Coffee - Beer - Coffee

It's that time of the year again and my local (superstar) brewery Siren are brewing up 4 brand new coffee beers. Essentially coffee beer is beer with coffee flavour in it, this is done by steeping a bunch of ground coffee in the beer in something like a giant tea-bag. But, like most things to do with beer the number of variables is huge, for example what kind of beer do you start with, dark, light, sour, bitter? What kind of coffee do you put in, dark-roast, light-roast and what complementary flavours do you introduce with hops, citrus, fruit, pine, chocolate, salt-caramel etc. The four beers for this years "Project Barista" have just been announced today and include the following,

Double Double - 5.5% Double Dry-Hopped Coffee Pale Ale in collaboration with Pharmacie Coffee Roasters

Irish - 7.4% Wee Heavy with Barrel-Aged Coffee in collaboration with Quarter Horse Coffee

Ristretto Negroni - 6.7% Coffee Cocktail Ale in collaboration with Climpson & Sons

Bourbon Turkish - 11.5% Barrel-Aged Imperial Coffee Stout in collaboration with Redemption Roasters 

Sounds like a fascinating line-up; can't wait for the launch party on the 18th May, I have my tickets at the ready; need to get my coffee-head well and truly on!