole mellow character we wanted for the cold-brew theme: peach skin, a ton of plum without being overwhelming, roasted almond, mango and even notes of cream soda. A coffee with too much acidity or roastiness can punch through and distract, especially on a beer with such little alcohol. We’re trying to capture that iced-coffee flavor rather than a big punch of roast in the morning.
“This is the third year we’ve made this beer and every year the method of adding the coffee has changed slightly. This year, we did a two-step method: Cold-brew coffee was added during fermentation, then the beer spent 72 hours steeping on whole beans right before packaging. That first step is where (you) get most of the flavor, but it misses some of the broader aromas. So for that second step, we used twice as much coffee to get the aroma we wanted.
“At first, Cold Brew took a little bit of coaching with customers — it’s a coffee beer that’s low alcohol and mellow. But now people know Hopewell and what to expect from us: drinkable, soft, enjoyable and the kind of thing you might want another one of.”
Alcohol: 4.5 percent
Find it: Available through June in Hopewell’s taproom (2760 N. Milwaukee Ave.) on draft — including a nitrogenated version to be tapped Tuesday — and in four-packs of 16-ounce cans ($11). Four-packs also available in limited quantities at better beer stores.
Twitter @hopnotes
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