Review: Dayman Coffee IPA Will Give You A 'Sunny' Buzz

By Jason Baldacci in Food on Mar 29, 2013 8:50PM

At a Chicago homebrewing competition last August judged by Stone Brewing CEO Greg Koch, local brewing collective Aleman won the opportunity to fly out to Stone's brewery in Escondido, Calif., to brew a batch of their winning beer. Koch assured the crowd there would be plenty of beer available to thirsty Chicagoans.

That beer — Dayman — is finally here. A collaboration between Aleman, Stone, and Warrenville, Ill.-based Two Brothers Brewing, it's a coffee India Pale Ale brewed with coffee from Two Brothers, which recently expanded into coffee roasting last December. It's nice to see things come to fruition.

We managed to obtain a sample of Dayman and picked up light roast coffee, tangerine notes and other citrus fruits from the hops on the nose, which is a combination of aromas we definitely aren't used to, but it certainly makes us excited to take a sip. While the coffee notes take precedence on the nose, the citrus ones take center stage on the palate. Citra hops were used to drive those tropical flavors home and, with the help of some pale malt, they impart a sort of juiciness to the body of the beer that makes you keep coming back for more. The most interesting part to us, though, is how the coffee seems to act as a bridge between the fruity hops and the roast of the pale malt used in the beer. We'd be willing to bet that the coffee used was laced with citrus notes in the first place, which makes it a perfect accent for the hops and malt alike. At 8.7 percent alcohol content, Dayman is dangerously drinkable and can definitely sneak up on you, especially if you try it with brunch (which is something we would certainly recommend).

Collaboration brews have become increasingly common among American brewers over the past few years and have even started happening more and more between American and European breweries. We feel this is a great testament to the camaraderie in the brewing community. It's a wonderful outlet for larger, more established breweries to keep flexing their creative muscles, and and even better outlet for smaller, newer breweries to market themselves alongside some of the more popular brands. Either way, it's something that we don't see a lot of in the wine or spirits world, and it gives us craft beer drinkers something new to seek out and get excited about. It also certainly doesn't hurt when a beer is named after a rather hilarious recurring theme from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, like Dayman. It's also a nice step foreward for Aleman, which plans to eventually open a brewpub in Chicago.

Find Dayman up north at the Bar on Buena, or at Small Bar Logan Square.