Barista Porter

With my recent resolutions in mind, I not only knocked out a new batch of beer yesterday, but I am writing about it here. I'm also compiling tonight a parts list for my kegerator. My last brew of 2008 was a batch of my Century IPA, and it left me with a nice supply of "California Ale" yeast, the clean-fermenting workhorse of today's craft- and home-brewers alike. I also have a fair amount of 2007 hops in my freezer, which aren't getting any fresher, including an unopened bag of Fuggles. So it just seemed to be the right time to have another go at my Barista Porter. Even more so than beer, coffee is the universal beverage of bicyclists around the world, and the espresso-pulling barista is our soigneur of the café. The robust porter--a style with a very modern yet still mysterious history--comes as close as any beer style to capturing dark-roasted coffee essence in a glass. My grain bill yesterday was very conventional, with significant contributions from crystal, chocolate, and black specialty malts on top of a base of American 2-row and German Munich malts. Also sticking close to the current standard practice, I generously hopped with both Fuggles and Willamette. Based on my sampling of the chilled wort, this beer will have prominent chocolate notes alongside the coffee--not exactly surprising given all the "chocolate" malt. Depending on how much I like the finished product, I might add some fresh-brewed espresso to the keg to bump up the coffee flavor and aroma. The nice thing about brewing 10-gallon batches is that they yield two homebrewer's "corny" kegs, so I can try one with the extra coffee shot, and one without. The brew day yesterday was not my smoothest. I forgot to install the "bazooka" screen in my picnic-cooler mash tun before loading in the grain, which I didn't realize until half-way into the mash-in. But I managed to get the screen installed, and the only real loss was of a few degrees in mash temperature, which might make the beer a little thinner and drier than I would hope. Regardless, it was a beautiful sunny January day in southern California--a perfect day for cooking up some wort and roasting a pound of coffee, too, during the boil. Twenty-four hours later, the beer appears to be happily fermenting in the garage. And we already sampled some of the coffee this morning. All is good.