Hooker's chocolate stout: what'll they think of next? Bacon beer? |
When it comes time to get all romantic and festive for Valentine’s Day, in the booze department most people turn to a nice red wine or maybe a posh bottle of champagne. Perhaps a froofy martini with candy hearts will be ordered by some. But beer has often seemed to lag behind the other noble drinkables in terms of conveying the fine sentiments of love. The crew at Bloomfield’s Thomas Hooker Brewery is cooking something up to change that. They’ve got tanks full of 1500 gallons of chocolate beer brewing, ready for an early February release date, just in time for Valentine’s Day. They’re banking on winning some romantic beer drinkers, or adventurous chocolate-lovers perhaps, over with this one.
It’s not just a cynical ploy to tap into the frantic burst of chocolate mania for the holiday market. The beer -- a Chocolate Truffle Stout -- is also a collaboration between two Nutmeg-proud Connecticut businesses, since it uses Munson’s chocolate to attain that silky chocolaty flavor. Curt Cameron, the president of Hooker Brewery, told us the stout fills a nice spot in the company’s seasonal-brew calendar. “This is the time of year when nobody really releases new beer,” says Cameron.
Hooker Brewery does a watermelon beer in the summer, an award-winning Octoberfest in the fall, and a Nor’easter in the winter, so the timing works out well.
“We had this time slot to fill,” says Cameron, “and we needed a style that we didn’t do. Plus people had been asking us to do a stout. And there was a whole concept of Connecticut pride in the collaborative project.” (To cement the synergy, Munson’s is also selling a beer brittle made from Hooker beer.)
Cameron and his team of brewers began meeting with the chocolatiers at Munson’s back in November to begin planning and taste-testing.
“We’re using their proprietary cocoa in this beer -- it’s not just a matter of dumping cocoa into a beer,” says Cameron, adding that things like fats and lipids in chocolate have to be accounted for. “I think we made four or five test batches. We needed to figure how much cocoa to add and when to add it. We did a blind testing and everyone agreed on which batch they liked. We think it tastes fantastic.”
Many chocolate stouts have a kind of bitterness, Cameron says, and the Hooker brewmasters didn’t want to go that route. Though one can’t hope to replicate the feel of milk chocolate, Cameron says they aimed for something smooth.
“We wanted a more of a creamy chocolate stout,” he says. “We used certain grains to get a more silky feel.”
Cameron says the Hooker chocolate stout will also be something that doesn’t overpower the palate, limiting it to a one-bottle novelty.
“It works well as a session beer - something that you can drink a couple bottle of and still put a sentence together.”
You can taste for yourself at Hooker Brewery’s Open House, tonight, Jan. 20. Or look for six packs at package stores in early February. Don’t be surprised if these disappear from the shelves pretty quickly. Cameron says there’s been a surprising show of interest in demand already. But you can expect to see chocolate stout as part of Hooker brew’s annual seasonal rotation.
“We’re swinging for the fences with this beer,” says Cameron.
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