Beer and nuts have been going together in bars for about as long as anyone can remember. At the Mainline bar and grill in Old Town they’re changing the combination up a little bit — instead of serving nuts with beer, they’re serving nuts in beer with Wynkoop Brewery’s own Rocky Mountain Oyster Stout brewed with freshly roasted bull testicles.

Starting as an April Fool’s joke last year, the Wynkoop staff made a spoof video in which they joked about actually creating the Stout. After 114,000 views on YouTube, the comments on the video showed that it not only gave people a good laugh, but also a thirst for some ballsy beer.

In a reaction to the popularity of the video and in order to raise the humor, the brewers at Wynkoop decided to make the beer a reality.

“It’s kind of like a chocolate stout, but not really,” said Kyle Evans, junior fishery and wildlife conservation major. “It’d go really well with a bacon-cheeseburger.”

The Mainline, owned by Wynkoop Brewery in Denver, opened in Fort Collins early last August and since the doors opened, Rocky Mountain Oyster Stout has remained one of their most popular beers on tap, according to Kristie Piquet, a bartender at the Mainline.

“I moved out here from Hawaii and we never had anything like that,” Piquet said. “I’m a big fan of darker beers and when I had it for the first time, I loved it; it’s really smooth.”

According to Wynkoop Brewery’s website, the stout is brewed with Colorado base malts, roasted barley, seven specialty malts, Styrian Goldings hops and 25 pounds of freshly sliced and roasted bull testicles.

With such distinct ingredients, Wynkoop only produces a small amount to be sold in unique two-packs during April while supplies last, but at the Mainline, it’s always on tap.

“It’s a very thick stout,” said Ryan Cobb, bar manager at the Mainline. “It’s great for this time of year and all around a great stout.”

The Rocky Mountain Oyster Stout, being a thick and dark beer, has an alcohol content of 7.5 percent and approximately three BPBs — balls per barrel. There’s 25 to 32 beers on tap at the Mainline but only one uses an ingredient such as testicles.

“This [Rocky Mountain Oyster Stout] is really good and I like it a lot; it has a lot of good flavor,” Evans said.

Don’t be fooled by the nutty name — though testicles may be present in the beer, the tongue won’t recognize anything less than rich flavor according to Piquet.

“I always tell people that if you can actually taste them in it, we need to have more conversations about beer,” Piquet said.

Collegian Reporter Rick Cookson can be reached at news@collegian.com.