Hill Country Beer Club
5 Rabbit Cerveceria
Yodo Con Leche
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86
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Member Notes:
What a dirty-looking darkish-brown colored ale. With a medium-brown colored head and a sugary-looking brownish malty appearance it looks so sticky that if I stuck my finger in it it would likely get stuck, or if I was able to remove it my finger would be covered in caramel. It looks almost chalky-thick, with an equally chalky nose. It reminds me of protein powder. Very much of protein powder. The flavor offers some chocolate, thick caramel, and oddly enough some bourbon-like notes. Surely not, but still... possible? It’s so soft and silky in the mouth that I'm going to ignore the fact that I'm lactose intolerant for just tonight. Chocolate and caramel with a touch of leche pretty much sums up this beer. It's really nice, and much better than I expected! My wife thinks it tastes like an iced coffee, but I didn't get much coffee from it. Mostly chocolate and milk. - noss
Club & Brewer Notes:
Yodo, in Andrés's home country of Costa Rica, is a slang term for coffee, as in something strong and dark. We start with an Imperial porter at about 8.5%, made with two kinds of caramel malts, oats for creaminess and three different dark malts, including rye and a special one from Patagonia Malting in Chile. To this we add a solid helping of dulce de leche, a creamy milk caramel from Argentina. Only when the beer is fermented, do we add the coffee. With the help of Gaslight Coffee Roasters, local Chicago specialists, we sorted through several Costa Rican estates' beans looking for a coffee with great flavor and true Costa Rican character. We found it in Finca Agrícola Cafetal, from Lourdes de Cirrí de Naranjo. We airfreighted fresh beans from the new harvest, had Gaslight custom roast them to bring out their best and did a room-temperature steeping in beer, then strained and added the liquid back to the entire batch. The result is a mocha-like strong porter with a luscious creaminess and a lovely, fresh-roasted coffee nose. The finish is a lot like a Latin cup of coffee: intense, delicious and satisfyingly long.