Plainfield’s Werk Force Brewing medals at national competition

A Plainfield-based tap room has earned some bragging rights after competing at the nation’s biggest beer festival and coming away with a medal, adding to its prestigious profile.

Werk Force Brewing Co.’s Count Chungus won a bronze award in the Wood and Barrel-Aged Strong Stout category at the Great American Beer Festival from Sept. 21 to 23 in Denver.

The festival, which is dubbed by Thrillist as “the one beer festival you must go to before you die,” is a celebration of the craft beer culture in the U.S.

The event also brings together industry professionals to blindly taste beers to identify the top three beers that best represent each category.

Werk Force is a “full-fledged craft brewery,” said Brandon Wright, who for the past nine years has owned the brewery along with his wife, Amanda.

With 29 different beers on tap, Wright said, “We brew everything from lagers, pale ales, IPAs [and] stout. If it is beer, we make it.”

However, he said Werk Force Brewing specializes in “barrel-aged beer.”

Under this process, Wright said, “we take used spirit barrels such as bourbon or rye, and we age some of our beer in those barrels.”

This was the process used to create the winning Count Chungus, a bourbon barrel-aged imperial stout that includes a couple of key ingredients: vanilla and hand-roasted cacao nibs from Ghana and Ecuador, Wright said.

Count Chungus may be an unusual name for a beer, but it’s on par with other Werk Force beers. They include Flying Purple People Eater, a sour ale with blackberries; bourbon barrel-aged Strawberry Shortcake Sleepy Bear, an imperial stout with strawberry, cacao nibs and vanilla; and Steakhouse Tofu, a sour-fruited brew made with a passionfruit puree.

“We brew a series of beers called Chungus. The name comes from an internet meme that we played off of,” Wright said.

An illustrator created a “make-believe monster that is a cross between a bear and a bunny” that is used on the beer bottle labels, he said.

The stout was entered into a “pastry stout category,” which was one of more than 100 categories at the festival.

“A culinary forward, dessert-oriented, rich, decadent stout,” Wright said.

Count Chungus competed against 120 other beers in this category alone.

“It definitely is dessert in a glass,” Wright said.

Because Werk Force hosted a four-day Octoberfest – called Werktoberfest – at the same time as the festival, the owners had to watch their win via livestream.

“It was a mixed bag because we won, but we also weren’t there,” Wright said. “One of our friends who owns a brewery in Tinley Park accepted the award on our behalf.”

But that’s not the only award the brewery recently has won.

Earlier this year, Werk Force took two silver medals at the U.S. Beer Championship for two stouts.

One of the winning beers at the U.S. Beer Championship was Humongous Chungus, a slightly different stout because it contains a bit of coconut.

A brewery and more

Brandon and Amanda Wright, who also are residents of downtown Plainfield, previously owned Chicago Brew Werks, a home-brewing supply store, for 12 years.

Over time, the couple transitioned their attention to Werk Force Brewing.

With 12 employees and only three brew masters, the team currently divides its time between beer production during the first part of the week and then opens its tap room Thursdays through Sundays.

The tap room holds German beer hall-style communal tables and a huge patio.

“About every other week, we have live bands such as bluegrass come in and play,” Brandon Wright said.

The tap room has a partnership with Happy Belly Kitchen, which offers food to the beer-drinking patrons.

For this fall and winter, Werk Force just packaged a barrel-aged Pumpkin Spice Sleepy Bear stout.

“We are about to package our barrel-aged Halloween beer, which contains ghost peppers, Carolina reapers and death spiral peppers,” he said. “It is a hot pepper stout.”

Werk Force grows its own peppers.

For Thanksgiving, Wright said, the business releases a big batch of its imperial stout.

Customers can order online and pick up the beer through a drive-thru option or stop in. Werk Force beer can also be found in 80 to 100 locations in the Chicago area including restaurants, grocery stories and liquor stores, Wright said.