Tuesday, July 28, 2009

COFFEE IN MY BEER: SOUTHERN TIER “JAH-VA”

I won’t repeat again how enthusiastic I am about the beers of New York's SOUTHERN TIER BREWING – oh wait, I reckon I just did. Now it’s on to their coffee imperial stout, just because. Do you think naming it JAH-VA means that there’s some Birkenstock-clad hippie reggae fan lurking in the brewhouse? Or that the word just looked cooler with an H and a hyphen? These are bits of minutiae we may never know.

Anyhow, SOUTHERN TIER JAH-VA is a dark roasted, very deep coffee-flavored beer. It is somewhat thin-bodied, with the malts mingling well with sugars. Not too sweet, though – those sugars interact with what tastes like straight-up pure 100% coffee very well. It has some tingling hops, and a long, lingering aftertaste. I’m impressed with how well it hides its 12% alcohol. It may be a big beer, but it doesn’t strut around like one, you know what I mean? It’s been said before, and it’s been said before that it’s been said before, but these guys know how to make some really impressive ales. 7.5/10.

2 comments:

Derrick Peterman said...

You don't have to sell me on this one, it's a great stuff. Too many coffee beers taste like someone spilled a strong cup of coffee into it, but I thought this one was well blended. I liked Southern Tier's Imperial Red, also.

Brian Yaeger said...

Where do you get all these EC beers? Love ST. My next trip is the entire interior, but at least it starts with Colorado.