Chicagoist's "Beer of the Week:" Southern Tier Jah-Va Imperial Coffee Stout

By Chuck Sudo in Food on Dec 3, 2010 9:40PM

From our initial efforts adding Leinie Red to chili to today, we've always cooked with beer, and our meetings with "Homebrew Chef" Sean Paxton at the Great American Beer Festival only helped to intensify that interest. Over the Thanksgiving holiday we decided to clear out a significant portion of our beer library. Bye-bye went the final bottle of 2010 Dark Lord, a bottle of 2009 Flossmoor Station Wooden Hell, last week's Rogue Double Mocha Porter "BotW" selection, and a fine bottle of Southern Tier Jah-Va Imperial Coffee Stout.

This is a very intense beer. 11 percent alcohol by volume and weighing in at 27° Plato, this beer is brewed with 2-row pale, caramel, chocolate, black and roasted barley malts; Cascade and Columbus hops; and loads of roasted Jamaican coffee. We had half a bomber and used the other half to make a syrup for vanilla ice cream, which really went over well at dinner.