My friend "M" carted a bottle of Kopi Luwak Beer to Oregon from the Netherlands during her visit back in June. If you've never heard of the tasty but unusual Kopi coffee bean, you're not alone. It's become a pricey delicacy in cafes throughout Europe but, as far as I've been able to discern, it can only be found in metropolises like Los Angeles and New York in the states.

The beans are made from berries that have passed through the digestive systems of Asian Palm Civets, which are cat-sized mammals that hail from the Philippines and Indonesia. Click here to have a look at one of these little critters.

If you can get over the fact that Kopi Luwak is, essentially, crap that can cost $50+ a cup, you're in for a treat. The beans are pretty dang divine. I broke out the bottle during a graduation party in SE Portland earlier this summer and passed out samples in Dixie cups. The attendees were fascinated by this "monkey poop beer." We did a toast to the graduates in a attendance and downed the stuff.

All in all, it was a pretty solid coffee stout, probably the best I've ever tasted. It was rich and frothy qne I'd recommend it. Oddly enough, the bottle contained enough beer to provide 14 people with a taste test. It was magic. Just like Jesus!

This past Saturday, I visited the bottle shop in Leiden where M picked it up. Unfortunately, they were all sold out of Kopi Luwak beer, which was released by a small Dutch brewery in a limited edition of 750 bottles. It's not the first of its kind though. A brewery in California came out with a Kopi Luwak "Speedway Stout" a year or two ago. Here's hoping that "monkey poop beer" will spread across the land and that its exquisite, brown goodness will flow through the streets like rainwater.

Labels: beer, monkeys