Tap Handle #624: Belching Beaver - Peanut Butter Milk Stout

July 28, 2016

Tap Handle #624: Belching Beaver - Peanut Butter Milk Stout

Tap size: 10.25"
Rarity: readily available
Mounting: 3/8" ferrule on 5/16" anchor bolt

The Belching Beaver tap amounts to a toy on a stick, but the beaver mascot at the top of the tap is such a goofy character, I'm willing to overlook any downside. Emerging from a round section of the tap that is surrounded by a white ring with the brewery's name in raised letters, this fuzzy fellow looks like he is unleashing the mother of all beaver belches. For added zaniness, his tail sticks straight up through the top of the tap. The rest of the tap is fairly nondescript, except for an oval area halfway down the base that allows the label of the beer variety to be placed. What's really unusual about my version is the two different labels, front and back, that are for the same beer but look different from each other. Otherwise, the tap is a mirror image front and back, so I reduced the number of photos taken. Over the past year, this tap has moved from being hard to find and expensive, to easy to find and affordable.

Click through to read more about Belching Beaver Brewery, their Peanut Butter Milk Stout, and to see more photos of this comical tap...

Belching Beaver Brewery was founded in Vista, California in 2012 by Tom Vogel and Dave Mobley. Vogel owned a mortgage company and for years had been a homebrewer and winemaker, with the goal of someday opening a bar or pizza brewpub. He had gotten hooked on craft beer in 1996 when trying a Sierra Nevada brew. Mobley was an architect who met Vogel at a wine-making class, and the two men started making wine together. The partnership evolved into starting a brewery together. After receiving support from his wife Jenny, who took on a role in the budding brewery, Vogel offered Troy Smith of Coronado Brewing the head brewing position, and the team was set.

They chose a location in Vista’s Business Park, producing 6 beer varieties that were served in a small tasting room. Due to space constraints, volume was limited to 1,800 barrels per year. The brewery started winning awards and business took off behind their popular Peanut Butter Milk Stout. They were able to expand the tasting room area by adding an outdoor patio, and opened a satellite tasting-room in North Park. In 2014 they began distributing in Hawaii, but the big news was their purchase of the former Vista Village/First National Bank of Southern California Bank building in downtown Vista. Their original plan was to open a tasting room downtown, but when the bank building became available the decision was made to purchase the larger facility and add not only additional brewing equipment, but also a tasting room and restaurant.

In 2015, while the bank building was being renovated (at a cost of nearly $1 million), Belching Beaver finalized a purchase agreement that allowed them to build a five-vessel, 30-barrel production brewery in Oceanside. The new 24,428 square foot facility is projected to double the company’s production capacity to 30,000 barrels a year between their trio of facilities, but can achieve a maximum of 60,000 barrels. They also began canning beers in an effort to meet growing demand. By 2016 the renovation of the bank building was complete, and the 6,740 square foot brewpub (12,000 square feet counting outdoor patios) opened as the Belching Beaver Tavern and Grill. It serves upscale pub food with 70 beers on tap, wines on tap, a full bar, two patios which gives the feeling of two different restaurants in one location, The large central area also has table and booth seating, as well as seating at the long bar. The bank safe is now the wine tasting room, complete with racks of bottled wine and a glass topped table that was once a set of safe deposit boxes. The Tavern does not contain a production brewery making core beers but instead makes one-off experimental brews, and most of the food is sourced from nearby farms. Various Belching Beaver beers are used in many of the recipes, and the kitchen plans to add a smoker and an outdoor grill.

At the Oceanside location, Smith, his father, and a single assistant assembled, piped, welded and got the facility running. Currently the new location is not open to the public; however, a tasting room is planned in the future, along with a second-story catwalk that will allow visitors to tour the brewery from above. A new bottling system is planned to replace line at the original brewery; it will allow the company to finally launch six-packs of 12 ounce bottles of many of the company's mainstays: Peanut Butter Milk Stout, Hop Highway IPA, Me So Honey, Beaver’s Milk milk-stout, Dammed, and Great Lei IPA. Also coming are more 22 ounce beers, including a chocolate-peanut butter stout called Viva Le Beaver and brews from a rotating milk-stout series as well as a rotating coffee-beer series. Other future plans are for the brewery to get into bourbon and wine production. Distribution currently includes California, Hawaii, Oregon, Nevada, and Washington, with plans to expand to Arizona.

Belching Beaver Peanut Butter Milk Stout is simply irresistible. It’s like dark chocolate Reese’s in a glass! Rolled oats and lactose add to the creamy body of this beer while heavenly aromas of roasted buttery peanuts and chocolate greet you with every sip. Try this out with a scoop of vanilla ice cream for a real treat! PBMS won a silver medal at the 2014 World Beer Championships and a bronze at the 2015 World Beer Championships.