Hand Selected Barrels & Hand Selected Coffee
A Stout Beyond Compare
AleSmith Barrel Aged Speedway Stout - Binny’s Edition

It’s hard to overstate the quality of the beer that flows from San Diego’s AleSmith Brewing Company. Over the past three decades, they’ve amassed an impressive trophy case of accolades; including 21 medals from the Great American Beer Festival. The beer they’re most recognized for is Speedway Stout, a massive coffee infused imperial stout. 

We’ve long extolled that barrel aged Speedway is one of the finest BA stouts you can buy. We were honored when they agreed to collaborate on an edition that would be aged in the Whiskey Hotline’s hand selected Buffalo Trace bourbon barrels. As soon as our hand picks were emptied, the barrels began a 2,000-mile cross-country trek from Frankfort to San Diego.  

After a 15-month oaken slumber, this massive stout was ready for coffee, so we flew out to San Diego to visit Bird Rock Coffee Roasters for a cupping and coffee selection. We began by evaluating the aroma of the freshly ground beans dry. Once water is added and the coffee is allowed to bloom, the aromas really blossom. With a stout as big as Speedway, we knew our coffee selection needed to be bold enough to stand up to the stout without getting lost.

The final verdict was La Providencia. Sourced from a 180-hectare coffee estate run by the Palacios family, it is located at 1,550 meters above sea level in the Huehuetenango region of Guatemala. It delivered a rich chocolate note, along with a dark fruit and spice character that we felt would complement the stout marvelously.

Speedway stout normally clocks in at 11% ABV, with barrel aged expressions typically landing somewhere around 13%. Our hand selected barrels were so wet that when stout samples were pulled directly from the barrels, the collab clocked in at over 16% ABV!

When it comes time to incorporate coffee into a stout, brewers have many different options. Over the years we’ve tasted them all. Whole bean, coarse grind, fine grind, hot side, cold side, and for various amounts of time in contact with the bean. AleSmith opts for a toddy method where they brew a coffee concentrate that is then blended into the beer. This is by far our favorite method, as the heat extraction of brewed coffee allows for volatile compounds to off gas that would otherwise remain trapped in the beer.

A great coffee stout is a remarkable thing, but by no means an easy endeavor. A big thank you to everyone at AleSmith and Bird Rock who helped create this remarkable beer. Deeply layered, exceedingly complex, yet dangerously easy to drink - this is a world-class stout!