Beer Review: Intensified Coffee Stout

March 3rd, 2010

The Brooklyn Brewery in Brooklyn, NY

I’ve just started reading Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers. In the collection, Gladwell discusses how success is formed. He argues that much of our success is derived from our backgrounds, our chances, and much of our timing upon entering schooling, sports, etc. I really think the same goes for beer. Much of the success of a brewery depends upon the timing of opening, the positive reinforcement a place receives when opening, and the location which the brewery is based. If you’re the Brooklyn Brewery, you have to be pretty happy with yourself. You opened at a time just before the great Brooklyn Renaissance; you surely had a lot of great backers pushing for a fantastic brewery in the New York City area; and you’ve now wound up in the center of hipster/craft beer culture in a wonderful area of the United States. You were one of the Outliers, Brooklyn, but that still doesn’t mean you shouldn’t keep pushing the craft beer envelope. I’ve been up and down on your selections but I think I’m ready to make up my mind after trying another one of your special beers, this time on tap, the Brooklyn Brewery’s Brewmaster’s Reserve Intensified Coffee Stout.

Read the rest of this entry »

Line Break

Tagged as: , , , , , , ,
Line Break

No Comments »

Line Break
  • Twitter
  • Tumblr
  • Facebook
  • Digg
  • Delicious
  • StumbleUpon
  • Line Break
 

Trend Watch: Sir, Your Double Shot Mocha Latte Skim Soy Oatmeal Stout is Ready

January 21st, 2010

I’m not a fan of Starbucks. Not because it’s corporate or because I’m organic or anything like that. I just think their coffee stinks. Plus, I hate waiting in line while absurd names that are somehow still considered coffee drinks are called out to the busy and rushed WASPs hovering and anticipating their silly and frilly touch of caffeine along with a mountain of sugar and hazelnut Irish creme extract. ‘Bucks don’t even call larges large–something fake Italian or French instead. But now, former CEO Howard Schultz has some unique ideas to help the now-floundering coffee giant that has run into economic mistakes it made during the 2000s.

Schultz brought back an entrepreneurs approach to the business realizing that one size does not fit all. Starbucks is now trying to tailor itself to its customer base. For example, in hotter areas, drinkers prefer cold drinks, while in the colder regions like the Northeast, they enjoy a piping hot cup of joe.

The idea is to make each store unique, while maintaining the Starbucks quality of coffee and espresso. In Seattle, owners created an offshoot of Starbucks called 15th Ave Coffee and Tea. The shop, which Starbucks owns, sells heady microbrews and cheese along with the usual espresso and tea mix.

Now you can’t go and get beer at every Starbucks, but it’s an interesting choice for a company that is always looking to find new ways of making money. Between Sonic Youth compilation CDs and new on-the-go coffee drinks, Starbucks is really looking to enter a new stage in life, and it looks like they’re bringing microbrews along for the ride. It will be interesting to see if this is something that catches on throughout the country and if small-minded microbreweries are in the mood to sell their beer through a big, bad corporate giant. But they could really take coffee beer to the next level. And we know how the FDA will feel about that.

HULIQ — Starbucks Slinging Beer Now Too

Line Break

Tagged as: , , , , , ,
Line Break

1 Comment »

Line Break
  • Twitter
  • Tumblr
  • Facebook
  • Digg
  • Delicious
  • StumbleUpon
  • Line Break