I may be crossing a Gnarly Gnome line right now, but I’m writing about coffee.  If you don’t know about it yet, Braxton Brewing has been offering coffee in their taproom for a little while now.  You can read a little bit about why they’re doing that over here, but today they have announced that starting this weekend, they’re going to take the whole coffee venture that they started with Carabello coffee to an entirely new level.  They’ve done gone and made BBA Starter Coffee.

Brilliant.

The coffee (which goes on sale this Saturday for $30) has been aged in bourbon barrels, then bottled in it’s whole bean form in 300, hand dipped glass bottles.  This is some pretty cool stuff – and a sign that Braxton is taking their coffee program as serious as they are taking their beer, and if you have been reading, you’ll know that they take their brewing extremely seriously down there in the Covington brewery.

This is yet another move that they are making to separate themselves from what we currently think a brewery is, and push themselves into an area that they think a brewery should be.  I sincerely hope that brewery’s not only here in Cincinnati, but across the country are paying attention and taking notes.

About The Coffee

If you’re a coffee geek… this is for you, straight from the Braxton blog post about the coffee:

Carabello chose to age a Fair Trade Organic coffee from Honduras for its exceptionally smooth body and a flavor profile of caramel and butterscotch. Two hundred and fifty pounds of un-roasted coffee was then aged in two separate barrels, with each barrel being rotated every two days so that the absorption of bourbon into the coffee would be as even as possible. Since the coffee picked up additional moisture during the aging process, Carabello decided on a slower than normal medium roast that produced mahogany colored beans that have no visible oils on the surface.

Like I said… this is taken as seriously as they do beer!

The Block Party

When their doors open at noon on Saturday for their block party, there will plenty for you to think about.  Now, not only are they going to be selling 4 different bottles of ‘Dark Charge’ Imperial stout, they will also have bottled coffee beans available… then you get to stick around and drink some fantastic barrel aged beers from Cincinnati, and beyond.  This is how Cincinnati celebrates repeal day in style.  You can read a little bit about the event, or just go straight to Facebook and share it around to all your friends…but either way – BE THERE.