Stumptown Nitro Cold Brew: It’s Like Guinness, but Coffee

By Ann Binlot May 9, 2015

stumptown nitro cold brew its like guinness but coffee landscape 1430843639 iced draft — Image used with permission by copyright holder

When we in Los Angeles for work last week, we desperately needed a caffeine fix one afternoon. The closest place to get coffee was a Stumptown stand. We immediately darted for the stand, looking for the strongest iced concoction we could find. And then we saw it: “Stumptown Nitro Cold Brew.”

“What’s that?” we asked the barista. “Is it strong?”

“Yes,” the barista replied. “It’s served from a tap, and it’s like Guinness, but it’s cold brew.”

We can’t tell you how many times we wished Guinness came in coffee form, so we were immediately sold. The creamy goodness certainly appeased our coffee-starved palettes, and we got that boost that we needed so badly. We were energized for a Saturday evening in Los Angeles! Still confused about it? Here’s the Portland-based Stumptown’s description: “Nitro Cold Brew is cascading and creamy with all of the giddyup of our original Cold Brew Coffee and a smooth nitro-draft mouthfeel.”

“In 2012, Stumptown brought in a food scientist who happened to be in the DIY beer brewing scene,” Diane Aylsworth of Stumptown Coffee Roasters told Paste magazine. “He thought that we could apply draft beer science to coffee, where we would store the coffee in kegs with nitrogen and thus make it possible to transport large quantities of iced coffee while maintaining its freshness.”

Now not everybody is lucky enough to leave near a café that serves Stumptown on draft, so luckily they also have an 11-ounce pop-top can that you can either pour into a glass to see it’s frothiness, or that you can drink straight from the can. We can’t tell you how happy we are that someone had the brilliant idea to take the science behind Guinness and add it to a nice cup of cold brew.

For more information, visit coldbrew.com.

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Ann Binlot is a New York-based freelance writer who contributes to publications like The Economist, Wallpaper*, Monocle…

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