How do you characterize "Breakfast Beer"?

Any beer I drink with breakfast, of course.

Old question, but I'll throw out an answer: In Brewmaster's Table, Garrett Oliver recommended wits, hefeweissens, berliner weisses (wheat in general) to go with eggs. A wit or hefe does go beautifully with eggs/omelettes.

If you're doing steak and eggs, that adds another layer of complexity. Most of those wheats won't stand up to beef, so I would go with a weissbock, dunkel, or even a hoppy amber.

I have found, on several occasions, that the Belgian Blonde / Tripel I make is excellent at breakfast.

I've had it with pancakes -- it was wonderful!

I've had it with sausages and eggs -- it was amazing!

If I didn't have my own available to me I'd try one of these: Maredsous Tripel, Tripel Karmeliet, Saxo, Pranqster, Duvel. I'm sure lots of others would be just as good, but those are the ones I know of and can think of right now.

OK, you asked me to leave it as an answer, so here it is:

In this order: 1. It's cold. 2. It's got alcohol. 3. It's got enough sugar to go well with Wheaties or is neutral enough to work with Froot Loops. Basically, that means just about anything. 4. Lightly hopped. Hops are tough on morning mouth. But then again, the antibacterial properties in hops probably kill off all the funk in your mouth leftover from the stripper mammaries you were licking the night before... oh wait, I'm talking about me again...

For me, a good breakfast beer is something I can handle in the morning, or with a hangover. While strong is fine, if I can taste alcohol, it's not going to end well. Mkeller's beer geek breakfast, for example, has too strong an alcohol taste to be a good breakfast stout.

I think something malty with smooth flavors works best. Bitter hops just won't do at 8am!

I want to brew a breakfast stout that's a blend of 4 batches - oatmeal stout, coffee stout, vanilla porter, and a maple porter. Hit about 6% abv.