New Belgium Cascara Quad Bridges Coffee and Beer Worlds
New Belgium Brewing Company
LIPS OF FAITH CASCARA QUAD
New Belgium Brewing Company really stepped outside the box on this Lips of Faith edition. We were intrigued right out of the gate because of the addition of Cascara.
Cascara tea is one of the amazing by-products of coffee production. Once a coffee bean has been removed from the coffee cherry, the skin and pulp of the cherry are normally discarded. With cascara, these remnants are laid out and dried to develop something similar to loose leaf tea. When hot water is added, Cascara tea is developed, a beverage that has a fruity taste with notes of cherry and hibiscus.
Most reviews of this beer think that because coffee cherries were utilized in the formation of this beer, that it is supposed to taste like coffee. That is the equivalent of wondering why grapeseed oil doesn’t taste like Cabernet Sauvignon. We want to clear that up here to make sure that you aren’t looking for a coffee flavor right out of the gate. Coffee cherries are a fruit and have the sugar content to match. The seed(s) inside each coffee cherry also taste nothing like the beverage we have all come to enjoy. Once roasted, especially over 275 degrees, the chemical change that occurs within the coffee seed (bean) determines the characteristics of that particular bean and how it will taste once extracted. It is similar to toast: lightly toasted tastes one way, scorch it and you taste carbon. The taste of coffee that you come to expect also has to do with the extraction of those characteristics from the coffee bean via contact with hot water.
There are tons of different variables that come into play from the time the coffee cherry is harvested to the time it hits your cup. Such is our very lengthy way of explaining why Cascara has NOTHING to do with tasting coffee in the beer. Don’t waste your time looking for coffee, instead, use that time to demonstrate your newfound knowledge to that hot girl/guy at the end of the bar.
Obviously, the addition of Cascara to a Belgian quadruppel had us excited to see what this mash-up of coffee and beer culture had in store for us. The Cascara Quad is complex, with an aroma that comes in heavy on the cherry and date side with notable ash and alcohol. You know you are drinking booze with this one. You get a floral essence retro nasally as well. Overall, the Cascara Quad was not something that we would return to often. It was far from bad, but also not approachable from our perspective.
It was interesting and a good example of what you can do adding unique ingredients during the brew process, but we think you will be hard pressed to find an audience large enough to truly appreciate the complexity of the beer.
