BEER OR DESSERT?
PASTRY STOUTS BLUR THE LINE AT CONNECTICUT BREWERIES
As Sean Ricci describes how one of Hoax Brewing Co.’s latest releases is made, it’s easy to forget he’s talking about beer.
“We load it up with hundreds of bags of marshmallows, the finest-quality hot cocoa powder we can get our hands on, lactose sugar, we even add some Ecuadorian cacao to make it even more chocolaty,” says Ricci, president of Hoax Brewing, which operates out of The Beeracks brewing facility in East Haven.
Ricci recently explained to me how those ingredients combine with regular beer components like grain, water and hops to create an imperial hot chocolate milk stout called Dino Spumoni. The beer is named after a character in the Nickelodeon cartoon Hey Arnold!
This boozy, 8 percent ABV milkshake in a glass is what is known in beer circles as a dessert stout or pastry stout. These stouts feature intentionally overthe-top dessert ingredients ranging from marshmallows to peanut butter, and seek to recreate a Halloween-bag’s worth of popular sweets from Thin Mints to strawberry milkshakes and more. They have become increasingly popular both in Connecticut and beyond with many prominent brewers channeling their inner Willy Wonka as they try their hands at the style.
While there is no set definition for a pastry stout yet — they seem to exist partially to shatter existing brewing norms — they do tend to share some common traits and many, but not all, are made with lactose, which can add sweetness and a thicker mouthfeel.
“A pastry stout in my eyes is a big, thick, higher-ABV stout packed with tons of fun dessert flavors, most commonly imitating flavors of pastries and snacks that bring back some nostalgic effect,” Ricci says. “It gives brewers a chance to have some fun with a beer rather than stick to the traditional styles.”
And unlike those traditional styles, which have
official style guides, or at least fairly accepted norms of what makes a good beer, dessert stouts are often primarily about living up to the promise made by the description on the label. “A good pastry stout to me is nailing the flavors so well that it is almost indistinguishable from the pastry/ dessert we are trying to emulate,” says Josh Arno,
co-owner and brand manager of Abomination Brewing Co., which brews out of the Twelve Percent Beer Project in North Haven and has a rotating pastry stout series called Midnight Snack.
While pastry stouts are popular among certain segments of the beer-drinking world, not everyone is a fan. The popularity of the style forced the hand of Phil Markowski,
the brewmaster at Stratford’s Two Roads Brewing Co. “We knew that these types of beers were wildly popular with some consumers,” Markowski says. “I tend to be more into classic styles myself but that doesn’t mean I don’t take the brewing of these types of beers as seriously as any other that we do.”
Two Roads produces several dessert stouts at its Area Two facility including German chocolate cake and cookies and cream. The brewery has also used amber ale bases to create sea salt caramel and birthday cake beers. “Our next offering will be Italian cookie stout, which will have a flavor profile that is reminiscent of those famous tricolored, chocolate-covered rainbow cookies we all know,” Markowski says.
Like any beer, a good pastry stout is all about a balanced flavor profile, Markowski says. “Pastry stouts tend to be sweet and often over-the-top in terms of the ‘given’ flavor,” he says. “But the underlying flavor should still have a recognizable beer or stout character beneath all of that ‘pastry’ goodness.”
He adds, “When well made it’s hard not to like them to an extent. Often, they are necessarily sweet and usually rather high in alcohol. I for one can only consume a few ounces before I’m totally sugared out.”
For Ricci at Hoax Brewing, pushing the envelope of what constitutes beer is part of what makes the style surprising and is part of similar efforts in other styles. “At Hoax, having fun and being creative with beers is our main goal,” he says. “We do cotton candy sours, funfetti birthday cake IPAs, we’ve even brewed an IPA with goat bones in it.”
As for the secret to a good pastry stout, Ricci says it’s “all about the flavor, body and booze. If you can pack a ton of sweet desserty goodness into a thick, strong stout, you’re bound to do well.”
DESSERT STOUTS ARE OFTEN PRIMARILY ABOUT LIVING UP TO THE PROMISE MADE BY THE DESCRIPTION ON THE LABEL.