Drinking this Irish stout buys coffee for homeless
Emsworth’s Aurochs Brewing Co. has released a collaboration coffee beer made with its Avalon neighbor, Richbarn Roasters. A portion of proceeds and an additional donation from the brewery will support Richbarn’smission of supplying coffee to homeless shelters and training people so they can get coffee jobs.
Boondock Sláinte is a rich, dark 8.3% alcohol by volume and 100% gluten-free Irish breakfast stout brewed with a custom, cold-brewed Richbarn Brazilian roast as well as millet, buckwheat, vanilla, American oak chips and lactose. It’s available starting Thursday in the Aurochs tasting room and via www.aurochsbrewing.com (shipping in Pennsylvania only) while supplieslast for $16 per four-pack and $45 per 12-pack of 12-ounce cans.
Auroch’s Doug Foster says, “We are donating 12% of revenue from the sales of the beer. We are going to be making a donation on top of that, but we haven’t decided on a total yet.”
Richbarn, a project of Evan Addams and Mitch Young, is “not about the coffee — It’s about the cause,” as they put it on the company’s website. There they explain how, as they launched during the pandemic, they used proceeds to help others and now are supplying coffee to homeless shelters, where it is a very important component as well as an expensive one. Richbarn also is “hiring underprivileged men and women from those shelters to learn, master and
roast the very coffee that’s donated, eventually helping place them with localcoffee shops/roasters — helping them start new lives.”
Their mission is “something special,” says Foster.
Learn more at www.richbarnroasters.com.
Best labels
A remarkable three breweries in this region placed among the ARTBREW Top 10 Beer Labels of 2020 as awarded by the Thirsty Bastards website, which chose the winners from 169 very striking labels from around the country.
North Country Brewing (Slippery Rock) placed third with Melinda And The Night Sky Helles Bock. It’s a collaboration with the Pittsburgh bluesy rock band, Melinda and The Night Sky, which is fronted by Melinda Colaizzi. She is also the founder of Women Who Rock, which
holds an annual concert to fund women’s health research.
The label was done by Pittsburghbased artist Nina Zivkovic, who says Colaizzi is the artwork’s main character, framed with flowers and “adorned with a star-crown and lightning bolt necklace and the starry night behind her. Plus, a little more love to the Night Sky on the side of the label was one of my favorite final touches. North Country Brewing made the artwork even more gorgeous!”
Placing sixth was Immaculate IPA by Recon Brewing (Butler), and placing eighth was White Magick of The Sun Wheat Ale by Voodoo Brewing (Meadville).
See all the winning labels at thirstybastards.com.