Birdsong's Wake Up Porter to Return

Birdsong Brewing Co. has announced its coveted Wake Up Porter, brewed with coffee and vanilla, will be available August 24. For all the details, see the release below:

CHARLOTTE, NC — It’s just about that the time of year when we start wishing, hoping and drinking to the arrival of fall. Birdsong Brewing is doing their part to speed along seasonal change with the Aug. 24 release of Wake Up Porter, the beloved coffee vanilla porter.

Wake Up Porter, brewed with Central Coffee Company’s coffee and Madagascar vanilla beans, debuted in 2014 and was well received from the outset. The beer takes its name from the eponymous Rage Against The Machine song.

Wake Up Porter is an exercise in complex flavor layering and attention to detail, which have become hallmarks of Birdsong’s culinarily influenced beers. The brewers make a cold brew with the beans and add it to the beer during secondary fermentation. The vanilla beans are sliced, soaked in bourbon and added around same time as the cold brew.

This year, Wake Up Porter is being given some room to stretch out on the robust Birdsong beer release calendar. “This seasonal hasn’t really had a chance to shine and get it’s full 90 days on the market,” says Chris Goulet, principal owner of Birdsong. “Last year we only had it out for seven weeks.” It will be available in cans and on tap across North and South Carolina.

Goulet was inspired to create Wake Up Porter after “tasting a delicious porter in Colorado years ago. But I felt like coffee was the missing ingredient and decided to add that to our recipe.” Birdsong uses Sumatra Lintong coffee from Charlotte’s Central Coffee.

“Getting to know your suppliers is one of the quiet joys of being a small business,” Goulet says. “Many hundreds of batches would not have been started on time without the delicious products at Central Coffee Company. Coffee beans are ground to order by Jimmy Kleto, the proprietor of Central Coffee.

”Birdsong and Central Coffee are frequent collaborators. The local beans were used in a coffee blonde created with Four Saints Brewing out of Asheboro, as well as Birdsong’s MexiCali Stout, which will make it’s annual return this fall.