Cafe Gangster Frog Puts Roasted Coffee Against Citrus Hops

Coffee usually gets routed into stouts and porters. Hoppin' Frog has sent it into an IPA instead, where roast sits against the citrus and orange aromas of the base Gangster Frog rather than alongside chocolate malt.

Style: American Coffee IPA
Release Date: 2026-09-21
ABV: N/A
Hoppin' Frog Brewing Company (Akron, OH)

Coffee in beer almost always means a stout. Hoppin' Frog has put it in an IPA instead.

Cafe Gangster Frog IPA is pouring now at the brewery's Akron tasting room, one of two limited draft exclusives built on the Gangster Frog IPA recipe. Hoppin' Frog is calling it an American Coffee IPA.

The brewery describes roasty coffee character adding depth and complexity to the beer's assertive hop profile, with bright citrus, orange and tropical fruit aromas keeping it crisp and refreshing. That combination is the interesting part of the release. In a stout or porter, coffee is reinforcing what the dark malt is already doing. In an IPA there is no roasted malt backdrop, so the coffee has to stand against the hops rather than behind them.

The pairing has more common ground than it first appears. Coffee carries its own citric and fruity acidity, particularly at lighter roast levels, and those characteristics run parallel to the citrus and tropical notes an American hop bill produces. The tension is between the roast and the hop bitterness, which is the part a brewery has to judge carefully.

This is the second of two variants Hoppin' Frog has drawn from Gangster Frog IPA this week, the other being Pineapple Habanero. The brewery has spun the recipe into flavored versions before. No separate ABV has been published for this variation.

Cafe Gangster Frog IPA is draft only at the Hoppin' Frog Tasting Room for a limited time. The brewery suggests trying it side by side with the Pineapple Habanero version.

Editor’s Take

Coffee spends almost its entire brewing career in dark beer, where it is asked to do very little - roast next to roast, agreeing with the chocolate malt about everything. An IPA is a considerably less comfortable room for it. There is no dark malt to hide behind, so the roast has to hold its own line against citrus and orange and tropical fruit.

What makes it work is that the two sides are not really strangers. Coffee is full of the same bright, fruity, faintly acidic notes that people spend a lot of money chasing in a good light roast, and those notes point in roughly the same direction as an American hop bill. Hoppin' Frog says the roast adds depth and complexity while the citrus keeps things crisp, which is the right ambition. Order it beside the Pineapple Habanero and you get the most instructive flight in Akron this week.

Source & Editorial

JollyPint independently prepares release articles using information published by breweries through newsletters, websites, and other official public communications. Brewery-supplied descriptions and tasting notes are reported as provided, while editorial context is added by JollyPint.