6 Monster Coffee Drinks, Ranked Worst To Best

When you think of Monster Energy, there's a good chance you imagine a black can with neon green claw marks down the front. The vibes are intense, and it feels like the kind of drink meant to be enjoyed with a rock anthem blaring in the background. However, Monster Energy has quite a collection of drinks that stray from the typical neon green and black cans. From zero-sugar offerings to tea, and even juice, the brand is so diversified that you would be hard-pressed not to find a flavor to suit your needs. There are even Monster coffee drinks. These large cans bring together cold coffee and a Monster Energy mixture containing taurine (an ingredient that might just help extend our lives) to offer a caffeine boost, conveniently, ready to drink in a can. The language on the cans would have you believe it's the answer to coffee shops that offer too many customizations to beverages.

I was curious how the Monster coffee offerings compared to one another, so I set out to sample as many flavors as I could find. I tasted Mean Bean, Loca Moca, Salted Caramel, Irish Creme, Killer Brew Local Moca, and Killer Brew Mean Bean, ranking them according to their flavor. This way, you'll know exactly which one is worth your time when faced with your next convenience store refrigerator purchase.

When I accepted this taste test, I expected it to be very easy to find the Monster coffee flavors. Unfortunately, it proved to be a little bit more of a challenge. In grocery stores, I easily found the Loco Moca and Mean Bean varieties, but the rest of them were a little more elusive. Still, after hunting down all the flavors I could find, I set out to taste them one right after another, taking just enough sips to get my bearings with each and be able to compare the different offerings. 

My ranking was based pretty exclusively on taste and how enjoyable it was. In order to end up toward the top of my ranking, the energy drink would need to be reasonably sweet without being overwhelming, have an enjoyable coffee taste, and offer additional flavoring that added to the experience, rather than detracted.

Irish cream is one of my absolute favorite varieties of liqueur. This in mind, I was excited to try the Irish cream version of Monster Java. Unfortunately, this flavor was a massive letdown. It was easily the most difficult to find of the flavors I sampled, but I ended up locating it at a Speedway convenience store.

Curiously, Irish Creme was also the only flavor I sampled that had a different description on the side of the can from the other ones. The design on the can was also unique, making it feel special and seeming to promise something of a unique drinking experience compared to other Monster coffee flavors. In the end, I found it had a funky smell to it and since scent is so deeply connected to taste, this wasn't a great first impression. As expected, the taste wasn't any better. It reminded me of a very poorly mixed coffee cocktail. 

I can imagine the reason this was so difficult to find had a lot to do with the fact that it's just not tasty enough to warrant very much popularity. Like most of the other flavors, this can had 200 milligrams of caffeine. However, even with the caffeine content, you're definitely better off seeking out a different flavor.

Like Irish Creme, the Killer Brew coffees weren't available in any grocery store I tried. Instead, I looked for them in convenience stores, finding Killer Brew a little more prevalent than the Irish Creme. Monster only offers two flavors of Killer Brew: Loca Moca and Mean Bean. Rather than the 200 milligrams of caffeine the other flavors offer, Killer Brew packs a substantial punch with 300 milligrams of caffeine, landing far on the spectrum of popular energy drinks with the most caffeine content.

I found the Loca Moca iteration to taste pretty similar to its less caffeinated counterpart, which is great if you're looking for a more substantial caffeine boost, but really love the mocha flavor. Unfortunately, as the flavor continued to sit and became something of an aftertaste, I noticed more of a fruity energy drink flavor peeking its way through the chocolate. This was an odd mingling of flavors, and the primary reason I set the Killer Brew Loca Moca far down in my rankings. If it weren't for that unwelcome, additional fruity flavor, the Killer Brew Loca Moca would've performed much better overall.

When it comes to choosing flavors for its drinks, Monster definitely knows how to pick 'em. Rather than having a simple caramel flavor, Monster opted for a salted caramel edition. As a lover of salted caramel, I was eager to sip this one and find out if it can hold a candle to my salted caramel iced espresso I love to make at home.

The Java Monster Salted Caramel fared better than the Irish Creme, but it couldn't hold a candle to freshly made salted caramel syrup. Instead of tasting like actual salted caramel, it reminded me of a jelly bean-type flavor where it's an attempt to mimic the flavor rather than embrace it with actual, accurate flavors. As a frequent drinker of salted caramel coffees, I found it inauthentic, and therefore a substantial letdown. It does taste like a candied sort of caramel that you might find in fancy caramel coffee from Starbucks or Dutch Bros. Still, there is definitely some tweaking Monster needs to do to improve the salted caramel flavor, but the hints of greatness are definitely there.

While Monster has unique coffee flavors in its lineup, there is also a pretty basic option. The Mean Bean flavor is the closest I would say you'll find to a traditional iced latte offering. The basic Mean Bean can had 200 milligrams of caffeine like its other, non-Killer Bean compatriots. This flavor was very easy to find at nearly every convenience store and grocery store that carries energy drinks.

Flavor-wise, it tasted like a sweetened, milky iced latte similar to the type of iced coffee you might find on a gas station coffee bar. There wasn't much special happening here, and I found that the aftertaste was a little stronger than I would have liked. It was noticeably different from the type of aftertaste regular coffee typically leaves and more sweet, energy drink-like than I typically enjoy with iced coffee. Still, the Mean Bean aftertaste wasn't as bad as some of the others. It was easily one of my favorite flavors. In the end, though, it still wasn't that great. It's awfully hard to do ready-to-drink coffee well, and in a pinch, this will serve its purpose.

If you are really in need of a caffeine boost and 200 milligrams simply won't do it, Monster offers a 300 milligrams version of its Mean Bean flavor. I was expecting it to taste substantially different than the regular 200 milligrams version, but was surprised that it tasted nearly identical. In a blind taste between the two, I couldn't tell the difference.

With 100 additional milligrams of caffeine, it's easy to imagine how the aftertaste might become overwhelming for this variety, but somehow, Monster is able to keep it under control. It maintained the same smoothness and milky feel that the regular offering did, all while delivering a substantial step up in caffeine. I put this one slightly ahead of Monster's regular, less caffeinated Mean Bean because the additional caffeine load is absolutely a perk if you're looking to enjoy a caffeine drink. The fact that Monster does it without any real perceptible flavor difference was actually impressive.

My favorite flavor of the bunch was the Loca Moca offering. I enjoyed the 200 milligrams version of this flavor more than its 300 milligrams counterpart because the chocolate had more of a fighting chance to shine through in this version.

In my first few steps, I felt like it was very similar in flavor to Mean Bean, and it was only with subsequent drinking that I began to really notice the chocolate. Rather than being the type of mocha you might get at a Starbucks that is really quite bitter, the mocha was a little bit more milky, closer to a Hershey's chocolate than anything else. While I would typically enjoy more of a balance with my mocha, I thought this added just enough chocolate to actually accentuate the coffee taste. 

The issue with a lot of these Monsters is that they just didn't taste a whole lot like coffee. Fortunately, the Loco Moca actually did. If you simply must have a ready-to-drink coffee item, I highly recommend going for the Loca Moca over any of the other Monster Java flavors or even any of the Sheetz Buzz Beanz Energy Drinks.