Woke Cold Brew Coffee Stout

There’s a coffee stout on at Fox River Brewing that’s a collaboration of a different sort.

Woke Cold Brew Coffee Stout

The beer was made by Fox River. The coffee was roasted by Bare Bones. “The coffee was a Peruvian blend at medium roast,” says Drew Roth, head brewer at Fox River. “Dan (Dringolli, owner of Bare Bones) had given me a sample of some and I liked it. Whenever possible, I like to use local ingredients so it seemed like a good fit.”

At the Fox River taproom, Woke is pouring on nitro, but even with that less boisterous gas, the coffee aroma leaps out at you. I could smell it well before the glass reached my face.

To help preserve that aroma, Roth introduced the coffee – 10 pounds of it – on the cold side; treating it like a dry-hop addition. “The coffee itself was added as a whole bean and allowed to cold steep in the cold-crashed fermenter for around a week,” he says.

That process seems to have helped inhibit any of the acrid, bitter flavors you sometimes find in a coffee stout. The beer is exceptionally smooth with the coffee flavor having a sweet, caramel-like aspect.

“The way we added the coffee, as well as how we treated the dark malts, is what I think led to the super-smooth flavor,” Roth says. “The dark malts were also added as cold steep.”

If you’re into coffee stouts you should make a point of getting to this one. It would be an ideal beer for a weekend brunch. In addition to the nitro release, Fox River also now has the standard carbonation version available in bottles.

Woke Cold Brew Stout is 5.2% ABV and pouring in both the dining room and the taproom at Fox River Oshkosh.