This is the third in a series of four posts devoted to Local Blend, a collaboration series of coffee porters MadTree released in January. I'll be judging each beer individually, comparing it to the others in the series, and, finally, rating Local Blend as a whole.

Today is as good a day for coffee as any. In fact, I've already had a mug. I've also had some tea, for what it's worth. It's cold and cloudy outside my living room window, which stinks because it's been 70˚ the last two days (albeit with a strong chance of tornadoes yesterday). So, I guess you could say that the today's cloudy 40˚ is unpleasant and unwelcome. Couple that with crummy sleep last night and, yeah. Coffee's called for.


However, since I've already had a fair amount of caffeine today, and since I have work tomorrow and definitely need to sleep tonight, I'd rather reach for something that tastes like coffee instead of the actual stuff itself. As such, it's a good day to turn to the next in MadTree's Local Blend series: Columbus, featuring coffee from Stauf's.

This is the second in a series of four posts devoted to Local Blend, a collaboration series of coffee porters MadTree recently released. I'll be judging each beer individually, comparing it to the others in the series, and, finally, rating Local Blend as a whole.

Boston Stoker isn't a coffee brand I've enjoyed before. Sure, I've seen bags of their blends around. And yeah, a few of my friends like their Facebook page--some of these are big coffee folks, leading me to believe that I'm in for a treat with Dayton Local Blend.


When MadTree dropped its Local Blend collaboration series last month, I was, to say the least, excited. I like MadTree, I like porters, and I like coffee beers. Why the hell wouldn't I be excited? Drinking the Cincinnati Local Blend the other day (see, each can in this collab four-pack represents a different Ohio city, and each features coffee from a company that calls that can's namesake home) only increased that excitement. So, let's go ahead and break into today's can.

This is the first in a series of four posts devoted to Local Blend, a collaboration series of coffee porters MadTree recently released. 

I've had Deeper Roots coffee before. For my birthday last year, which was, coincidentally, celebrated at MadTree, my brother gave me a bag of Deeper Roots' Community Blend. It's really good stuff, and I can't wait to find out what Deeper Roots coffee adds to a beer such as a porter.


You see, last month MadTree dropped Local Blend, a group of four porters brewed in collaboration with four coffee roasters around Ohio. Each can represents a different city: Cincinnati, Dayton, Columbus, and Cleveland. I'm impressed with the sheer scope of this collaboration series, and, after sitting on my cans since I grabbed them on January 5th, I'm finally breaking into them one-by-one here on the blog. The goal is to review them individually, see how they stack up against each other, and give the overall Local Blend series a rating.

So, here we go. MadTree's Local Blend. First up: Cincinnati - Deeper Roots Coffee.

It's February. It's meant to be cold and dark, with some snow, or sleet, or fog to make it drearier. Sure Valentine's Day is tomorrow, but I've always taken that to be a bright point in an otherwise dreadful month.


And, yeah. We've experienced cold, dark, foggy, snowy, and sleety days here in the last week. We've also hit unseasonably warm weather (60°) and cloudless, sunny days. In fact, today was one such of those cloudless, sunny days. But, I think I have a cure. I think I've found just the beer to knock this month back into its place: North Pier's Old Shuck. So, join me as I pull the curtains closed and put on some creepy music. Hopefully, all this is befitting this porter.