Rise Brewing Co.

RISE Brewing’s London Fog is an organic, nitrogen-infused oat milk latte that’s made with Earl Grey Tea. This is the company’s first non-coffee offering and adds to its growing selection of oat milk based beverages.

In addition to being USDA Organic, London Fog is vegan and contains 100 calories, 4 grams of fat, 8 grams of sugar (none added), and 25mg of caffeine per 7 ounce can.

As for the liquid, we’ll start by explaining that a “London Fog” is traditionally a blend of earl grey tea, vanilla, frothed milk, and, optionally, honey. In this case, they’ve opted to go with oat milk and a nitrogen-infused formulation in place of frothed milk. The body of the drink features notes of black tea, bergamot (which, when paired with black tea, makes Earl Grey), and oat milk. Finally, there’s a touch of sweetness, which we can only assume is from the oat milk as there’s no added sugar. 

The end result is a really easy drinking product that’s quite enjoyable and has a slightly milder flavor profile than RISE’s cold brew coffee SKUs. It’s a very nice showcase for both the brand’s oat milk and for its ability to create nitro-infused beverages with lower caffeine and a modest amount of calories and sugar.

On the packaging side of things, this product follows the same format as the company’s other latte products. This starts with the RISE Nitro Brewing Co. logo atop a sun / sun rays image that takes up the upper third of the front panel. From there, there’s a band across the middle with the flavor name, which is immediately attractive when first looking at the can. Lastly, there's the lower half of the can, which has the full product description, a Big Ben silhouette and the USDA Organic logo.

While this looks good, we do have a few bits of constructive feedback. First and foremost, since this is the only non-coffee SKU, we wish that “tea” stood out just a bit more than it presently does. Second, which impacts the first, this product has the longest name of any of RISE’s nitro lattes. This impacts the readability of the front of the can and also makes it a bit harder to digest exactly what this drink is. 

Minor criticism aside, we are definitely impressed with what RISE has created with London Fog. It’s both a great tasting product and proof that RISE has to further expand their nitro offerings beyond just coffee.

We've been big fans of RISE Brewing Company since we first tried their nitro draft cold brew in early 2017. And today, despite there being a seemingly never ending sea of competitors, it's still one of the best cold brew coffees on the market.

Its more recent offerings, which included a pair of citrus flavored nitro cold brews, were well executed but niche (similar to the way that other companies have tried to create cold brew sodas). Being honest, we started to wonder if they could ever create something that would come even close to their flagship product.

Now, in summer 2018, they've managed to create something that can hold its own -- and is perhaps even better than -- the original that we fell in love with. There are three new flavors, Mocha Latte, Oat Milk Latte, and Classic Latte, each of which is packaged in a 7 oz. slim can with a widget that allows the products to be shelf-stable but still have an authentic nitro experience.

Two of the three flavors, Mocha Latte and Oat Milk Latte, are oat milk based, while the third, Classic Latte, is dairy based. Speaking purely from a taste perspective, the oat milk offerings are truly something special. There’s no compromise in losing the dairy and you really cannot taste the oat milk when consuming the products cold (at room temperature, it’s pretty easy to taste). The addition of rich and indulgent chocolate in the Mocha Latte only furthers this. The Classic Latte is a really tasty product too, but it lives in the shadow of the oat milk products which are the winners for us.

That being said, having two oat milk-based SKUs alongside a single dairy-based SKU is an approach that we haven’t seen before. This, at least in theory, gives RISE an offering for consumers seeking a plant-based offering as well as those who just want the classic dairy-based latte. It lets innovation ride alongside the traditional recipe, which is certainly a great product in its own right.

However, we see an issue with this:: both oat milk products are vastly superior to the sole dairy based offering yet they are, by virtue of one being called Classic and the other being labeled as “Oat Milk,” positioned as slightly inferior or compromised. The Mocha Latte, which downplays the dairy-vs-oat-milk labeling, is closer to what we’d like to see across the line. But right now the current approach is a bit confusing to the point where we think it might muddy the waters for the consumer who is looking at all three on a shelf or in a cooler.

That said, what we’d love to see is the approach used for Mocha Latte used on a “Classic” or “Original” Latte that’s made with oat milk. We have a hard time believing that someone who is likely to consume an RTD nitro latte is going to read the label seeking out dairy or be disappointed by the use of oat milk -- especially when it tastes as good as it does.

Overall, RISE has done a tremendous job with these products. Putting the dairy vs oat milk debate aside, these are some of the best tasting RTD coffee products that we’ve had all year.

Rise Brewing Co., which is a maker of nitro cold brew coffees and also the winner of the 13th edition of the New Beverage Showdown, is back two new offerings: Nitro Blood Orange Coffee and Nitro Lemonade Coffee.

First sampled back at the Natural Products East 2017, both of these offerings add citrus to their base of nitro cold brew. We’re big fans of their flagship offering, so we were slightly skeptical of adding new flavors to something that seemed pretty close to perfect (at least in our opinion).

However, once we tried the two products our opinion quickly changed. First, and foremost, these products have a really different flavor profile than that of the original. That’s in stark contrast to adding a more traditional coffee flavoring (e.g. vanilla) that doesn’t do all that much to change things. In the case of both of these flavors, the sharp citrus flavors are quite transformative and makes for a much more refreshing experience than straight coffee.

Let’s drill a bit deeper into each of these products: The Nitro Lemonade Coffee adds lemon juice and a modest 2g of organic cane sugar to compensate for the fact that lemon doesn’t have any natural sweetness. It’s very much like the Arnold Palmer of coffee drinks, which is probably what they were going for. Plus, they’ve done a great job balancing all of the different flavors in the product.

As for the Blood Orange offering, they’ve kept things even simpler by using only coffee, water, and blood orange juice. Unlike the Lemonade this product is meant to be a permanent fixture of the Rise Brewing lineup. It’s slightly tart, slightly sweet, and has a touch of bitterness. Much like the Lemonade, the flavors are nicely balanced and it definitely enhances the overall refreshment factor of the product.

Packaging for both of the products is heavily focused on the fruit aspect of the product. Rise doesn’t use graphics of coffee beans in any of their products, so the lemon and orange graphics feel like they have the chance to slightly overpower that of the coffee. As a result, we think it might be easy to mistake these for something else, be it a sparkling water, sparkling juice (it reminds us of San Pellegrino’s approach) or maybe even a craft beer. Ultimately, we wish it felt a little more like a coffee product than it currently does.

In the end, we really like both of these offerings. Rather than just being new products that play to their existing base, both have the potential to broaden the audience for Rise’s nitro cold-brew. While there’s definitely some room to continue to evolve the packaging, we feel like the liquid is in a really good spot and that both are worthy of being in their full time lineup.

With almost a limitless number of cold brew coffee options on the market today, new entries have to offer something different -- and better -- than what’s already out there. Otherwise, what an upstart offers is probably going to end up a commodity player, at best.

So let’s take a look at Rise, which, having launched a ready to drink nitro cold brew in Summer 2016, is a relatively new player in the space. At this point, they’ve honed in on nitro cold brew, which is something that they’ve been offering in the New York City area for a little while now.

While there are a growing number of nitro offerings out there, this is, given the extra technical hurdle of working with nitro, still a point of differentiation for now. Fortunately though, what Rise has created is one of the best tasting nitro cold brews out there.

Using sustainably sourced Peruvian coffee beans, the product has a bold but super smooth flavor. There’s also a natural sweetness and creaminess, which is a pretty neat trick for a product that is just black coffee without anything added but gas. And the way that they’ve infused nitrogen into this product is perfect. It doesn’t have that “prickly” flavor that you’ll find in some of the products. Instead, it gives the product a soft and layered mouthfeel that’s extremely enjoyable.  Putting all of this together, Rise has the type of flavor that will, at least in our opinion, separate the brand (along with the few other brands that can do something similar) from the pack.

On the packaging front, Rise still has some work to do. The company is currently using a 12 oz. can with a label applied, which isn’t the most polished looking product out there. Developing their own can design would really help take this product to the next level, especially if they can really make the Rise Brewing Co. brand pop. Right now, the product isn’t horrible looking -- and it effectively communicates what the product is -- but there’s definitely a bigger opportunity if they can up the visual appeal and better communicate what sets their cold brew apart from others.