Brainstorm Brewhouse head brewer Darryl Puller is hard at work, preparing to greet his customers with a kiss.
That would be Kiss of Chocolate, a recipe Puller came up with in his home brewing days. It’s a 5% chocolate lager with light and dark chocolate notes, as well as a hint of coffee. He’s in the process of brewing a fresh batch for his customers, and he plans to can part of it for select area bottle shops.
Puller says that drinkers on the beer ranking app Untapped crowned Kiss of Chocolate the best dark lager in Virginia in 2025. He credits that success partially through upending expectations with the style.
“I wanted something very approachable,” says Puller, explaining how dark beers are often perceived as heavy and complex. “It’s got a low ABV, a light body, and it’s very flavorful. It’s the sort of beer that you could drink all day.”
Puller started making his own beers about 15 years ago. In the home brewing community, Puller says he was known as the guy who did heavy, barrel aged stouts.
“At one point, I had eight barrels in my garage,” he says. “I was trying to do what the big guys were doing.”
After giving some samples to a bar in Culpeper, Va. where he visited while working as a travel nurse, the owner gave him a contact name at Beer Hound Brewery, where he helped refine the brewing program. But the real path on his journey began at an unlikely place: a Whole Foods.
That’s where he ran into Brandon Tolbert, former head brewer of Extra Billy’s and The Answer Brewpub, who helped Puller refine his processes for creating unique beers. Tolbert even showed up to offer support during Puller’s first brew at his most recent location while breaking in a brand-new system.
“He’s like a beer savant—he really knows what he’s doing,” Puller says.
Kiss of Chocolate started with a stout recipe. Puller removed the barley, tweaked the base malt, used a lager yeast and decreased the boil time. His first batch used two chocolate malts, which he eventually bumped up to five. Since dark malts can make a beer bitter, Puller experimented with the ratios until the beer had the sweeter, earthy body he was looking for.
“[Going from homebrewing to a barrel system] is a big jump,” Puller says. “It isn’t all fun and games. There’s always something breaking.”
Puller debuted his first non-homebrew version of Kiss of Chocolate in the back room of Black Heath Meadery with business partner CM Bryant, where they worked in a partnership with owner Bill Cavender.
Puller and Bryant launched Brainstorm Brewhouse in that back room and worked there for about two years before an opportunity came along to upgrade their space. They’ve teamed up with chef and restaurateur Mike Lindsey to share the old Dogtown Brewing space in Manchester. Bolo’s Eatery + Blackwell & Brainstorm Brewhouse serves Southern fare alongside Puller’s brews.
Lindsey is a fan of Kiss of Chocolate. “He said, ‘This deserves to be in every restaurant in the city,’” Puller recalls.
That dream may take a bit longer to achieve. But as one of Brainstorm’s core brands, Kiss of Chocolate will start popping up in area bottle shops in a few weeks while it remains on the taps in regular rotation. In other words, it’s a kiss that should linger for quite a while.Bolo’s Eatery + Blackwell & Brainstorm Brewhouse is located at 1209 Hull St. You can visit their website at boloseatery.com.
