11/01/2016
After the Crafty Ladies hosted a very well-received tasting with Epic themed, "coffee is the new hop," Epic invited the group to do a coffee collaboration beer. The ladies came up with the idea of doing a coffee cream ale. While the Crafty Ladies have done quite a few collaboration brews, this is the first time a brewery has committed to bottling, labelling, and selling the beer in stores! First we picked our coffee partner, local Novo Coffee and discussed what we wanted out of this beer. The idea was to brew a base cream ale that was true to style, our cream ale is brewed with oatmeal, carafoam, corn and other traditional cream ale adjuncts. After our initial meeting, we brewed our first test batch and did a cupping with Novo to pick the right coffee for our cream ale. We settled on a fantastic small Ethiopian grower and considered changes to the first test batch. A second test batch of a similar beer was conducted mainly to evaluate what a yeast change could do to the beer based on the feedback received. Then finally, the third batch was an absolute winner -- It was a very small test batch that yielded just a couple half barrels and a couple quarter barrels. Epic loved it so much, they poured some at GABF! This past Friday, the beer was brewed for large production, and bottled in bombers. Crafty Ladies Beer Club would like to thank everyone at Epic Brewing Company - Denver Taproom for this amazing opportunity! Kaffeina Coffee Cream Ale will be available in bottles at a local beer store near you, and on draft (ON NITRO!) in the coming weeks at Epic's Denver tap room, Highland Tap & Burger, Bar Dough, and Sloan's Lake Tap and Burger!