O Brother Brewing Joe Coffee Porter - Beer of the Month

KRISTIN JENSEN, co-author of Slainte! The complete Guide To Irish Craft Beers and Ciders - introduces us to O Brother Brewing Joe Coffee Porter

ABOUT THE BREWER

As the clever name suggests, O Brother Brewing is run by three brothers – Barry, Brian and Padhraig O’Neill from Bray, Co. Wicklow – who rolled their first keg out of their Kilcoole brewery at the end of 2014.

Their initial offerings included The Chancer American Pale Ale, The Fixer Red Ale and The Sinner IPA, but they are already experimenting with other beers too, such as the Brutus Double IPA (at a hefty 9.1%) or Joe Coffee Porter. So far the emphasis is on lots of flavour, with high ABVs to go with it. It’s one to watch to see how the brewery and the beers grow and develop.

ABOUT THE BEER

Beer style: Porter
ABV: 6.1%
Matches well with: Beef, berries, black pudding, burgers, chocolate, roasted and smoked meats, steak, stew

At this time of year there are still plenty of heavy-hitting winter seasonal beers lining the shelves, and one of the most popular ones seems to be a coffee stout or porter, with several Irish microbreweries offering versions.

Coffee and stout are two of my favourite things, so combining them into one drink is a match made in heaven as far as I’m concerned. Many porters and stouts have espresso notes in them anyway, so adding coffee often just accentuates what was already there.

This porter pours a ruby brown in the glass with a thin cap of light brown bubbles that quickly disappears. One whiff reveals all sorts of different sweet things: treacle, vanilla, dark muscovado sugar, caramel and golden syrup are all in there.

There’s nothing subtle about the flavour. It’s full-on dark roasted coffee, lots of malt and lots of treacle carried over from the aroma, finished off with a bitter, tangy smack on the palate. This is not the kind of beer where the coffee blends quietly into the background, which is good news if, like me, you love a good, strong coffee. O Brother gets theirs from Coffee Mojo, a small batch artisan coffee roaster located near the brewery in Co. Wicklow.

At 6.1% ABV, it’s in keeping with what seems to be the tradition for O Brother beers, which tend to have similarly high ABVs. It’s on the strong end of the spectrum for a porter, which is usually lighter in style and alcohol than its big brother, stout.

With so much flavour, you’ll need some robust food to match with it. Any kind of beef would be good, especially a juicy burger with all the trimmings or a hearty stew. I wouldn’t be averse to drinking this alongside a few squares of a good-quality dark chocolate either.

As for a cheese, you’ll need one with plenty of flavour to stand up to all the flavour in this beer. A wedge of salty Bellingham Blue would hold its own, as would a mature cheddar.

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Secretary of the Irish Food Writers’ Guild, Kristin Jensen is a freelance editor specialising in cookery and food books and has worked with many of Ireland's top food writers and chefs.  She writes the Edible Ireland blog and is a co-founder of the Irish Food Bloggers Association and, together with Caroline Hennessy, is joint author of Slainte! The complete Guide To Irish Craft Beers and Ciders .