A Couple of Good Beers from O’so Brewing

For the April edition of the Oshkosh SCENE (find yours here), I wrote about O’so Brewing and a few of the new things they’re doing up there in Plover. Luckily, we don’t have to just read about it. A couple of the specialty beers that O’so has recently produced are now available in Oshkosh. If you’ve already made up your mind about O’so, think again. Here are two beers that will have you looking at the brewery in a different light.

Winds Of Change
Since I covered it when it first hit town, I won’t go too deep on this one, but here’s a quick recap. Winds is a blend of fresh and aged pale ales fermented with brettanomyces then matured in oak barrels. It’s an especially refreshing, sour ale that merges the American Pale Ale style with the Belgian sour-beer tradition. The two work together wonderfully. And at 5.5% ABV it’s eminently drinkable. Winds is available in the packaged beer section at Gardina’s, where it’s sold in 750 ml bottles for $12.99.

Convenient Distraction
This is a beauty. They started with O’so’s Night Train Porter and built it up with coffee and vanilla to produce one of the best dessert beers I’ve come across in ages. It pours nearly black with a frothy tan head and an aroma so fragrant you’ll notice it before you raise the glass. Caramelized sugar, vanilla and coffee are prominent in the nose with background notes of roast and chocolate. The mouthfeel is soft and creamy; the flavors intensely rich. Sweet caramel wrapped around coffee and boozy vanilla are followed by firm, roast-malt tannins that keep the beer from becoming cloying. The flavors are so beautifully integrated that I could even see a non-coffee drinker going for it. I liked Winds of Change quite a bit, but this might be the best beer I’ve had from O’so. It would be the perfect dessert after a spicy meal. Then maybe a nap; it’s just over 10% ABV. Don’t miss this one. Convenient Distraction just hit the shelf at the retail store in Gardina’s, where they sell it in 750 ml bottles for $12.99.