It’s Friday afternoon at the Half Full Brewery in Stamford, Conn., and owner Conor Horrigan is in full mad scientist mode.

The smell of cocoa fills the brewery’s taproom. At the bar, Horrigan, 32, has a plate full of melted chocolate, which he is trying to scoop into a growler filled with the brewery’s Chocolate Coffee Brown Ale. He’s working on a brand new concoction for the Castle Bar & Grill, a Stamford venue that will soon be opening a chocolate shop. The idea is to see how fresh melted chocolate will alter (and hopefully enhance) the flavor of the ale, but right now the experiment is in its messy stage.“This does not look appetizing,” says Horrigan apologetically as he attempts to clean chocolate off of the bottle he’s filling and the bar.

Welcome to Half Full Brewery, a beer world’s Willy Wonka factory that will make an optimist out of even the most ardent my cup-is-half-empty pessimist.

The young  (in beer years it would still be fermenting) brewery opened in 2012 and thanks to popular artisan crafted ales and upbeat branding it has successfully tapped into craft beer enthusiasm in Connecticut.