A Cup of Nooooo!: A Review of Cup a Joe Coffee Creme Stout by Short's Brewing Co

The coffee bean filled hollow head depicted on the bottle label reminds me of several Salvador Dali paintings (think "Woman With a Head of Roses" and "Raphaelesque Head Exploding".) and that alone should make this beer a keeper but there's something not quite right with it.

Namely because it has a paralyzing coffee palate that nearly choked me out the first two or three drinks into it. After letting it sit for a good 20 minutes it comes across as coffee grounds scraping the tongue with a blunted scythe. Something the grim reaper of craft beers might do to one of your craft beer buddies down at the local pub after he had eschewed too often the virtues of an inflated IBU.

This is pretty much burnt toasty grounds with an acrid bite to it. I don't mean hoppy but something skunked in a purposeful way with detrimental feelers as if you had spiked somebody's coffee with pepper and garlic. Some have called it "woody" "funky cherry" "tootsie roll" and "dark fruit" but to me it's mostly a bucket of overwrought blah. It's rare that I give a stout a fingering in the down position but I'm going way down low and under the table with this earthware black well water.

8.00% ABV
30 I.B.U.'s
O.G. 14 deg. Plato

-Wörtwurst