The making of Imperial Affogato
Imperial Affogato is our opulent, double-mashed coffee and vanilla stout. Rich, sweet with delicious notes of vanilla on the finish, this 10.7% brew is seriously decadent.
The base brew uses DRC malt from Simpsons and Caraffa III from Weyermann along with our house malt and others. We wanted to get a deep, dark flavour and colour, without picking up too much roast character from the malt – letting that come through from the coffee. For a full and creamy mouthfeel, we added a dash of Lactose – this also helps to develop the flavours of ice cream that you’d normally associate with an Affogato.
The coffee is the backbone in Imperial Affogato, so it had to be perfect. We called on our friends from Antonia & Panesar and selected two complementary roasts. We used No.666, which we used in our recent collaboration with Kirkstall Brewery, and No.9, which we used in our first collab with Amundsen Brewery. We found this combination gave the most espresso style flavour and aroma.
The coffee was freshly roasted especially for this brew. Edina - a new addition to our brew team - added the whole beans to muslin bags and put the bags directly into a sterile tank. She then purged the tank of oxygen using CO2 before transferring the beer onto the coffee and adding the vanilla.
To reach the intense coffee flavour and recreate the flavour of an Affogato, we used 12.5 g/L of coffee in this brew. Once brewed, we left the beer steeping with the coffee for 10 days. This gave a wonderful depth to the roast flavours.
