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-

[joey]

Caffeinated beverages are one of the most common mixers for cocktails for the last 100 years… isn’t that proof that mixing caffeine and alcohol isn’t inherently wrong? Rum and cola, Irish Coffee, Hot Toddy’s etc.