![]() In the early ’90s, the Chicago brewery (now owned by Anheuser-Busch InBev) released Bourbon County Brand Stout (BCBS), an imperial stout marinated in ex-bourbon casks, which endures as the style’s North Star. ![]() “It can represent the culmination of what a brewery is capable of,” says Keith Gabbett, the brewmaster at Goose Island. Over a Barrelįor several decades, imperial stouts have held a coveted cubbyhole in the hearts of modern beer drinkers, crowning ratings lists, crowding trading forums and acting as an unofficial barometer of excellence-especially when aged in barrels. ![]() Other brewers are turning stouts into holiday drinks, such as coquito and eggnog, decking fridges with yuletide beer.įar and wide, pastry stouts are celebrated at specialty festivals and shared, a couple unctuous ounces at a time, with family and friends, creating fresh traditions with each creamy, chocolaty sip. To do so, breweries are cherry-picking pantries to make stouts mimic macaroons, raspberry cheesecake and chocolate-dipped churros, or adding real Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups to crank up the candy-display experience-and draw curious new drinkers into beer’s embrace. That means cocoa, marshmallows and caramel, “stuff that’s super-simple but can also be done as a beverage, especially beer, in really high-end ways.” “You’re appealing to the simplest sense of desire, and everything you remember being extra-decadent when you were a kid,” says Matt Monahan, the co-founder and CEO of Other Half Brewing, based in Brooklyn. They offer a new breed of liquefied comfort food, brimming with chocolate and nostalgia. Commonly called “pastry stouts” (Alex Kidd of satirical website Don’t Drink Beer is credited with coining the phrase), these rich, adjunct-laden beers take inspiration from candy bars, ice cream and treats of every persuasion. ![]() Nowadays, the sugary desires of children and adults are overlapping in a Venn diagram of dessert-inspired stouts, spreading across the country like a puddle of sticky chocolate syrup. “It’s very childish, so of course a child is going to be able to draft a beer and base it on what they’re into.” “Sometimes it’s so obvious that, as adults, we miss it,” Dugan says. The label illustration features a father and son splitting a sundae in a forest, though perhaps only the kids can see the trees. The big-kid treat was a big hit, so much so that Great Notion rebrewed Hot Fudge Saturday and canned it. Guided by his son’s suggestions, Dugan built a rich stout crammed with walnuts, milk sugar, vanilla beans and “every kind of chocolate you can imagine.” The stout was finished, in true sundae fashion, with a dose of strawberry sauce. Why wait until Sunday?’ ” Hot Fudge Saturday! That’s word play worthy of today’s beer world. Lewis thought for a spell, then ambled off and brought back a brainstorm. “He’s a creative kid, and he’s like, ‘I’m going to name a beer,’ ” Dugan recalls. They’re ingredients that convince kids like Dugan’s 8-year-old son, Lewis, that they could have a brewing future. The brewery’s opulent imperial stouts include the nutty, raw chocolate–flavored Peanut Brother and Double Fudge Brownie, fermented with gooey, honest-to-goodness brownie batter. James Dugan is a co-founder of the Portland, Oregon, brewery known for hazy IPAs and culinary-inspired sours and stouts, many of the latter doppelgängers for dessert. Father-son bonding can take on a different flavor when Dad owns a brewery like Great Notion.
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