Boulevard Brewing Company - Coffee Ale

Hey gang! So June is over (well it's the last day of June) and frankly, I'm a little tired of Pale Ales. So, I decided to drink my Beer of the Month beer for June, tonight, IN JUNE! What a concept! I'm getting a little crazy with this, I know.

So for June my wife got me a beer from Boulevard Brewing out of Kansas City, Missouri. I've never had a beer from Boulevard but I've heard nothing but good things. So tonight I'm drinking Boulevard's Coffee Ale which is part of their Smokestack Series. This is a beer brewed with Coffee from The Roasterie .Who they are? No idea! But enough rambling, let's just get into the beer because I haven't had a good coffee beer in a while.




Coffee Ale came in a 750ml bottle and is 9.3%abv. It poured out a really nice brown color that once in the glass looked like a solid mahogany with some real nice ruby red hues along the bottom curves of the glass. There was a massive 4 finger of a khaki colored head that is both fluffy and very active. Looks a lot like white wash from the ocean (think foamy). The head sticks around for quite some time and leaves behind a very soapy looking lacing. There's quite a bit of carbonation streaming up from the bottom of the glass. This looks like a pretty solid beer. Let's get the nose.

Well it should come as no surprise, first thing on the nose is a nice spicy roast coffee. There's some big brown sugar like notes coming through the coffee. I'm getting some milk chocolate and cocoa here too. Like any good coffee ale, I'm picking up some nice vanilla sweetness as well. This is a fairly nice smelling coffee beer. Let's see if the taste actually backs up what I'm picking up on the nose.

First thing I pick up is that vanilla sweetness followed immediately by the spice from the coffee beans. There's some caramel and vanilla sweetness on the sides of the palate. Not a lot of coffee bitterness in the middle of the mouth just really from the initial impression. Back end of the palate there's a bit more of that coffee bite that I think is missing a bit from the rest of the palate. I'm not picking up much of that chocolate character I found on the nose. Maybe a little bit of that cocoa on the back end but that's about it. The mouth feel on the Coffee Ale is pretty light to maybe medium. Very creamy mouth feel and smooth finish. Not too dry.

Overall, this is a decent Coffee beer. I wouldn't say it's the best I've had by any means but it's decent. Surprisingly, I'd actually like more coffee than I got, more roasted bean flavor. I'm not really sure why kind of beer this is as the base, but it's pretty light. Looking at the back label, I see it's brewed with some Perle hops. This is the 2nd beer I've had with Perle and frankly, I'm not really sure I like this particular hop. I don't really see what it adds. I think if you're going to call something a coffee ale I want it to be intense and I wasn't impressed here. It's OK, but nothing I'd go out of my way to get again.

Rating: B-