The Swill: Meantime Coffee Porter
The Still: Meantime Brewing Company
London, England
http://www.meantimebrewing.com/
The Drill: English porter fermented with ground coffee and lactose, 11.2oz bottle, 6.0% ABV
The Spill: It's a novel, but not-unheard-of concept, combining two of America's biggest beverage vices: put caffeine in beer and you won't get sleepy drinking it. The fictional Buzz Beer from "The Drew Carey Show" had the same gimmick. Little did the writers know that something like that already existed. In fact, several do. This one even aims to kick in the cream and sugar by adding lactose, a dairy constituent, into the mix. The full flavor falls a little short on account of its porter foundation being the typical watery English variety, but the coffee notes do stand out, and pleasantly so. Additionally, the brewer says that each bottle's caffeine intake is equivalent to a full cup of coffee.
Says Bill: Beers can get a roasted coffee flavor without the addition of actual beans, simply by roasting the malt before brewing with it. The more it's roasted, the darker it becomes, and the darker it turns the beer. Bet you can guess which styles of beer use roasted malts now, can't you?
Refill?: Good thing I didn't know about this stuff when I was studying for college finals: 3.5 taps out of 5.