Brewery – Left Hand
Beer – Hardwired Nitro
Style – Coffee Porter
ABV – 6%
IBUs – 33

Innately predisposed to be smooth when Poured Hard, this nitro coffee porter builds a pillowy, toffee-sweet head. Coffee and flavors of caramelized sugar, cacao and hints of blueberry lead to a light, smoky finish.

From the very get-go when Left Hand started working on their Nitro Series, I knew that I wanted one thing from it – Coffee.  Well, a coffee beer that is.  It took a little longer than I wanted, but in early 2016 the announcement came rolling out of the 20+ year old brewery would add their ‘Hardwired Coffee Porter’ to their seasonal lineup.  I rejoiced.

It was a big deal when Left Hand first started putting out these nitro beers, as they were the first craft brewery to attempt to bottle a nitrogenated beer, and this beer is a perfect example of what the medium can do (and why you should get as excited about it as I did).

The beer uses more than 650 pounds of the brewery’s custom ‘Hard Wired’ coffee per batch – this beer is about a lot of things, but coffee sits front and center.  The brewing team tested out several different roasts of coffee to make sure that it sat perfectly with the malts that they hand selected.  What you’re left with is a work of art, and something that has to be tasted to really understood.

My Thoughts On Left Hand Hardwired Coffee Porter

Keep cold, and pour hard the bottle instructs the drinker.  When you invert the bottle vertically over the glass, the beer gushes from within into your glass leaving a cascading torrent of bubbles flowing down the sides of your glass, and building a perfect pillow-like head on top of the dark brown beer inside.

I have an extreme love/hate relationship with nitro beers.  With some, the addition of nitrogenation only mutes some of the aspects of the beer that I had previously loved, with others the mouthfeel lifts it to another plane.

Aromas are certainly a little muted in this, but it doesn’t bother me with the coffee being the star.  It reminds me of an iced coffee drink, with light coffee notes and roastiness drifting off the top of the glass.

When you dig into the silky smooth beer you are first struck by the mouthfeel, which is incredible.  As the beer rolls around your palate, you’ll find a ton of roasty coffee flavors, that mingle with light chocolate and a touch of bitterness.

I dig this.  I want more.