Street Eats: Gloria Jean's Alcohol-Free "Coffee Beer" Failed Us on So Many Levels

As a shameless beerhead, whenever there's something beer/drink related, I jump on the bandwagon without a hesitation.

So when we entered Gloria Jean's Coffees with lazy eyes and saw "coffee beer" on the board, we ordered it without a second thought, even though it was merely five past 10 in the morning. Beer and coffee, how wrong could it be?

“Is it a beer?” I asked excitedly. “No, but it tastes like beer, with a lot of bubbles. It’s drip coffee that has been fermented for over eight hours,” she answered firmly. Ok, so it's not exactly what I'd have on a night out on the town, but at this point, I couldn't resist giving it a try. We ordered the only size they had, large (RMB 34), since they's apparently run out of RMB 29-sized cups. A long 10 minutes later, the staff brought me a plastic cup with two centimeters of thick foam floating on top of a black liquid with ice cubes. It smelled good, with strong coffee tones and a slight caramel essence.

One sip: oh boy. What’s that flavor? It’s sour, fetid, partially carbonated, and a not-so-strong hint of coffee. In fact, it tastes like leftover Budweiser (no offense, Budweiser) that you'd find in a half-empty can and drink, against all better judgement, to alleviate the remnants of last night's party from your skull.

Given that there's no beer in it whatsoever, we can only go as far as to call this an advertizing gimmick (one that let us down immeasurably), and purely based on the beverage looking like brew because of the thick layer of bubbles.

As an Australian coffee chain giant, Gloria Jean's Coffees was established in 1979 and already has two branches in Beijing. We enjoy most of their “normal” coffees, such as their flatwhite, latte, and espresso chillers. Saying that, we'd also suggest avoiding their salad, since RMB 25 will only get you some sliced arugula, cucumber, and tomatoes. The atmosphere somewhat makes up for the poor goods though, and the venue is cozy enough to warrant an afternoon coffee to escape the hustle of Sanlitun.

Just in case you did the same thing as us and got all excited over a lie, you can find real coffee beer, I mean, beer beer with coffee notes, in Goose Island's Bourbon County Brand Coffee Stout (13.4 percent ABV), a kick-arse brew with aromas of rich coffee and bourbon flavor; Ballast Point's Victory at Sea (10 percent ABV), featuring sweet caramel and robust vanilla, coffee aromas; Founders Break's Stout (8.3 percent ABV), boasting a delicious coffee-chocolate one-two punch; or Ale Smith's Speedway Sout (12 percent ABV), including strong aromas of fruit, toffee, and coffee. Now there's something worth spending your money on.

Gloria Jean’s Coffees
Daily 10am-10pm. 1/F, Topwin Center, Chaoyang District
高乐雅咖啡：朝阳区三里屯通盈中心1层东侧

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Email: tracywang@thebeijinger.com
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Photos: Tracy Wang