GREEN BAY - With cans of Chocolate Coffee Peanut Butter Porter rolling out, Copper State Brewing joins the rarefied ranks of breweries like Guinness and Left Hand Brewing that package nitro beer.
Infusing a beer with nitrogen produces a beer with a smoother, creamier texture. It's a quality that enhances chocolate, coffee and other malty flavors, both naturally occurring and added, that are common in stouts and porters.
In Wisconsin, 3 Sheeps Brewing is the only other brewery widely distributing a year round nitro beer.
The decision to expand beyond nitro tap lines was driven by demand, says Copper State Brewing co-owner, Jonathan Martens.
“I still think it’s kind of a niche market," said Martens of nitro beer in cans or bottles. "I wouldn’t have spent the money to get that (nitrogen doser) if I didn’t have a beer that everybody’s clamoring for already.”
Chocolate, coffee, peanut butter and beer. What's not to like?
The first batch of Chocolate Coffee Peanut Butter Porter brewed in early 2018 sold at a decent pace, in Martens' estimation, with three barrels selling out in about a month.
That's good, but not clamoring level. And it was certainly not strong enough for Martens to immediately add a second batch to the brewing schedule.
Then came a steady stream of customer questions. Is that peanut butter beer on? Is it coming back?
The requests were warranted. While the nitro's creamy texture heightens the peanut butter flavor, there's also a layer of chocolate, and then the coffee at the end gives it a little bite. It's not a sweet cloying beer.
“We’ll call it a pastry stout,," said Martens. "But it’s a pleasant beer that still tastes like beer and not a sweet.”
The restrained sweetness and a 5.9% alcohol by volume, make it easy to order a second round of Chocolate Coffee Peanut Butter Porter.
By fall of 2018, Martens had gotten enough questions and requests to brew a second batch. It's since been a regular in the taproom beer lineup.
Then demand last summer for Chocolate Coffee Peanut Butter Porter surprised Martens.
“I can’t figure it out," said Martens. "I said we’ll probably see it tail off, and it went the opposite direction, it started picking up in the summer and it’s just carried through the fall here.”
It's regularly the No. 1 or 2 seller each month in the taproom, says Martens, with Stilt Stepper, a New England style India pale ale, taking the other spot.
Even though Martens was pleased to meet customer demand by keeping Chocolate Peanut Butter Porter perpetually on draft at Copper State and through distribution, a new, persistent question popped up: Can I take that home?
Until this week, the physical properties of nitrogen meant the answer had been no.
The challenge and joy of canning nitro beer
Unlike carbonated beer, nitrogenated beer poured into a growler or 32-ounce can will not create the same drinking experience at home.
“You just drink flat beer," said Martens. "Which is kind of gross, unless you’re from England and you like cask beers.”
The easiest solution to the "can I take it home" requests, would have been to brew a carbonated version of the beer. A small batch of Chocolate Coffee Peanut Butter Porter was tested using CO2, says Martens, "but it was a totally different beer."
Carbonation has that little bite that influences the beer’s flavor. Infusing more nitrogen than CO2 into beer creates a creamier texture and smooths out the bitterness.
Some of the difference is in the bubbles. Nitrogen bubbles are smaller than carbon dioxide bubbles.
However, nitrogen is less soluble than carbon dioxide, and this is the biggest challenge to packaging cans of a nitro beer. Part of the solution at Copper State is to use a nitrogen doser that is hooked up to a tank of liquid nitrogen.
A steady stream of steam spills from metallic cylinder on the brewery's canning line. It looks like a tiny fog machine, but this is a key piece of equipment that puts a drop of nitrogen into each can of Chocolate Coffee Peanut Butter Porter.
Still, it requires more than just upgrading the canning line to deliver cans of nitrogenized beer. What Martens is doing beyond adding small doses of nitrogen to each can of beer to ensure a proper pour is something for him to know and for other brewers to figure out.
More pressure is needed to get nitrogen into the beer, and once that pressure is off, says Martens, it likes to come right back out.
If not poured properly, the nitrogen escapes without creating the desired thick, dense head, and once all the nitrogen has escaped the beer goes from creamy smooth to flat.
A restrictor plate, similar to the aerator in a kitchen faucet, is used in tap lines to help ensure a proper pour. It creates bubbles that are smaller and rise much more slowly than carbon dioxide bubbles.
When poured from cans, some breweries overcame the need for a restrictor plate by developing proprietary widgets that float in the beer. However, Martens' method for packaging nitrogenized beer in cans means Copper State won't need to use widgets.
Bottles of nitro beers are poured aggressively, by completely inverting the bottle over the glass, to cause a chain reaction that releases the nitrogen. A similar pour with cans of Copper State Brewing nitro beers will be needed.
With a pilot system for beer experimentation and the nitrogen doser, Martens anticipates having some fun doing one-off batches in small runs of packaged beer.
Tinkering with the methods of packing the beer and new equipment fits with Martens' engineering background.
“It's creativity not just with ingredients but with the perceived textures that you get from the bubbles," said Martens. "That’s the fun part of my job.”
Copper State Brewing beer is distributed in draft and cans throughout the Green Bay market and as far north as Florence and into Door County. Last month, the brewery expanded distribution into the Fox Cities and down to Fond du Lac and Sheboygan.
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Contact Daniel at (920) 996-7214 or dphiggin@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram at @HigginsEats.
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