Moonstone Stout doesn’t taste or smell like seafood, but Billy Klingel, head brewer of Oyster House Brewing Company, assures folks that adding some salty mollusks makes the beer — his most popular ale — unique and delicious.
“During the last 20 minutes of the boil, the oysters go into the kettle — the protein you get from the meat of the oyster adds to the body — and you end up with the flavor of a stout that’s a little thicker in the mouth,” he explains. It took Klingel an entire year of home-brewing trial-and-error to get the flavor just right.
The brewery, located inside of downtown restaurant The Lobster Trap, has been serving up pints of its five different ales for the last three years — and not all of them are oyster stouts. The brewery offers its own Patton Avenue Pale Ale, a Pilsner-esque brew, a mild IPA and a brown ale.
Even though it’s a small, half-barrel microbrewery, for Klingel it’s a dream realized. “As a home brewer, you always dream of having your own brewpub, and I like to think our beer can compete in this town.”
