Some ideas are really good—the wheel, the PC, the Cheesy Gordita Crunch. Others are really bad—that last drink, these cars, Saved By the Bell: The College Years. But the vast majority of ideas exist somewhere in the middle of these two extremes. Our latest idea, however, does not. Our latest idea is off-the-scale bad. But hear us out.
The original thought was to remove the heating element from our Keurig, replace the water with Guinness Extra, pop in a K Cup, and receive a glorious cup of coffee stout. Sound, right? (Humor us.)
First, an issue: the heating element. If the idea worked, we wanted everyone with a Keurig to be able make some coffee stout at home, and tinkering with your coffee maker seemed like a lot to ask. So we ditched that plan, which meant we’d be receiving a cup of hot coffee stout, however, which didn’t sound all that appealing. In fact, it sounded awful. And yet…
Since the Keurig chambers a decent amount of water, you need to run it a few times before the beer is pumping. Done. On about the third or fourth cup, we could smell the Guinness. The first thing that was obvious was we didn’t get a big pour. We’re guessing this is due to the carbonation tricking the Keurig into thinking it poured the right amount of “water.” Stupid Keurig. But, after taking a whiff of that tiny pour, we realized this might be something akin to a coffee stout. From the aroma alone, it sure was reminiscent of one. Maybe we were on to something!
We were not on to something.
While we like to warm a stout in our hands to bring out some notes hidden by the cold, piping hot beer is an idea best left in the 1800s—at least in the way we went about it. The Keurig kills the carbonation, and while that’s not surprising, it makes the beverage it spits out unrecognizable. Instead of a stout with notes of coffee, think of a coffee with notes of a stout. While that doesn’t sound all that bad—it is. It’s like you’re drinking some java with jagged beer notes. For a second you get a little bit of sweet malt. That gives way to a split second of raisins and dark fruits. Things pop up and die in the heat. Basically, it tastes like funky coffee.
It could be that Guinness Extra Stout wasn’t the right stout for this horrible, horrible experiment. Maybe something sweeter and creamier? Left Hand Milk Stout, perhaps? Maybe something bigger and bolder? A non-Espresso Yeti? Whatever the case, Guinness Extra Stout left us with a 1/4 cup of oddly flavored coffee, which we’d prefer to never drink again.
Want to try it yourself? We’d highly recommend figuring out a way to disable the heating element. Or, you know, just buy a coffee stout.
