Hinterland Brewery - Nitro Luna Coffee Stout

Inspired by Luna Coffee in De Pere, WI, this stout incorporates real coffee and took Hinterland “over 5 months of late night experiments to perfect its balance.” We’re thankful they took their time, as coffee stouts can sometimes go off the rails, but this one is very tasty, indeed. We get a super black pour from this stout, capped by a rich-looking brown mousse of very small nitrogen bubbles. Look for roastiness to dominate the aroma with very prominent coffee character plus impressions of earthy spice and mild woodsiness. Black coffee comes forth front-and-center on the palate too, with a very round, smooth creaminess thanks to the generous use of flaked oats and that silky nitrogen. Notes of dark chocolate, scorched caramel, and resinous, zesty hop bitterness join the party too, all balanced by just the right amount of residual sweetness and that super smooth texture. For food pairings, Hinterland recommends chocolate, cheesecake, and donuts. For savory options, we’d steer toward grilled veggies and meats, like a coffee-rubbed steak. Cheers!

Hinterland Brewery was founded by husband and wife duo Bill and Michelle Tressler in 1995. The story begins a couple years earlier when the young couple were living in California’s Bay Area with Bill working as a journalist at the SF Chronicle. When work dried up in the midst of a strike at the paper, it was a natural fit for him as a homebrewer to take a new job as editor for American Brewer and Beer the Magazine. Fully bitten by the beer bug at that point, he enrolled in brewing school at both UC Davis and the American Brewers Guild to learn more about commercial brewing. He and Michelle then returned back to Wisconsin and started a tiny brewery in a defunct cheese factory just outside Bill’s hometown of Green Bay. At first, Bill and Michelle were the only employees, handling everything from brewing, to bottling, to marketing, while relying upon generous friends and family to lend as many hands as possible.

Despite their modest beginnings, soon enough they were able to expand their operation by moving into a larger facility – a turn-of-the-century era former meat packing warehouse in Green Bay which gave them more space for production as well as a farm-to-table restaurant. Fast forward 30 years and Hinterland is a fixture of Green Bay’s Titletown district, directly across the street from Lambeau Field. Their vision is to brew beer they can be proud of, and not “corporate, diluted crap.” Cheers to that! The brewery produces an array of year-round, seasonal, and limited production beers, and their attached Beer Hall restaurant evokes a “German bräuhaus with an urban twist and a better sense of humor.” For more info, check them out at hinterlandbeer.com.