When Forager Brewery co-founder Annie Henderson talks about a beer that redefined the company, she doesn’t point to a flagship IPA or an approachable Lager. Instead, she points to a Stout that is so complex and loved, it help reshape the brewery’s identity.
“We didn’t expect it to dominate BeerAdvocate’s Minnesota rankings for years. It was born out of passion, not ambition,” Henderson said of Nillerzzzzz, the barrel-aged Imperial Stout that has become synonymous with Forager’s barrel program. “Its reception genuinely surprised us.”
Nillerzzzzz underscores how scarcity, building a narrative around the ingredients, and working toward having a more disciplined process can turn a niche experiment into a lasting brand asset.
The beer began as an experiment in 2018, built on the foundation of Forager’s Sherpa’s Survival Kit Stout recipe but fortified for barrel aging. Into that base, the team layered freshly scraped vanilla bean caviar from five different regions.
Henderson said the meticulous blending process gave the stout a singular depth that beer enthusiasts noticed immediately. The first release in June 2018 became an immediate tipping point.
“Batch one sold out instantly, created lines at the door before sunrise, and later traded for hundreds of dollars online,” Henderson said. “That wave of buzz changed everything.”
By the end of that year, Nillerzzzzz had earned BeerAdvocate’s top rating in Minnesota, vaulting the Rochester brewpub into national attention.
While Nillerzzzzz contributes only a small percentage of Forager’s overall sales, its impact on brand identity has been outsized.
“It placed Forager on the map as a barrel-aged destination, not just a local brewpub,” Henderson said.
She says the Stout became the cornerstone of a vintner-style blending program, where patience and precision drive decision-making. The acclaim also gave Forager the confidence to experiment further, launching variations like Double Barrel Maple Nillerzzzzz and forging collaborations with partners such as Vanillas of the World and regional coffee roasters.
Minnesota’s beer drinkers (and beyond) embraced the Stout’s combination of global and local elements. Henderson points to its robust 14% ABV body layered with vanilla sourced from multiple continents for each new batch.
“It offered depth not common here at the time, and felt both global in ingredients and hyper-local in execution,” she said.
Forager also treated the beer differently from the start. Instead of positioning Nillerzzzzz as an everyday offering, Henderson and her team marketed each release like a vintage wine.
“We treat Nillerzzzzz like an annual vintage: a high-fanfare event with a release bash in May, live music, local vendors, bottle limits, and on-tap pours only that day,” she said.
Scarcity and storytelling help build anticipation more effectively than mass advertising ever could.
Even its unusual name reinforced its status as collectible.
“Every ‘Z’ in Nillerzzzzz signifies a vanilla bean origin, signaling to enthusiasts the layers of craft involved,” Henderson said. That detail turned each release into an event beer with bottles prized among collectors.
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The strategy hasn’t been without challenges. Henderson said there can be difficulty in scaling production while maintaining consistency across barrels that age for more than two years.
“Aging large-format barrels for over two years demands rigorous quality control: barrel tightness, vanilla consistency, blending precision,” she said. Shelf life and flavor stability remain ongoing hurdles, but the process has become central to Forager’s reputation.
Looking back, Henderson said she would have tightened sourcing practices and leaned into the storytelling earlier.
“I’d have structured our barrel sourcing and aging timeline earlier, for consistency and scalability. And I’d lean into storytelling from the beginning: highlight the bean origins, barrel details, and blending narrative right away,” she said.
Even so, the philosophy that shaped Nillerzzzzz hasn’t changed.
“The ethos — precision, patience, and complexity — would remain unchanged,” Henderson said.
Forager now releases Nillerzzzzz as an annual fixture each Spring, each a new vintage that creates a touchstone for the brewery’s identity and a reminder of how one experiment now became its calling card.
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