No Sleep Till Brooklyn Brewery: Black Chocolate Stout
On July 4, 1994, when Manhattan Brewing was closed for the holiday, brewer Garrett Oliver brewed a version of Black Chocolate Stout in the empty brewery. Oliver fumed over Manhattan Brewing cancelling all their employees’ health insurance without telling them, so when Brooklyn Brewery co-owner Steve Hindy came a calling, Oliver listened. Three weeks later, after Oliver poured his Black Chocolate Stout for Hindy, the deal was done. The amount of Brooklyn Brewery Black Chocolate Stout brewed in 1994, their first year in business, dwarfed all the sales for imperial stout in the Northeast.
Brooklyn Brewery Black Chocolate Stout will pour from Peaks and Pints Western red cedar tap log at 6 p.m. Monday, April 1. No joke.
The Brooklyn Brewery and Ecliptic Brewing tap takeover is going down Monday, April 1 inside Peaks and Pints’ little lodge in Tacoma’s Proctor District. It’s true. Ecliptic picked Peaks and Pints to showcase their newest Cosmic Collaboration series, “5 Beers for 5 Years,” in which the 5-year-old Portland brewery collaborates with five other esteemed breweries to brew five celestial concoctions, then taking each collaboration on separate tours supported by tapped craft beer from both breweries. Brooklyn Brewery certainly didn’t tell famed Brewmaster Harris no; the two breweries brewed an amazing Tangerine Farmhouse Ale to kick off the first tour, which Peaks and Pints will host the Tacoma release party April 1. Read our story on “5 Beers for 5 Years” here.
Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout is a well-balance, concentrated Russian imperial stout with plenty of heft. Also, it has a lot of bitterness — both roast bitterness and hop bitterness — balanced against not-too-much residual sweetness. The remaining flavors are, of course, chocolate, but also moderate coffee, fair bit of malt with dark chocolate, dates, and plums for the longer linger.
Also pouring at the Ecliptic Brewing And Brooklyn Brewery Tap Takeover will be Brooklyn’s Lager, Bel Air Sour, and Sorachi Ace Saison. Ecliptic’s Flamingo Planet Guava Blonde Ale, Vega IPA #1: Cashmere & Strata Hops, and Phobos Single Hop Red Ale will be icing on Ecliptic’s fifth anniversary cake.
Cheers!
ECLIPTIC BREWING AND BROOKLYN BREWERY TACOMA TAP TAKEOVER, 6-9 p.m. Monday, April 1, Peaks and Pints, 3816 N. 26th St., Basecamp Proctor, Tacoma, no cover
