Michelle and the Great Boffee Experiment

Michelle Shirley shakes some Ghirardelli cocoa powder on top of my beer.

Am I surprised? No way. This gal is into experimentation big-time, specially when it comes to Cafe 1134's coffees and San Diego's craft beers. And she knows I'm interested.

"You've got to try this," she said when I came in. "I've been working on this for a while."

Seems her buddy Wade from Emerald City surf shop next door came in during happy hour looking for a beer before he went home. Michelle helps select all sorts of local beers for 1134, but she really keeps an eye out for robust brews like Stone's Sublimely Self-Righteous Black IPA, or Modern Times' Black House Stout.

"So Wade wants a beer but also wants an espresso to wake him up," Michelle says. "So I joke, 'Why not mix them together?'"

Result: "I floated a shot on top of the Modern Times oatmeal stout. It made for a creamy, bitter espresso with a nice, dark inch-high head on it. Then I decided to up the ante and the sweetness and sprinkle some Ghirardelli cocoa powder on top. That was it. The combo of the coffee already in the stout and everything we added gave it a rich taste I've never had before. We called it Bruise'n Beans. Get it? Brews'n...?"

I get it, and I get it, the actual Bruise'n Beans brew. Costs $4.32. The actual 16oz can costs $3.25 in happy hour, quite a deal for'Nado. The rest is for Michelle's magic.

Can't help thinking as I sip (and bite into a hard-boiled egg they sell for 75 cents) — are these great times we live in, or what? People like Modern Times brewery creating their crazy beers, baristas like Michelle taking it one step further. Hey, remember when it was only the Big Three breweries and their brewskis, all tasting the same? And coffee was Hill Brothers (no offense, Hill Brothers) and that was it?

And now coffee places like this are hotbeds of experimentation in what you might call Mixed Media.

I come out a Lincoln poorer and feeling like Columbus after he'd discovered the New World.

We've come a long way, baby. (No offense, Virginia Slims.)