Colorado Plus satisfies sweet tooth with Cookie Monster Stout

By Steve Graham

Cookie Monster Stout

Style: cookie milk stout

Brewery: Colorado Plus

Location: Wheat Ridge

IBU: 33

ABV: 7 percent

Now that Cookie Monster only has cookies as “a sometime snack” on Sesame Street, he might share some of his Nilla Wafers and Fudge Shoppe cookies with James Coulter and Adam Draeger.

When Coulter was named head brewer at Colorado Plus last summer, the pair wanted to collaborate on a dessert beer. So they made one barrel of the sweet, dark and creamy Cookie Monster Stout.

To sweeten the brew, they added three pounds of fudge-filled cookies, vanilla cookies and vanilla wafers to the mash. The grain bill also included chocolate malt, roasted barley and lactose. The result was sweet, but welcoming.

“Cookie Monster Stout is a wonderful gateway beer for those that are still adjusting to more acquired tastes, but the regular enthusiast is still impressed with the complexity of this craft beer,” said bartender Jesse Madsen, who also helped brew the beer.

Colorado Plus is a brewpub that replaced Valente’s, a neighborhood Italian mainstay on West 38th Avenue and Reed Street. The pub has 56 taps of in-state beers, including up to 10 house beers from the one-barrel nanobrewery Coulter now operates.

Coulter and Draeger share a passion for sweeter beers. Draeger has made a cinnamon-almond winter warmer, a Fruity Pebbles cereal beer and an Oreo stout, with cacao nibs and vanilla extract added during fermentation. Coulter recently had a honey porter and a fruity Belgian on tap. For Thanksgiving, he brewed a sweet potato casserole beer with marshmallows and sweet potatoes.

He also made a small batch cookie stout in December, featuring spiced holiday cookies. He said both cookie stouts are a little sweeter and creamier than some he has tried, thanks mainly to the added lactose.

“The Cookie Monster Stout really speaks for itself,” said Madsen. “It’s a far better alternative to normal cookies, considering it doesn’t require milk and there’s no chance of them getting soggy.”

Steve Graham is a Fort Collins writer who enjoys the outdoors and great beers.