What to Drink This Weekend: A Sixpoint Beer Made With Stumptown Coffee and Mast Brothers Chocolate, Obviously
When it comes to the kind of super Brooklyn-ish stuff some people are always rolling their eyes at, you can’t really come up with a more perfect storm than a collaboration between Sixpoint, Stumptown and Mast Brothers. The fact remains, though, that all that eye-rolling is usually brought on by things that are actually just undeniably delicious and made with great care. 3Beans, which hit stores earlier this week, is a case in point.
Brewed in celebration of Sixpoint’s eight anniversary, 3Beans is a 10% ABV Baltic Porter made withcold-brewed Stumptown coffee and the outer husk from Mast Brothers chocolate beans, as well as a Romano beans, which long ago were used in place of malting barley to provide additional body to beers. And if that weren’t enough, the whole thing is then aged on toasted oak.
The result is a surprisingly sweet-smelling porter that almost seems to have a milk stout quality to it at first, until you actually taste it, that is, and the perfect blend of coffee and chocolate presents itself. And that’s what’s so impressive about it, really, the way neither of the decidedly bold ingredients stand out more than the other. I wonder if it’s the oak that’s sort of having a unifying effect on everything—there’s not any of the bold oakiness you get in something like a barrel-aged stout, but there’s a gentle hint of vanilla that helps blend everything together in a wildly pleasant way. To call it drinkable would be an understatement, so be careful: first of all, you could find yourself really drunk, but more importantly, it’s a limited, one-time release, so once it’s gone, it’s gone. For beer nerds and just regular people who like things that are obviously super delicious, this one’s a no-brainer.
3Beans is available in 4-packs of 12oz cans at all the regular Brooklyn spots for about $15.