Casper is the end product of an innovative project between the north London brewery and a local malster, and is the first beer to combine the roasty bitterness of a stout with the appearance of a milky white coffee.
This differs from 'traditional' white stouts, which are normally brown to amber in colour.
Hard work and dedication
“After six months of trial runs, using experimental malts, we have finally achieved the holy grail of brews with this stout,” explained Hammerton Brewery founder Lee Hammerton. “Expect flavours of roasty bitterness wrapped in liquorice, coffee and dark, dark chocolate all of this flavour from a brilliant white liquid.”
“Everyone said that it was impossible to make a white beer taste like a stout, but with a lot of hard work and dedication from everyone involved we have achieved it. We can’t wait for our customers to try the final product.”
Describing the production process for the beer, Hammerton added: “The secret to the beer’s colour is using a new malting process we have developed in collaboration with a malster, known as ‘reverse roasting’.
“This is the process of roasting the malt to produce the roasted backbone flavours for the stout and then using a secret ‘de-roasting’ process to take away the burnt husks and colouring of the malt to achieve a white beer.”
Nitro version planned
The one-off beer will be available across the on and off-trade from mid-April in keg, cask and can, with a nitro version scheduled to appear in keg this summer if the beer proves popular.
Hammerton now hopes to explore other avenues to stretch the possibilities of using malt in different ways in his beer production.
“We’re really excited about the possibilities this could open up for us as a brewery,” he said.
N.B. This story was an April Fools' joke - We hope we caught you out!