Oddly Correct is a little midtown Kansas City coffee shop that is making a big name for itself. I’ll have a more complete review of their shop and some coffee coming soon, but I wanted to get this short review of their Hop! Toddy drink out ASAP. Hop! Toddy is a cold-brewed coffee with hops added to it, bottled in 12 oz bottles and served up fresh and ready to drink on a regular basis at the shop.

I’m not super familiar with Toddy brewed coffee other than that it is a cold-brewing method that is supposed to cut down on some of the “bitter acids and oils” that traditional forms of extraction may pick up. I’ve never had Toddy brewed coffee, so I can’t comment on that. The fellas at Oddly Correct said that they think the Toddy method can produce a rather flat cup, so they decided to try adding something to it to brighten it up and that “something” was hops.

For V1.0 they are using citra hops, a relatively new “breed” of hops that are prized for their citrusy notes (get it, citra… citrus!?) as well as their other “soft fruit” flavors, notably pineapple and even peach/apricot. If you’re a beer drinker you may’ve had a beer primarily made with citra hops. The most available around here is Sierra Nevada’s Torpedo IPA. I had Torpedo right after it hit the shelf a year or two ago and the pineapple and peach was quite apparent.

The girl in front of me in line said, “I don’t really like hoppy beers, so I’m not sure I’ll like this” and they assured that Hop! Toddy isn’t “hoppy.” They were right.

My bottle was bottled on 7/3/12 and I bought it on 7/4/12. I sort of forgot about it (every time I thought about it I didn’t really want a coffee, like at night) until 7/16/12. I’m not sure if that’s enough time for it to lose some hop character or not, but the hops were certainly subtle in the Hop! Toddy.

The concoction poured out of the bottle like a dead flat porter, very dark brown to black with lots of red highlights in the corners of the glass. It had a chocolatey, sweet aroma, sort of like if you could separate just the chocolatey aroma of a good stout. I wonder if the coffee was Ethiopian Yirgacheffe because there was an Earl Grey character with a hint of lemon, which is a flavor I get from good Yirgacheffes.

The hops were definitely in the background. I suspect that they added some brightness, and I think I was getting them in the finish and aftertaste, but if no one TOLD you there were hops in this you wouldn’t say, “AHA! Hops!” I think they may have done for the coffee what a spritz of acid (like a lime or lemon) will do for a dish… brighten up the flavors and make them “pop” a little where they would otherwise be flat on their own. After hearing the guys’ opinions on Toddy brewed coffee, this is exactly what it sounded like.

This was GREAT on its own (the sure sign of a good cup of coffee is when it tastes good COLD, too). It would probably make a fantastic iced coffee drink of some sort, with a little cream or something, but I think you should drink it undiluted… as-is. I really liked it!