Victory Village Returns (Coffee Brown Ale)

From the Victory Blog:

Peanut butter and jelly. Rocky and Bullwinkle. Green eggs and ham. Wills and Kate. And this week, earning a place in the pantheon of great pairs, Victory beer and One Village Coffee.

The idea for Victory Village, a blend of Victory beer and One Village Coffee’s Smart Blend, started like so many good ideas do, over a beer in our brewpub on a cold January night. Some folks from One Village Coffee were here for a Tweet-up event, and started chatting with Victory Owner and Brewmaster Bill Covaleski. They all realized that combining their coffee and our beer could be a delicious experiment.

They were right. Last year’s batch of Victory Village was such a success, spawning a “Bring Back Victory Village” Facebook page after the beer was gone, that we decided to do just that.

A few weeks ago, when a brown ale we brewed especially to combine with the One Village Coffee was ready, Woody Decasere and Rob Altieri brought 66 pounds of ground Smart Blend coffee here to Victory. Then, along with Bill and Senior Brewer Adam Bartles, they scooped the ground coffee into bags that acted like giant filters and steeped the coffee in one of our tanks. The smell of freshly brewed coffee drifted down hallways and through the fermentation cellar, mingling with wisps of the aroma of roasted malt and fermenting beer. The scent alone made it clear that combining these two popular beverages was an excellent idea.

Once the coffee was brewed, the brewers took over and blended it with the brown ale. The flavors and aromas of blackberry and blueberry in the Smart Blend complement the fruity plum and raisin flavors in the brown ale, giving this year’s batch of Victory Village a unique, delicious flavor.

Victory Village will be available on draft at the Victory Brewpub, and at select locations in Pennsylvania.