Brewvine: North Peak Brewing Company

It’s out with the old and in with the “brew” at in Traverse City.

Next month, they’ll be making room on their beer menu for two new beers.

Whitney Amann and photojournalist Jeremy Erickson have more on the upcoming changes in this week’s Brewvine.

“I think it was just time to start changing things up a little bit,” said head brewer Brian Richards. “I started here in May and they have been giving me a lot of creative freedom and stuff. We were talking and it would be nice to just try a few new things to have on regularly; keep those beers that we’re going to be taking off as our menu beers and bring them back from time to time.”

The “Mission Point Porter” and “Shirley’s Irish Stout” have been staples of North Peak’s beer menu but they are soon going on hiatus to make room for some new brews.

“The beer industry is changing so fast and beer styles are popping up left and right, especially with IPA’s, there’s a new style of IPA happening every year it seems like,” said Richards. “So people like to try new things and it’s just nice to have a little change of pace.”

“We’re going to be doing an English nut brown which is going to be called the ‘Boardman Nut Brown’ and the stout is going to be the ‘Downstream cream ale’,” he says.

In November the “Boardman Nut Brown” and the “Downstream Cream Ale” will make their debut in the taps at North Peak with some flavors that are new to the brewery.

“We use a little bit of roasted malts to just kind of coax sort of a nutty flavor out of them,” said Richards. “It’s a lighter, I’d say, less robust brown ale then some people are used to seeing. A lot of brown ales are kind of border line on like a porter type of beer but this is going to be lighter and very drinkable lower in alcohol. And the stout is going to be right around 5% and that’s going to be served on nitro. It has lactose in it which provides a lot of creaminess and the nitro is going to enhance that and it’s going to just have a really nice, creamy mouth feel. It falls into a category of a sweet stout.”

But don’t worry…

“Shirley” and “Mission Point” will be back to visit from time to time.

“They’re not gone forever. We’ll bring them back here and there. I think we just want to have the opportunity to explore a little bit and try new things and adapt with the beer drinkers that are coming in.”