Blue Collar Coffee Stout Extract Recipe Kit

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Your Two Favorite Brews in One Glass!

Blue Collar Coffee Stout is a working beer for the masses. Created in conjunction with our friends at Backstory Coffee Roasters in St. Paul, MN, this stout features their most popular coffee offering, Narrator Coffee Blend. The roasty base beer lays a sturdy foundation for the coffee blend to come along and do the heavy lifting. Flavors of rich malt, berry, and bittersweet cocoa round out the flavor profile while being only moderately bitter. Blue Collar Coffee Stout is the perfect beverage to enjoy after a long day of work - or for breakfast if that's your thing.

Brewing Notes:

  • Style: Stout / Spice, Herb, Vegetable Beer
  • Fermentation Range: 64-70°F
  • Original Gravity: 1.064
  • SRM: 40
  • IBU: 32
  • ABV: 6.5%

Tasting Notes:

  • Aroma: Moderate roast with medium-low chocolate hints with a dominating coffee aroma. Low esters with no hop aroma.
  • Appearance: Opaque black color with a dark tan and persistent foam head.
  • Flavor: Low malt sweetness with moderate dark caramel and medium-high roast character. Prominent smooth coffee flavor.
  • Mouthfeel: Medium body with moderate creaminess.

 

Looking for the All-Grain Version?

Additional information

SKU

B11900

Beer Color Dark
Original Gravity

1.064

Total Time to Make 6 weeks
Regional Style British
Alcohol Content

~6.5% abv

Yield 5 Gallons
Beer Style Stout/Porter
Fermentation Type Ale
Beer Recipe Kit Instructions Click here for recipe kit instructions

Notes from Brad, Northern Brewer Head Brewer:

“Sometimes there is nothing better than a cup of coffee in the morning, or a beer after a long day’s work. Who says you can’t have both at the same time? We are proud to release this recipe kit, and even prouder of our partnership with Backstory Coffee Roasters. In the spirit of “keeping it local”, we found the absolute best coffee we could for this recipe. Backstory Coffee Roasters is located in Saint Paul, MN, and has been producing amazing coffee since 2014. Their secret is meticulous attention to detail, from sourcing the finest green coffee beans possible, impeccable diligence during the roasting process, and mindful scrutiny of brewing the perfect cup. With such care put into the creation of this awesome coffee, we had to put it in a beer that lives up to the quality of the star ingredient.

Utilizing Backstory’s Narrator Coffee Blend, this smooth stout delivers everything you could ever desire in a coffee beer. Characteristic roast, faint dark caramel notes, and nuances of bittersweet chocolate and rounded out with a wallop of smooth coffee with nutty and chocolatey flavors. The base beer is something of an English/American hybrid, utilizing English malts but brewed to a decidedly more American strength. A single hop addition at the beginning of the boil provides enough bitterness to balance the slight sweetness of the malt underpinning, and the classic British ale yeast provides a host of esters that serve to add an enticing complexity to an already elaborate beer.

For optimal results, be sure not to steep the coffee too hot to avoid getting any harsh flavors. Ideally, after the boil is conducted it is best to allow the wort to cool to approximately 200 degrees F before adding the coffee. This is the temperature that many coffee aficionados agree is the ideal temperature for getting the best flavor from coffee grounds without extracting any overly bitter or harsh notes. As far as fermentation is concerned, this particular yeast strain (if using liquid yeast) will tear through fermentation and then drop out of suspension quickly. Although these are great traits for an ale yeast, this one is notorious for producing diacetyl. Be sure to allow the beer to rest for a few extra days after fermentation has completed allowing the yeast to clean up the diacetyl and leave a wonderfully delicious beer in its wake.”

Customer Reviews

Based on 50 reviews
84%
(42)
10%
(5)
6%
(3)
0%
(0)
0%
(0)
R
Rick W.
Great beer - issue with website

The beer is great. Second time I have ordered it. However the website kept messing up my order every time I tried to add yeast a then order a 2nd item. Finally had to skip the yeast on my 3 beer kits and got the yeast locally.

C
Chris A.
An Exceptional Stout

Blue Collar Coffee Stout Brewing Notes - April 16 2025

Modified the directions as follows. Your mileage may vary:

Instead of tap water, I used 5 gal (19 L) Reverse Osmosis (RO) water.
Added 50 mg/L = 950 mg of Sodium bicarbonate, Calcium Sulfate, and Calcium Chloride.
Half of the chemicals added at boil and half at top-off.
Minimum 21 days for in-bottle carbonation instead of the 7-14 days recommended.

Other Details:

Used Fermentis S-04 dry yeast, 59-70°F optimal. No yeast starter.
Fermented in cool closet, temp roughly 70°F.
Bottling day May 12
Original Specific Gravity = 1.064 OG
Final Specific Gravity = 1.014 FG
Plugging OG and FG into the Brewer's Friend calculator, (https://www.brewersfriend.com/abv-calculator/) it estimates 76% yeast efficiency and 6.3% ABV out of an estimated 6.5% ABV by Northern Brewer.
I believe this puts it firmly in the Irish Extra Stout category in the BJCP judging guidelines (2021, class 15C, at bjcp.org). A great reference site!

Drinking Day: May 30

Nice full taste, coffee not overwhelming. Fell off a little in flavor at the end of tasting but that's my fault for messing up the water chemistry.

Observations:

Water calculator says I should have doubled the CaSO4 and CaCl for a stout, per the Brewfather app.
More investigation into the mechanics of optimal water chemistry.
Next time, better fermentation temperature control. Likely was at the high point of the healthy yeast range but 76% efficiency isn't bad at all.
A fermentation fridge with InkBird thermostat sounds the right way to go.
I should invest in a wort cooler and adapter as well. It was a chore to bring the wort down to yeast pitching temp.

K
Keffie D.I.
Old directions

The directions seemed very old, and out of date. I also failed to understand why you would not state that coffee comes unground. I didn’t realize that until more than 1/2 through the boil…luckily we own a coffee grinder, but that could have been ugly.

J
John G.
Blue collar coffee stout

I brewed the blue collar stout and it turned out well. It has a pronounced coffee flavor which I love.

R
Ryan
Good Coffee Stout

Tastes good. Came out a little low ABV for me (5.4%), but still tastes great.

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Blue Collar Coffee Stout Extract Recipe Kit

Blue Collar Coffee Stout Extract Recipe Kit

Customer Reviews

Based on 50 reviews
84%
(42)
10%
(5)
6%
(3)
0%
(0)
0%
(0)
R
Rick W.
Great beer - issue with website

The beer is great. Second time I have ordered it. However the website kept messing up my order every time I tried to add yeast a then order a 2nd item. Finally had to skip the yeast on my 3 beer kits and got the yeast locally.

C
Chris A.
An Exceptional Stout

Blue Collar Coffee Stout Brewing Notes - April 16 2025

Modified the directions as follows. Your mileage may vary:

Instead of tap water, I used 5 gal (19 L) Reverse Osmosis (RO) water.
Added 50 mg/L = 950 mg of Sodium bicarbonate, Calcium Sulfate, and Calcium Chloride.
Half of the chemicals added at boil and half at top-off.
Minimum 21 days for in-bottle carbonation instead of the 7-14 days recommended.

Other Details:

Used Fermentis S-04 dry yeast, 59-70°F optimal. No yeast starter.
Fermented in cool closet, temp roughly 70°F.
Bottling day May 12
Original Specific Gravity = 1.064 OG
Final Specific Gravity = 1.014 FG
Plugging OG and FG into the Brewer's Friend calculator, (https://www.brewersfriend.com/abv-calculator/) it estimates 76% yeast efficiency and 6.3% ABV out of an estimated 6.5% ABV by Northern Brewer.
I believe this puts it firmly in the Irish Extra Stout category in the BJCP judging guidelines (2021, class 15C, at bjcp.org). A great reference site!

Drinking Day: May 30

Nice full taste, coffee not overwhelming. Fell off a little in flavor at the end of tasting but that's my fault for messing up the water chemistry.

Observations:

Water calculator says I should have doubled the CaSO4 and CaCl for a stout, per the Brewfather app.
More investigation into the mechanics of optimal water chemistry.
Next time, better fermentation temperature control. Likely was at the high point of the healthy yeast range but 76% efficiency isn't bad at all.
A fermentation fridge with InkBird thermostat sounds the right way to go.
I should invest in a wort cooler and adapter as well. It was a chore to bring the wort down to yeast pitching temp.

K
Keffie D.I.
Old directions

The directions seemed very old, and out of date. I also failed to understand why you would not state that coffee comes unground. I didn’t realize that until more than 1/2 through the boil…luckily we own a coffee grinder, but that could have been ugly.

J
John G.
Blue collar coffee stout

I brewed the blue collar stout and it turned out well. It has a pronounced coffee flavor which I love.

R
Ryan
Good Coffee Stout

Tastes good. Came out a little low ABV for me (5.4%), but still tastes great.