It’s not often that you see coffee and beer paired together in a light beer. Yes, there are plenty of porters or stouts that take advantage of how well a rich malt pairs with notes of coffee flavour, but rarely do you see a brewery try to merge coffee with a lager.
Which is what makes Lighthouse’s Nightwatch Coffee Lager such a pleasant surprise. Inherently, it doesn’t feel like it should work. We’ve been taught that coffee in beer generally means heavy flavour and strong ale. But this lager is light and refreshing, and has an enormous punch of coffee on the nose.
Taking locally produced cold brew coffee, the team at Lighthouse isn’t afraid to let the coffee come through. You can immediately notice it right from the start. If you closed your eyes, you’d be forgiven if you thought you were smelling a cup of coffee. The nice thing is that powerful nose doesn’t translate into an overpowering taste. There are subtle tones of hazelnut, cinnamon and chocolate rounding out this distinct and refreshing brew.
Will this beer be for everyone? No certainly not. If you don’t enjoy coffee, then odds are this isn’t the beer for you. But for those that do, and are looking for something a little different than a coffee porter, then this is a beer that is absolutely worth trying.
Ale/Sessions 