Caffeine and Alcohol?

I thought about titling this post, "two great tastes that [don't] go great together."

Resurfacing for a moment to comment on a story in the Times that MillerCoors (when did they merge?  I'm so far behind the times) is taking caffeine out of its alcoholic drink Sparks.  What a name for a drink, huh? 

Anyway, this reminds me that I've been meaning to talk about a meal I had with Dan Filler at the hiring conference back in November.  We stopped at one of the neighborhood cafes for a quick meal and I ordered a beer.  I thought, as I often do, that it's nice to try to sample something of the local brews, so I asked what they had.  The cafe was noisy and my hearing isn't the best in those sorts of settings anyway, so I just picked the first one mentioned--had no clue what I was getting.  When it arrived I couldn't quite believe the taste.  It tasted like they'd poured beer into a mug that hadn't been quite washed out because, well, it tasted like there were coffee grounds in the drink.  So--naive me--I made an inquiry about it.  The waiter said, "yes, that's espresso beer."  Still rather slow to catch on, I said something like, "how's that?"  The up shot is that they mixed coffee with beer.  I have to say it's the only beer I've had in years that I downright didn't like. 

And what a strange combination anyway--alcohol and caffeine.  Oh well, I live in the provinces, so I'm not up on the latest trends.

Comments

[Matt]

For two years several years ago I lived in Albany NY. One of the few good things in Albany when I lived there was a bar called "Mahar's" that had hundreds of beers at any time and a "beer tour" that you could take and earn various prizes for trying different numbers of beers. (I'm a proud owner of a "Mahar's Beer Tour" T-shirt for having tried 75 beers.) One I tried there was Silverback # 9 Gorilla Ale, a very strong beer (about 8 or 9% alc.) brewed with coffee grounds. Bitter and strong, if you drank more than a few you'd end up drunk and unable to sleep. After that the other caffine/alcohol combos didn't seem too appealing to me. (Sadly, when I went back to Albany to take the Bar exam a while ago I was sad to find that while Mahar's is still around it's apparently under new ownership or management and not as good. Another strike against Albany.)

[eric]

Pipeline Porter, from Hawaii's Kona Brewing Co., is brewed with coffee and is really delicious, especially with a good wintery meal.

[wine14burgundy]

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[JuicesHealthy14]

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[alcoholism teenager]

I am a coffee lover, I can't live without coffee at all.I'm not drinking alcohol, I don't like the taste of it.Thanks for the post.

-jomie-