Jeff Eaton’s Cocoa Pebbles Brown Ale

Jeff Eaton has a beer that he makes with, as he puts it, "A very healthy dose of Cocoa Pebbles added to the mash." Earlier this year, Eaton entered that beer in the Society of Oshkosh Brewers' annual club competition. The winner would get to brew a commercial-sized batch of their beer on the 11-barrel system at Fox River Brewing in Oshkosh. Guess who won?

Jeff Eaton

Eaton's Cocoa Pebbles Brown Ale will go on tap at Fox River in Oshkosh this Thursday, December 5.

"It's basically an English Brown Ale with Cocoa Pebbles," Eaton says. "I used Marris Otter for the base malt and Fuggle hops for a mild bittering. It's fermented with Nottingham ale yeast to give it the British feel. Andrew (at Fox River) went with Cocoa Puffs for their version, but other than that we used all the same ingredients that were in the beer that won the SOB competition. You could smell cocoa inside and out all the way across the parking lot."

A mash tun loaded with Cocoa Puffs.

Cocoa Pebbles Brown Ale is the first of two of Eaton's beers being released by area breweries. Eaton, who also helps out on the brewing side of things at Lion's Tail in Neenah, will have a beer going on draft there in early 2020. That beer will be brewed at Lion’s Tail in mid-December from Eaton's Czech-style pilsner recipe that includes an addition of honey.

And then there's that's pizza beer he makes. Don't laugh, it almost wound up in the Fox River brewhouse. "In the SOB competition, my pizza beer came in third, believe it or not," Eaton says. Maybe we'll get to try that one next year.