Big Sky Brewing - Cowboy Coffee Porter

Tonight's brew comes to me from an interesting trade I made with Steve last week.  We decided to trade a couple brews, my Weyerbacher Heresy Imperial Stout for his Cowboy Coffee Porter.  By the way, Steve, you forgot to bring the Weyerbacher home with you - it's still sitting happily in my fridge, begging me to drink it.  The trade is only valid for 1 more week, otherwise, it's going in my mug.  ANYWAY, this beer is a limited release porter that is infused with coffee flavor and hopped with Hallertau.  It comes in at 6.2%ABV.  To be honest, I've put off drinking this beer for a while now, because coffee-infused beers generally don't sit well with me.  But tonight it's time to push past that bias and give this a try!

This beer pours a brown-almost-black that doesn't let any light through.  Leaves a nice 1/4 inch of tan head.  The aroma is ground coffee mixed with sweet, roasty chocolate malts.  The first sip is an overwhelming, mouth-puckering wave of sour, that's right, Sour, coffee.  There is a lingering, sour bitterness that hangs off of the coffee flavors.  There are some dark roasted malts that poke through the coffee, but not enough to really impact the overall flavor of the beer.  The finish is crisp and faintly metallic.  The carbonation is medium and the body is relatively light. 

Overall Rating:  (3.0 out of 6.0)  Well, this beer turned out to be exactly what I feared it to be - Coffee.  I absolutely love coffee and drink it like a fiend every day of the week.  But for some reason, it just doesn't work for me when it's too prominently displayed in beer.  This is entirely subjective, so if you like the coffee-infused style, you will probably love this Big Sky brew.