Can I get the lovely fruity flavours from lightly roasted coffee to express in the finished beer?

[MartinHaworth]

Coffee.

I like high quality single origin coffee, with a light roast. This can offer flavours of strawberry, blueberry and citrus etc - it is with the darker roasts that the caramel and, well, roasted notes come in.

I was gifted a lovely knock grinder for Christmas (made in the UK), and get my coffee from Strangers in Norwich. At the moment I am enjoying Columbia Chapata Natural - with flavours of papaya, raspberry cheesecake and fig (Colombia Chapata Natural — Strangers Coffee Roasters Norwich)

The coffee beers I have drunk seem to have all offered dark roast, and lack the subtlety and complexity that I enjoy in coffee.


I'd welcome commercial examples of coffee-in-beer that might achieve what I'm interested in, and I'd welcome thoughts/ideas on how the wonderful fruity flavours of lightly roasted coffee can be expressed in beers.

Thanks

 

[Sadfield]

Here's a piece I got a homebrewing friend to write for an old homebrew club website. He's a roaster and purchaser for Hasbean and Ozone Coffee, and has worked with a few breweries on this. I can't help beyond that, even good coffee stinks.

 

[Caramel Ox]

Origin coffee sell an espresso martini made from their cold brew speciality coffee. I suppose the problem with a beer is what else would go in it? Too much of any other flavour would overpower the coffee?

 

[MartinHaworth]

Thank you both - @Sadfield that's a useful read.
@Caramel Ox that's one of my thoughts too. I was kind of wondering, if I were using a low roast natural coffee, whether it would be pale malt only...... and then the question is how will the coffee notes compete with the hops.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

This article from Scott Janish may be relevant, and is more interested in the lighter side of things :
https://scottjanish.com/guide-to-coffee-beers/
He's also gone in the other direction., although it sounds like there's a reason why hoppy coffee is not a thing!!!
https://scottjanish.com/coffee-brewed-amarillo-hop-pellets/

 

[MartinHaworth]

This article from Scott Janish may be relevant, and is more interested in the lighter side of things :
https://scottjanish.com/guide-to-coffee-beers/
He's also gone in the other direction., although it sounds like there's a reason why hoppy coffee is not a thing!!!
https://scottjanish.com/coffee-brewed-amarillo-hop-pellets/

That is super helpful. Just read it quickly pre-work and will return to it this evening. Thank you @Northern_Brewer

 

[Caramel Ox]

I had a go earlier this week with steeping light roast in a bottle of porter. This is the follow up where I have tested a few options:

I have 3 dosing rates of ground coffee and a whole bean for reference as that would be much less mess if it works. This time I have pressed all samples through an aero press and they are all flat after 24 hours steeping.

In terms of aroma you need at least 4g/l Probably more to have an impact.

Flavour wise the whole bean is lacking, maybe that needs more time but I estimate it’s about between 4 and 8 in taste.

2g/l you can tell something non beer is going on, a bit on the aftertaste but isn’t coffee flavoured.

At 8g/l the coffee has started to exert its own bitterness so would need compensation in the recipe. Still I think this is where I’d aim if it was to be “coffee porter”.