Coffee Beer

Nestle have patented Coffee Beer. You can now have coffee that "that pours and foams like beer, but smells of strong coffee and packs a concentrated caffeine kick." Unfortunately at the moment it is non-alcoholic which pretty much removes the sole reason for drinking beer. You only have to look at the popularity of non-alcoholic beer to realise that most people don't actually drink beer for the "pour and foam" experience. However all is not lost:

The beverage is made in a similar way to beer, but fine-tuned temperature control stops the formation of ethyl alcohol. So the new drink could go down well with people who want a long tall pick-me-up while driving.

Obviously it should not be too difficult to make the beer alcoholic, in which case it would not be recommended as a "pick-me-up while driving" more a "pick-me-up while stumbling". The trick for Nestle would be to achieve a perfect balance between alcohol and coffee so that one could get drunk and sober-up at the same time.

(Via New Scientist and several other blogs today)