Best Coffee Flavored Beers: 11 Coffee Beers Ranked and Reviewed

We already cover a lot of ground on coffee beers one at a time, from a full Founders KBS Espresso review to our best stouts ranking, but we had never pulled together a dedicated list of coffee-flavored beers. That gap ends here.

Coffee beer is not one style, it is a technique layered onto a dozen different base styles: imperial stouts, milk stouts, porters, even the odd IPA. Brewers add coffee three main ways, whole roasted beans in the fermenter, cold brew concentrate blended in after the fact, or a flavor extract, and each method changes the finished beer noticeably. Below are 11 worth trying, ranked roughly from biggest and boldest to lighter and easier drinking, with real ABV, brewery and rating data for each, plus a note on which ones you can actually get delivered through Saucey right now.

1. Founders Breakfast Stout

Brewery	Founders Brewing Co. (Grand Rapids, Michigan)
Style	Coffee Oatmeal Stout
ABV	8.3%

Founders built its reputation on this one. Breakfast Stout is brewed with flaked oats, bitter and unsweetened chocolates, and both Sumatran and Kona coffee, and it has carried a 96 rating (“world class”) on BeerAdvocate for years, which is rare air for a beer that most grocery stores can actually get in. It pours black with almost no head and drinks like a cold-brew milkshake, heavy on the chocolate and roast with barely any hop bite to interrupt it. If you want to trade up, Founders also runs a barrel-aged version most people know from their Founders KBS Espresso review, which takes the same coffee-and-chocolate base and ages it in bourbon barrels for something a lot bigger.

Not currently confirmed on Saucey; check Founders’ own site or a local bottle shop for availability.

2. Toppling Goliath Mornin’ Delight

Brewery	Toppling Goliath Brewing Co. (Decorah, Iowa)
Style	Imperial Coffee Milk Stout
ABV	12%

This is a big, dessert-leaning imperial stout brewed with maple syrup and coffee, and it has built a serious cult following on Untappd, where it sits at 4.59 out of 5 across more than 20,000 ratings. The label undersells it a little: the maple comes through as a rounded sweetness rather than a syrup bomb, and the espresso note in the aroma is the first thing you notice pouring it into a glass. Toppling Goliath is a small Iowa brewery, so distribution outside the Midwest can be spotty; if you spot a bottle, it is worth grabbing.

3. The Bruery Share This: Coffee Imperial Stout

Brewery	The Bruery (Placentia, California)
Style	Imperial Stout
ABV	~15%

The Bruery’s Share This series exists to fund a good cause: for every bottle sold, the brewery donates one dollar to Free Wheelchair Mission. The Coffee variant is brewed with beans roasted by Mostra Coffee, sourced from the Philippines, and it is one of the bigger beers on this list at roughly 15% ABV, so it drinks more like a fortified wine than a session stout. Split the 750ml bottle rather than trying to finish it solo.

4. Firestone Walker Mocha Dolce

Brewery	Firestone Walker Brewing Co. (Paso Robles, California)
Style	Nitro Milk Stout
ABV	6%

Firestone Walker’s winter seasonal is built on their standard nitro stout base, then finished with whole roasted coffee beans, Madagascar vanilla and cacao nibs, plus a touch of lactose for sweetness. At 6% ABV it is one of the more approachable beers here, and the nitro pour gives it a thick, almost velvety head. It is a limited, cold-weather release rather than a year-round beer, so it shows up on shelves in the fall and disappears once it sells through.

A limited fall/winter seasonal, not currently confirmed on Saucey; check Firestone Walker’s beer finder for availability near you.

5. Bell’s Kalamazoo Stout

Brewery	Bell’s Brewery (Comstock, Michigan)
Style	American Stout
ABV	6%

Kalamazoo Stout is not marketed as a coffee beer, but it earns its spot here honestly: Bell’s own tasting notes describe “aromas and flavors of dark chocolate and freshly roasted coffee,” and it has carried that reputation since the 1990s, making it one of the older beers on this list. There is no actual coffee added during the brew; the roast character comes entirely from the malt bill, which is a good reminder that you do not always need real coffee to get a coffee-forward stout. We covered it in more depth in our full Bell’s Kalamazoo Stout review.

6. Left Hand Nitro Milk Stout

Brewery	Left Hand Brewing Company (Longmont, Colorado)
Style	Milk Stout
ABV	6%

Left Hand made brewing history here: in 2011 it became the first American craft brewery to bottle a nitrogen beer without a widget, and in 2017 it ran the first US production of a nitro widget can. The beer itself leans into roasted coffee, brown sugar and vanilla cream aromas with a full milk-chocolate finish, and the milk sugar takes the edge off what would otherwise be a fairly bitter roast. At 6% ABV and 25 IBU, it is one of the easier-drinking beers on this list.

7. Samuel Adams Nitro Coffee Stout

Brewery	Boston Beer Company
Style	Nitro Stout
ABV	5.6%

Sam Adams built this one around a specific coffee blend of Sumatran and Indian Monsoon Malabar beans, which brings a deeper, earthier roast than the more common single-origin Colombian or Ethiopian beans other brewers reach for. The nitro widget can gives it a cascading pour and a dense, creamy head, and the dark roasted malts add bittersweet chocolate and dark fruit underneath the coffee. It is one of the most widely distributed beers on this list, so it is usually the easiest to actually find.

8. Guinness Nitro Cold Brew Coffee Stout

Brewery	Guinness / St. James’s Gate Brewery (Dublin, Ireland)
Style	Nitro Stout
ABV	4%

Guinness launched this nationwide in the US in 2021 before rolling it out to the UK the following year, brewing its classic nitro stout with added cold brew coffee extract and natural coffee flavors rather than whole beans. At just 4% ABV it is the lightest beer on this list by a wide margin, and a 12oz serving comes in at 114 calories according to Guinness’s own nutrition panel. It is closer to a coffee-flavored session stout than the bigger imperial stouts elsewhere on this list, which makes it a reasonable entry point if you are not sure you like the coffee-beer idea yet.

9. Smog City Coffee Porter

Brewery	Smog City Brewing Co. (Torrance, California)
Style	Porter
ABV	6%

Porters get overshadowed by stouts in most coffee-beer roundups, but Smog City’s version is worth seeking out. It is aged on locally roasted, fair-trade coffee grounds rather than whole beans or cold brew extract, which gives it a slightly different extraction than most of the beers on this list, more chocolate-forward and less bitter than a straight espresso stout. At 6% ABV it sits in the same easy-drinking range as Left Hand and Bell’s.

10. Flying Dog Kujo Cold Brew Coffee Porter

Brewery	Flying Dog Brewery (Frederick, Maryland)
Style	Porter
ABV	7.4%

Kujo is brewed with cold brew from Vigilante Coffee, a Maryland roaster, and it is one of the higher-ABV porters on this list at 7.4%, giving it more body and warmth than most beers in the style. The label art alone (a snarling, three-headed coffee-bean dog) makes it one of the more recognizable bottles on a shelf. If you like the idea of a coffee stout but want something a shade lighter and roastier rather than sweet, this is a good middle ground.

11. Kane Brewing Morning Bell

Brewery	Kane Brewing Company (Ocean Township, New Jersey)
Style	Imperial Milk Porter
ABV	9.2%

Morning Bell is a yearly collaboration between Kane and Rook Coffee, a New Jersey coffee roaster, and it has become one of the more anticipated fall releases on the East Coast. It is built on a pilsner base with British and German crystal and roast malts, sweetened with milk sugar, then conditioned on Rook’s dark roast beans. At 9.2% ABV it drinks fuller than the name suggests, more dessert than breakfast, with a mocha-brown pour and a cream-and-coffee aroma. Distribution is mostly limited to New Jersey and nearby states.

A regional New Jersey release, not currently confirmed on Saucey; check Kane Brewing’s own site for shipping and availability.

FAQs

What does a coffee beer actually taste like?

It depends heavily on the base style and the brewing method. Beers made with whole roasted beans steeped during or after fermentation, like Founders Breakfast Stout or Bell’s Kalamazoo, tend to taste roasty and chocolatey rather than like actual coffee. Beers made with cold brew concentrate, like Guinness Nitro Cold Brew or Flying Dog Kujo, taste closer to an actual cup of coffee because the extraction method is the same one used to make cold brew for drinking.

Is it safe to mix caffeine and alcohol in one drink?

Coffee beer is a different category from the caffeinated alcoholic drinks the FDA cracked down on in 2010, when it sent warning letters to makers of pre-mixed malt beverages like the original Four Loko formula over added caffeine as a food additive. Brewing beer with actual coffee beans or cold brew is a traditional, legal technique, and the caffeine content in most coffee beers is low enough that it is not comparable to those products. Still, if you are sensitive to caffeine late in the day, an imperial coffee stout at 9%+ ABV brewed with real coffee is worth treating with a bit more caution than a regular beer.

How much caffeine is actually in a coffee beer?

Brewers rarely publish an exact number, and it varies a lot by beer. A drip cup of coffee runs around 95mg of caffeine, while independent testing of various coffee beers has generally found single-digit milligram amounts per 12oz serving, since most of the caffeine either brews or ferments out during the process. If caffeine content matters to you specifically, contact the brewery directly rather than assuming based on how strong the coffee flavor tastes.

What is the difference between a coffee stout and a coffee porter?

Stouts and porters are closely related styles, both dark and roasty, and the line between them has blurred over the decades. Traditionally, stouts use roasted unmalted barley for a sharper, more bitter roast character, while porters lean on malted brown and chocolate malts for a smoother, sweeter profile. Coffee tends to pair naturally with both, which is why you will find it in beers across both categories, like the coffee stouts from Bell’s and Left Hand alongside coffee porters from Smog City and Flying Dog.

Can I brew a coffee beer at home?

Yes, and it is one of the easier flavor additions for a homebrewer to get right, since you can add cold brew concentrate directly to the fermenter or secondary rather than dealing with more finicky ingredients like fruit purees. We have a full walkthrough in our coffee stout recipe, plus a bigger, boozier variation in our coffee vanilla and maple imperial stout recipe.

If any of these send you down a coffee-stout rabbit hole, start with our full Bell’s Kalamazoo Stout review for a deeper look at one of the classics, or our Founders KBS Espresso review if you want to go bigger and boozier. And if you end up wanting to brew your own version, our coffee vanilla and maple imperial stout recipe is a good next stop.