A brewer approaches a pallet stacked with 55-pound grain bags, arches their hands high, takes a deep breath, and dives into the empty space in the middle. For a moment, only their legs are visible, flailing like a blow-up tube figure outside a car dealership. Suddenly, they emerge triumphantly holding a torch-red treasure.
Tearing through the Pearson’s Salted Nut Roll packaging reveals a hunk of peanuts stuck to caramel and nougat. It is the sweet reward hidden on every pallet of RahrBSG grain and has become a not-so-secret secret in the beer industry.
At breweries coast to coast, when a grain shipment arrives, employees jostle and jab to claim their customary confection, inspiring memes and viral videos.
Chances are, if you work in a brewery, you know about the Salted Nut Roll. You may have even done your own swan dive for dibs. But few actually know the origin of this sweet, salty brewers’ treat
So I dove into my own black hole between the grain bags, unwrapping the mystery of this pallet present.
The Secret of the Salted Nut Roll
Ask any seasoned brewer worth their salt where the Nut Rolls came from, and they’ll immediately say “BSG,” which merged with Rahr Malting Co. in the summer of 2024 to become RahrBSG.
Technically, that’s true.
RahrBSG Content Director Michael Dawson explains the bulk brewing supply company took over the tradition from Mid America Brewing Supply when Rahr Malting Co. acquired it in the early 2000s, renaming the subsidiary Brewers Supply Group (BSG).
But even he couldn’t pinpoint exactly who started the custom.
Through an old Modern Brewery Age article, I tracked down Mid America Brewing Supply GM and Owner James Halbur for a Zoom call. With his white goatee, mild manner, and plaid button-up, you could have mistaken him for a Midwestern soccer dad.
I asked him directly if he knew who had started the tradition. “We were so appreciative when we got orders that I went: What can we do to say thank you for ordering?” he explains with a gleam in his eyes. “Why not throw a candy bar on there?”
The responses came immediately.
“Phones started ringing off [the hook],” says Halbur, reminding me that this was in the late ‘90s when most orders came through by phone or fax. He says many told him they especially liked it when they hid the candy bar at the bottom of the pallet.
To the Mid America Brewing Supply owner, the candy bar custom seemed simple.
“What were they like, 50 cents?” he remembers. “I could buy a case of 48 Nut Rolls from Sam’s Club, which would last a week or two.”
Halbur grew his business person by person, expanding Mid America Brewing Supply by traveling the upper Midwest and “just knocking on brewery doors.”
Adding the Nut Rolls onto his shipments was “nothing more than a thank you from us,” he explains. “We had quite a bond with our customers, so we just appreciated their business.”
Choosing the Nut Roll was no accident, either. “We needed something that could take a ride on a pallet in cold and hot weather,” says Halbur. “Nut Rolls were usually fresh by the time the customer got them, and they tasted good, too.”
When Rahr acquired Mid America Brewing Supply in 2004, Halbur told then-Rahr Manager Gary Lee that this tradition was worth keeping. “We knew if we stopped, it wouldn’t be good,” says Halbur, remembering all the phone calls. “At the time, you paid more for that long-distance phone call than the candy bar, and that candy bar probably said more to your customer than the phone call.”
From Long-Distance Phone Calls to Viral Videos
BSG carried on the tradition, with things blowing up around 2014 to 2015.
Today, fire up Instagram, and you’ll see countless iterations of dives, jostles, jumps, and swipes—anything those unloading the BSG pallets can do to get their hands on the goodies.
Antonio Sanchez, co-founder of the Instagram handle @wortwrangler, played a significant role in popularizing the Nut Roll through memes and posts that highlighted the playful competition among brewers.
His first post in March 2019 didn’t go viral, but it made people talk, says Sanchez. “It was a couple giving an engagement ring to each other, with the person giving the ring labeled BSG and the person getting the ring as the Nut Roll!”
Today, @wortwrangler has 32.5K followers, with the Nut Roll still making steady appearances.
It’s how Shōjō Beer Co. Founder Haidar Hachem first learned about the customary confection. “I used to joke that BSG is keeping Pearson’s candy alive because of how many Nut Rolls they’re sending out to breweries,” says Hachem.
Dawson isn’t sure exactly how many RahrBSG buys a year, but he knows they are one of Pearson’s larger customers.
A Minnesota-based brand, Pearson’s is rarely known outside of the Midwest, but RahrBSG’s tradition has reached breweries nationwide.
Eight years ago, current Jagged Mountain Craft Brewery Head Brewer Alyssa Hoberer had just started as a shift brewer at Colorado’s Lone Tree Brewing Company.
In her first week, she remembers a pallet coming from RahrBSG. “I realized, dang, you get a treat every time we get a malt shipment!” she laughs, noting whenever RahrBSG sent a pallet, “We would all rush to get it first.”
Getting dibs was especially important at larger breweries. When working at Lonerider Brewery in Raleigh, North Carolina, current Stones Throw Head Brewer David Seyler remembers jockeying with six to 10 folks to get his hands on the Nut Rolls. “You would shove the other guy out of the way,” he says with a smile.
Before RahrBSG, Dawson worked at an online homebrew supply retailer called Northern Brewer. When truckloads of malt from BSG came into the store he says, “People would circle like sharks.”
Dawson shares that BSG used to hide the candy bars like Easter eggs, tucking them between layers of grain bags. “We’d put down a layer of sacks depending on the size of the pallet and keep adding layers on top so you could put the Nut Roll in between,” he explains, noting that, sadly, that tradition no longer continues at RahrBSG because of allergy concerns. Instead, the Nut Rolls come in a plastic bag attached to the bill of lading on the side of the pallet.
Finding the Nut Roll became a treasure hunt.
New Realm Head Brewer Geoff Belcher remembers a super tall 6’4” co-worker who would literally swan dive straight into the hole between the grain bags. “You’d see these long ass legs sticking up out of the pallet,” laughs Belcher. “Oh, that’s just Chris grabbing the Nut Roll first.”
Southern Grist Co-Founder and Head Brewer Jared Welch had only heard about the delicacy’s lore before he opened the Nashville-based brewery. When that first BSG pallet rolled in, “I did what every bright-eyed, bushy-tailed craft brewer does,” he laughs. “I jumped into the middle, grabbed the Nut Roll, and had my first taste.”
Welch described the bite as an “aha moment,” he says. “It’s like you’re being initiated. If you know, you know.”
Brewer’s Lunch: A Part of This Complete Brew Day
In the industry, Nut Rolls are affectionately called Brewer’s Lunch or Brewer’s Breakfast. While no one could pinpoint who coined the nickname, everyone agreed with the reference. The roasted peanuts, caramel, and nougat “get my day going with many grams of protein,” says Hoberer.
Sanchez fell in love with the Nut Roll while working at Packinghouse Brewing Co. “I’d slam a bunch of coffee and need something in my stomach ASAP,” he says. “The Nut Roll slowed down my coffee jitters and got some sodium in me; it was a little piece of tranquility in the middle of the day.”
Imagine you’re knee-deep into a long brew day, a shipment comes in, and you must unload all the bags off that pallet. You might not have time to stop for lunch.
“It just became a wildly convenient means of sustenance,” says Welch.
Dawson adds, “It tasted like the best thing in the world after a bunch of physical labor.”
Brie Devlin, marketing manager at Czig Meister Brewing Company, experienced her first Nut Roll in her head brewer’s office. When he went to grab a recipe in the filing cabinet, Devlin says she saw an entire folder labeled and filled with Nut Rolls.
“They just keep them and snack on them,” she says. “It has sugar, protein, and carbs, so you’re good to go!”
A Treasure Trove: Briess and Malteurop Add Their Own Treats
BSG isn’t the only brewing supply company adding treats to their shipments. Briess Malt & Ingredients Co. sends out bags of 55 double-coated malted milk balls, a tradition that started in the early ’90s.
Malteurop B2B Marketing Specialist Gretchen Jones started toying around with the idea of adding a tiny thank-you to its orders four years ago. “Obviously, we saw a lot of brewers getting Nut Rolls and malted milk balls, and we wanted to participate,” she says.
With a rich history in Milwaukee, Malteurop partnered with meat purveyor Usinger’s to make a custom-branded version of its Slow-Smoked Beef Hickory Sticks.
“It really took off,” says Jones, who noted every Malteurop pallet now leaves the warehouse with a black bag of meat sticks stuck to the bill of lading.
Unlike the candy bar, Malteurops’ meat sticks give brewers a savory alternative.
“They like the idea of getting protein,” says Jones. “It’s a meal.”
When New Realm’s Belcher worked at Commonhouse Aleworks in North Charleston, South Carolina, he remembers a co-worker who would heat the sausages in the microwave and stick them between a hot dog bun for lunch.
As the only employee working a five-barrel system at Stones Throw, Seyler says some days, he can barely leave the brew deck. In that case, he’ll dip into his stash of meat sticks. “I always put them in a drawer and save them for a rainy day,” he explains. “It’s a little bit of sunshine in my day.”
Seyler also gets grain from BSG. “Don’t get me wrong, I love the Nut Roll,” he says, “but the meat stick is fantastic.”
Belcher, who calls himself a savory guy, agrees. “I’m a big dude, so it’s tough for me to get through the whole day on a Nut Roll, but a couple of those sausages, and we’re in business!”
The savory subsidy has meaning. “It’s just sausages, right?” says Belcher. “But a little something extra goes a long way.”
The Nut Roll…Rolls on
What started as a tiny thank-you has become an initiation.
“It’s one of those things that just kind of lives on,” says Hoberer.
Now a seasoned eight-year veteran, Welch passes on the tradition to “Nut Roll virgins.”
The day we chatted, a BSG pallet sat ripe for unpacking on Southern Grist’s loading dock. Off the cuff, Welch pulled in a new packaging member, Andy D’Esposito, gifting him his first Nut Roll.
“I like it,” said D’Esposito, who had heard of Nut Rolls but never tried one.
“Now that you’ve done it, you’re officially a craft brewer!” interjected Welch with a big smile, giving D’Esposito one final piece of advice. “Andy, every time the pallet comes in, you got to be the first one.”
D’Esposito responded, “I’ll be digging for it.”
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