Mike Condon thought the email was a joke.
Why would Planters, the nation's seminal peanut brand, want to make a beer with Condon's tiny Chicago suburban brewery, Noon Whistle?
Why would Planters want to make a beer at all?
But sure enough, the email was real, and the unlikely result _ Mr. IPA-Nut, an IPA featuring 800 pounds of peanuts and the iconic, monocled Mr. Peanut on the 16-ounce can _ was released last week.
Mr. IPA-Nut will be available for about one month only in Illinois, at the Noon Whistle taproom and in four-packs ($9.99) at better beer stores.
The beer is an unlikely pairing of global conglomerate The Kraft Heinz Co. _ manufacturer of Velveeta, Jell-O and Kool-Aid, in addition to Planters and other bedrock brands _ with a 3-year-old brewery that made fewer than 2,000 barrels of beer last year, none of which was sold beyond the Chicago area.
"I said to them, 'You guys know this is the kind of beer we brew, and this is where we distribute?' " Condon said. "And they were like, 'We're good with that! That's what we want!' "
Planters' director of marketing, Ashley Tople, said Kraft Heinz, which is headquartered in Chicago and Pittsburgh, wanted to merge the classic pairing of beer and peanuts with a local brewery "that would collaborate with us and let us be part of it."
Noon Whistle brewer and co-founder Paul Kreiner hashed out a handful of ideas that he thought would lend themselves to peanuts. The list included obvious choices, such as imperial brown ale (Kreiner was thinking of a peanut brittle brown ale) or stout. It included more challenging options, such as peanut hefeweizen. At Planters' request, he also sketched out a possible peanut IPA _ which is what the company ended up choosing.
One factor that attracted Planters to Noon Whistle was its deft touch with IPA, Tople said: "If we were going to bring a Planters beer to market, we wanted it to be unique and different."
Mr. IPA-Nut is certainly that. The increasingly crowded craft beer industry has seemed to add just about every conceivable ingredient to every style of beer, but peanut IPA has remained a rarity beyond the occasional small-scale experiment _ and for good reason. IPAs tend to veer fruity and bitter _ not obvious bedfellows for rustic nuttiness.
"I like that they picked an IPA because it pushed me," Kreiner said.
He settled on using whole honey-roasted Planters peanuts in the mash and peanut powder during the boil. In addition to Citra hops (a lush, fruity IPA staple), he employed Wakatu hops, picked for what Kreiner perceives as lime-citrus character, to balance the peanuts.
"I liked the lime-honey mingling," he said. "I didn't want it to be a smack in the face of peanuts. I don't think anyone wants that."
Instead, he wanted the peanuts "faint in the background."
That's the precise reason Mr. IPA-Nut succeeds beyond its novelty status _ it is far more IPA than peanut. And it's a very well-made IPA.
Pouring a turbid amber color due to all those peanuts, Mr. IPA-Nut, which is a managable 6.2 percent alcohol, boasts an aroma that's unusual, but wholly welcome: earthy, malty, fruity-citrus sweet and a hint of caramel.
On the palate it nails an interesting and unlikely balance: floral and fruity upfront, giving way to rustic malt character, light peanut saltiness and then a touch of bitterness, all wrapped in a silky body.
On the can, Mr. IPA-Nut is all novelty. What's inside the can, fortunately, is a hearty IPA ideal for cold weather.
