New Brew: MillerCoors, Colombe Have Beer And Coffee Mashup To Help You 'Rally Like A GrownUp'

MillerCoors is testing an alcoholic coffee in a few U.S. markets in partnership with La Colombe Coffee Roasters.

The drink, La Colombe Hard Cold Brew Coffee, which will be 4.2% alcohol-by-volume, is selling this month in Boston, Denver, and parts of Florida, including the Tampa Bay area and Fort Myers, the companies said last week.

The alcohol in the drink comes from a malt base, like beer, and cane sugar, and will come ready-to-drink in black or vanilla flavored, in 9-ounce cans that will sell for about $2.79 each, Miller Coors, a subsidiary of Molson Coors Brewing Co TAP, said in a blog post.

Both drinks will contain about 50mg of caffeine per can, and are being marketed to people who want to remain active even as they drink alcohol, part of a “Rally Like a Grown-Up” marketing theme.

Coffee & Beer Have A History

Coffee has been used in brewing darker beers like stouts and porters for some time, but brewers have been experimenting with using coffee in other beers in recent years, though it has primarily been in small batches made by local craft breweries.

Another national brewer, privately-held Pabst Brewing Company, rolled out a coffee beer, brewed with Arabica and Robusta beans, milk and vanilla, this summer in some markets.

Ready-to-drink coffee is growing at about 10% a year, according to Nielsen data cited by the company, and La Colombe is seeing sales grow at about 33% a year.

“Millennials are constantly looking for new products to complement their active, busy lives,” Sofia Colucci, vice president of innovation at MillerCoors said in the blog post. “La Colombe Hard Cold Brew Coffee does exactly that.”

Privately-held La Colombe has previously partnered with restaurant chain Shake Shack Inc SHAK and Philadelphia brewer Yards Brewing Company on a coffee stout, with Yards Brewing and Iceland’s Einstok brewery on a coffee pale ale, and with Pennsylvania’s Conshohocken Brewing Company on Belgian-style coffee ale.

"As makers, we simply started concocting,” La Colombe CEO Todd Carmichael said in a press release. “One of us knows the alcohol industry really well and the other knows coffee really well – and it turns out together we were the perfect pair.”

La Colombe said in addition to stores in the test markets, the brand will appear at local market events and festivals this fall.

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