Just in time for Comic-Con, Wil Wheaton and company unveil their new beer - Los Angeles Times
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Just in time for Comic-Con, Wil Wheaton and company unveil their new beer

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Geek icons joined forces with Stone Brewing Co. to brew a collaboration beer to kick off Comic-Con International: San Diego, and Stone Farking Wheaton w00tstout is the nutty result.

I sat down with “Star Trek: The Next Generation” actor, science fiction author and home brewer Wil Wheaton to share a bottle of the pecan-laced imperial stout and to discuss the genesis of the project and what it was like to turn pro brewer for a day.

Wheaton said he took up home brewing more than two years ago as a way to connect with his adult son, and that he was quickly hooked by brewing’s melange of art and science. When Stone’s Brewing’s founder and Chief Executive Greg Koch -- a longtime friend of Wheaton -- asked the actor if he would be interested in working on a collaboration beer with the Escondido brewery Wheaton said he replied, “Who says no to that?”

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The wheels were in motion, and soon the third member of the collaboration team was added: news site fark.com founder, beer geek and mutual friend Drew Curtis.

It was Curtis’ idea to create the beer version of Derby Pie -- the chocolate, pecan and bourbon confection from his native Kentucky -- and the recipe for an imperial stout that used wheat, rye and pecans soon followed.

To reinforce the Kentucky bourbon connection, a portion of the brew was aged in used bourbon barrels for more than two months then blended into the finished beer. The results are a 13% alcohol stout that is rich, thick, and complex.

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Wheaton is no stranger to brewing equipment, but he said being turned loose in Stone’s production brewery made him feel like he had a golden ticket, “I think we made Fizzy Lifting Drink jokes more than once [on the brew day]” he said.

The change in scale of the brew -- from making five gallons of homebrew at a time to hundreds of gallons of beer in Stone’s brewhouse -- also made an impression on Wheaton: “I remember I cut open a sack of grain to crush on brew day, and it was like 40 pounds [of grain], then I cut open a second sack of grain, and I said to Greg [Koch], ‘this is more grain than I’ve used in 2 1/2 years brewing every other week.’”

Stone’s Farking Wheaton W00tstout hits stores this week, and the beer gets an official launch party Wednesday in advance of Comic-Con San Diego, at the Hop-Con W00tstout Launch Festival featuring Koch, Wheaton and Curtis at Stone’s new Liberty Station venue.

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Tickets to the event are sold out, but bottles and growler-fills of the collaboration brew are available at Stone Company stores in Los Angeles and San Diego.

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