PARADE GROUND COFFEE PORTER // TINROOF BREWING CO.

PARADE GROUND COFFEE PORTER // TINROOF BREWING CO.

The time has finally come, and it saddens me. I’ve made it almost to the end of all the beers I brought back from our trip to New Orleans. I feel like I brought back way more than I did, but I’ve also been sharing with my wife and friends. Nevertheless, it’s been fun drinking something that isn’t offered that much and it just intensifies the want for more of it. One of the beers that I have absolutely loved is a coffee forward brew from Tin Roof Brewing Company called Parade Ground only produced in the winter. I wish I would have bought more than a six pack because I would love to sip on this coffee explosion more and more.
Since I bought a six pack, I drank it out of a can and I drank it out of a glass, and to be perfectly honest, I preferred the flavor out of the can a good bit more. Something about it just brought it to life for me and I really enjoyed it. Something I will mention about the Tin Roof cans is that they fill this bad boys completely; like, there’s no headspace at all (which I’m not complaining about.) Also, the can art is pretty cool in my opinion, because if you were to describe it to me, I would probably assume it looks cheap, but this is beautifully done and really screams “there’s a lot of coffee in here.”
The color is a deep, dark brown color that has a brighter brown hue on the edges. A thin, bubbly head of cream colored foam rests on top and disappears rather quickly. There’s barely an lacing on the glass after it recedes, but it doesn’t take away from the aroma. Up front you basically are hit with a ton of coffee and bread-like malt. Once the beer warms up, you can begin to smell some chocolate and a bit of the hops, but nothing overpowering. The aroma overall, past the coffee, is lacking a bit, because it doesn’t really show the full spectrum of great ingredients. Maybe it’s just too much coffee.
Taste was where this one shined for me, because the lacking elements in the aroma were made up for in the taste. Much like the nose, you get a lot of coffee up front from a mix of mocha and French roast, but it’s not entirely discernible unless you know coffee. There’s a bit of coffee acidity that you pick up midway through the sip and it’s the only drawback for me. At the end, you get a bit of the hops, which provide a bit of a fruity flavor along with a nice bite from the yeast. When the beer warms up, you can start to develop more of that chocolate flavor on your tongue which I can attribute to a mixture of the chocolate malt and the mocha coffee beans that are used. It’s an interesting taste because of the combination of acidity that’s still lingering around, but in some sips it can get a bit masked by the chocolate. I would definitely take your time drinking this one to allow for the evolving flavors.
Mouthfeel is a bit different than other porters I’ve had recently. The texture is slick and with some real body, but there is a nice tangy, dry finish that you get from using the hot brewed coffee. I quite enjoyed the mouthfeel of this beer because the carbonation was moderate and the body really made the beer seem bigger than it was, but light at the same time. There was little to no alcohol taste at all, which, as my good friend Bo Hicks would say, cranked up the Slamability Index real high. I could definitely see myself sitting out on my porch drinking a few of these without feeling weighed down.
Overall, there were some issues, but I’ve never had a perfect beer by any means. This is an extremely enjoyable porter that hits several high notes for me. The only thing I can really point out that I didn’t like is the use of hot brewed coffee, because of the acidity that it added to beer, but that’s just a personal preference. Other than that, I would suggest picking this up next winter, or if you find it now, grab a sixer or two. Enjoy!