Pouring the Perfect Nitro Beer
If you’ve seen a beer being poured off a nitro tap, you’re familiar with the mesmerizing sight of tightly packed bubbles painting a beautiful gradient across the glass. The way beer pours on nitro is almost hypnotizing, and it’s as good a visual indication as any that you’re about to enjoy the smoothest, pillowy beer imaginable.
Before we answer the question of just how the perfect nitro beer ends up sitting in front of you, it makes sense to chat about what a beer “on nitro” is.
While the majority of beer you encounter day to day is carbonated with carbon dioxide (known as CO2), the substitution of about 65%-70% nitrogen changes the body and mouthfeel of the beer. Because nitrogen is insuluble in water for the most part, the result is a luscious and pillowy beer that has a wholly different drinking experience. When poured on draft, the beer is pushed through a special tap handle to elevate this quality and create the flow of bubbles on the sides of the glass that are synonymous with many traditional Irish stouts like Guinness.
When it came to our beer lineup, we had a pretty obvious choice for a beer to offer as a nitro pour. Gunner’s Daughter, our flagship milk stout, is one of our favorite beers to drink on draft (or in general) so adding a line of Nitro Gunner’s Daughter at the tasting room was the perfect way to explore what different qualities we could emphasize in the beer using different serving methods.
Even seasoned fans of Gunner’s Daughter often have their mind blown when they first sample the beer in nitro form. The soft, creamy qualities in the pour elevate the notes of dark chocolate and Reese’s cup that pair with the base beer’s roasty qualities. It’s a bit more decadent, and endlessly satisfying, while staying drinkable as we always intend Gunner’s Daughter to be.
The way to pour off of this tap is unique as well, aiming almost straight down into the glass to create the cascading rush of bubbles that give way to the fluffy head of the beer. Nitro beers are often poured at a slower rate, and sometimes are left to settle midway through the pour in order to further develop the beer’s signature head. The goal is to ensure that the first sip gives the drinker a perfect pairing of beer and the soft foam that the pour has produced.
Adding this option to our draft list at the tasting room has given us the chance to expand the Gunner’s Daughter experience and further showcase the beer that many of our visitors know us for. While others in our industry have experimented with canning nitro beers, for the time being we keep Gunner’s Daughter as a treat for draft lines only. That being said, we do try to send kegs of it out to bars and restaurants as often as possible so that our friends in other states can enjoy this unique drinking experience. Cheers!