Quick, grab us a cell phone! We need to call someone. It doesn’t matter whom. It just doesn’t matter! We’re going to mash the keypad until some numbers come out and whomever picks up we’re going to scream with pleasure into the phone until they get to Peaks and Pints and try our beer flight of nuts. Our eyeballs are filling with flavor. Do your life a favor and buy this flight of these damn nut flavored craft. We don’t care what you’re doing; we close at 11 p.m. After that, all bets are off. Did you hear that? All bets. We’re calling it Craft Beer Crosscut 3.7.17: A Flight of Nuts. We’re nuts over it!
Yes, nut brown ales contains nary a nut. So. There are quite a few nut beers that do contain nuts you nut! Yes, not all nuts are, botanically speaking, nuts. But since American craft brewers don’t like constraints, we’re including some that pass the culinary-nut sniff test. Check out these examples of nut beers from America’s small and independent craft brewers, who are all nuts just like us.
Fort George Polish’s Black Walnut Stout
6.8% ABV
Fort George Brewery lead production brewer Michal “Polish” Frankowicz grew up in the Midwest eating black walnuts, thus inspiring him to create a black walnut stout for the brewery’s February-long Stout Month. Nuts? Indeed, although black walnuts differ from their quotidian brethren with their added richness, smokiness, and yes, actually staining anything dark brown they come in contact with once cracked. Frankowicz transfers the beer onto five pounds of halved walnuts — “more surface area provides stronger flavor” — before adding a pound of smoked walnuts into the bright tank.
Hellbent Big Island Toasted Coconut Stout
6.2% ABV, 20 IBU
OK, OK, everyone knows coconuts aren’t nuts at all, but since it’s common to find toasted coconut in a bag of trail mix made of mixed nuts, Peaks and Pints will count it. Hellbent Brewing Co.’s oatmeal stout conjures thoughts of a Mounds candy bar in a glass. It’s aged on toasted coconut, leaving the beer with a delightful coconut flavor and aroma. This is definitely a beer for those who enjoy strong assertive “added” flavors in beer.
High Water Sugaree Maple Bourbon Pecan Pie
9.8%ABV, 28 IBU
Brewing a nut-based beer isn’t easy as pie. In the case of pecans, oil can easily destroy a beer’s foamy head. Plus, capturing pecans’ delicate scent can be tricky, as too much roasting ruins the aroma. But High Water Brewing cracked the nut by adding Vermont maple sugar and bourbon barrel oak chips. Call us nuts but any beer that’s 9.8 percent with this level of sweetness is meant to be a sipper, so we slowly enjoy toasty malts and charred marshmallow with a splash of vanilla-laced whiskey and peanut shell after the last sip.
Rogue Hazelnut Brown Nectar
5.6% ABV, 33 IBU
Oregon produces nearly 99 percent of all American hazelnuts. It’s the official state nut. It also boasts 230 craft breweries. Naturally, these local goodies make their way into a few beers around the Beaver State, including Rogue Ales’ Hazelnut Brown Nectar. At 1993’s American Homebrewers Association convention, Rogue brewmaster John Maier tasted a brown ale with an unusual twist. His pal Chris Studach had added hazelnuts, an addition that later inspired the Oregon brewery to create the rich, malty, and medal-winning Hazelnut Brown Nectar. Its aroma is hazelnut, strong toasted malts, caramel and chocolate. Flavor opens very mild and thin, developing sweet hazelnut notes mixed with some toasted malt.
Wingman P-51 Peanut Butter Cup Porter
8% ABV
Whether it’s spread on sandwiches or combined with chocolate for a salty-sweet dessert, America’s most beloved legume is the peanut. It’s really a no-brainer that brewers would try to blend peanuts with beer. Wingman Brewers introduced a peanut butter and coconut porter to the Port Townsend Strange Brewfest several years ago. At its 2014 Porterpalooza festival, the Tacoma brewery dropped the coconut and added chocolate. It was a huge hit. It re-appeared for Porterpalooza 2015, this time in 22-ounce bottles as a seasonal. Peanut Butter Cup Porter tastes like a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup full of rich peanut, chocolate, some light roasted notes and a decent amount of sweetness.
