Barrel-Rested Cold Brew Coffee on Nitro

Beer, but first cold brew coffee. We love craft beer at Fireforge. However, we start the day with locally-roasted hot or cold brew coffee. Fireforge has a few home coffee roasters on the team, including Ken, our brewer. He had a commercial coffee roasting background prior to joining Fireforge. Ken makes our cold brew coffee on a regular basis. He uses beans from Due South Coffee Roasters, an artisan coffee roaster also located in Greenville, SC.

Our current batch of cold brew on nitro is very special. It’s “barrel-rested,” in an oak barrel from local distillery, Six&Twenty. So, imagine the creamy, chocolatey roast of cold brew coffee with an added oak booziness without the alcohol.

How do we do this? Ken put unroasted, “green” Acacia Ethiopia coffee beans in our Six&Twenty Old Money whiskey barrel for about three weeks. The beans’ exposure in the barrel does not add alcohol to them. Instead, the beans absorb the aromas from the barrel wood, such as notes of oak and vanilla.

After the “nap,”  Ken returned the beans to Due South for roasting. After that, our roasting buddies returned the beans to the brewery, then Ken made our cold brew.

The cold brewing method involves coarsely grinding roasted coffee beans, then allowing them to steep in cold water overnight. After Ken strains the mixture and kegs up the batch, we serve the cold brew on our nitro tap in the taproom.

Serving the cold brew coffee with a blend of nitrogen and CO2 gives the coffee a velvety, smooth texture. This perfectly complements the flavors already present in the coffee itself, such as chocolate and berries.

The slow, cascading effect of the pour and the resulting creamy head of a cold brew coffee is a beautiful thing to behold.
Enjoy our unique collaborative, full-circle brew, available in the taproom!