JDBC and the hstore ? operator - no longer working with build 1211

The support for using the hstore ? operator without a PreparedStatement worked with build 1208, but is broken (again)
withbuild 1211 

The following works with build 1208

   Connection conn = DriverManager.getConnection(...);
   Statement stmt = conn.createStatement();
   ResultSet rs = stmt.executeQuery("select * from some_table where hstore_column ? 'foo');

with build 1211 it throws an exception with the message:

    org.postgresql.util.PSQLException: ERROR: syntax error at or near "$1"

Was this intended to work in build 1208 or was that just by accident?

Thomas