Side Project / Omnipollo Collaboration Billionaire’s Hot Chocolate Release this Friday!

We are excited to kick off this 4th of July weekend with our next garage release! Join us at Side Project Brewing this Friday, July 1st, at 1pm. Billionaire’s Hot Chocolate is a Barrel-Aged Imperial Stout with All Natural Kosher Marshmallows, Mexican & Ugandan Vanilla Beans and huge amount of TCHO Ghana Cocoa Nibs.

Billionaire’s Hot Chocolate will also be available for on-site enjoyment at all three of our locations: Side Project Brewing Tasting Room, The Side Project Cellar and Shared Brewing & Pizza Champ.

Brew Details from Cory:

In December of 2018, our friends from Omnipollo in Sweden flew all the way to Missouri to visit us at our small brewery to brew a huge Stout. Henok has long created some crazy, innovative, and massive Stouts, with a focus on adjuncts and the building of new flavors through blending multiple ingredients and fun serving techniques. I have loved trying his crazy concoctions for years and he is one of the best people to hang out with, to enjoy a brew day with and to just chat with. We are so happy to release this Collaboration this Friday after years of allowing the base beer to rest and mature in barrels followed by our thoughtful blending session to create Billionaire’s Hot Chocolate.

Henok and I worked on a recipe together by creating a huge malt bill that would gracefully age in oak but also be the building block for a Barrel-Aged Stout that would showcase one of my favorite things on earth – Chocolate. As most of you know, we only use tangible, natural adjuncts at Side Project, so when Henok wanted to use Marshmallows, I set out to find the most natural ones I could find. We ended up sourcing all natural, kosher Marshmallows (pretty much just vanilla sugar puffs which turned our grant into a huge cup of hot chocolate – see photo!) to add to this beer on the brew day. Once fermented, the Stout was racked on Dec. 28th, 2018, to primarily Buffalo Trace Mash Bill #1 barrels. At blending, like with all of our Stouts, we used this recipe as the root for this beer, but pulled from other barrels to make this beer the best we could. This is the final blend with aging times:

Omni Recipe – Buffalo Trace Mash Bill #1 barrels for 39 months

Oat Recipe – BLiS Maple Syrup and Willett Rye barrels for 42 and 36 months

OWK Recipe – Weller 12 year barrels for 29 months

Additions – All Natural Kosher Marshmallows, Mexican and Ugandan Vanilla Beans, TCHO Ghana Cocoa Nibs

Once blended, we infused the beer for its final layer of flavorings by introducing Mexican and Ugandan Vanilla Beans and a huge dose of TCHO Ghana Cocoa Nibs. The intermingling of these additional adjuncts produce the deep, dark, rich chocolate notes of what we believe would be a Billionaire’s Hot Chocolate. 

Henok, Karl and everyone we have met from Omnipollo are the most wonderful people, and we are glad to share their name with ours on this beer. We are excited to release this out the brewery garage door to see so many of you in person again. We thank you for your continued love of our beer! 

These 750ml bottles will be $60, and we will have several pay stations set up to make everything move as quickly and smoothly as possible! There will be a limit of only one bottle per person, with no opportunities to go back though the line, and we will accept cash or credit. The parking lot will be shut down so you can come hang, share some beers with friends and find an excuse to open that bottle in your cellar that you have been waiting to crack! Cheers!

We hope you can join us this Friday! Pack your sunscreen and water jugs and join us along with your local beer community in our brewery parking lot this Friday.

• Our Brewery parking lot will be closed to cars Friday morning until after the release is over. Folks are welcome to come right at release time or enjoy lining up in our parking lot before the release like the good ol’ days! We’ll open the back garage for the release when we open at 1pm Friday. 
• All bottle sharing in the parking lot ends at 1pm when we open for business. Thank you!
• Please do not leave our Brewery with open containers. This includes crossing Manchester. We appreciate you helping us abide by liquor laws!
• We think using a DD or a ride share service is a great idea! If you decide to drive, please use public Maplewood parking. (The large lot next to The Side Project Cellar is a public lot.)

Thank you from the entire Side Project Team!