If you walk into a branch of Starbucks you will see coffee mixed with a whole range of things - chocolate, caramel, bananas - even strawberries & cream. Therefore it shouldn't come as too much of a surprise that some people have tried to see what a fusion of coffee and beer would be like. The link between the two can be quite close as dark beers such as stouts and porters often have the flavour of coffee grounds. This is because when you roast malted barley seeds you get similar flavours to roasted coffee beans. So much so that there is a type of roasted barley called coffee malt and some beers made using this malt are called Coffee Stout. That wasn't enough for UK based brewers Dark Star. They took one of their beers and added freshly ground Arabica coffee beans that had blended specially. This created their Espresso Stout which won best specialty beer at the 2009 world beer awards. It lives up to it's name with a strong espresso taste however there is also a hint of chocolate in there.
Much as chocolate and coffee go together well in a mocha, dark beer and chocolate combine well. There is a type of barley called chocolate malt because the flavour it's acquires during the roasting process. This is used in stouts such as Tunnel's superb Shadow-weaver. Trying to mix actual chocolate into the beer can be a risky business. JW Lees Chocoholic was made for a JD Wetherspoon's beer festival and tasted like watery cocoa - I'm not sure the brewery has tried making it again. Better attempts are the Manchester Marble Chocolate Marble and Robinson's Chocolate Tom, both of which get the balance of roasted barley and cocoa flavours right, blending the bitterness of both to give something much finer than a novelty. All three of these breweries are based near Manchester, however this isn't solely a North of England phenomena. The London based Meantime brewery also makes a similar bitter chocolate beer that is very nice.
Over in Belgium the Huyghe brewery are best known for their potent Delerium Tremens beer. However they also make a range of sweet flavoured beers called Floris. The chocolate version avoids the sweetness of the English versions and tastes like Jaffa Cakes. In fact it tastes more like a watery Kahlua and Cointreau cocktail than a beer - but for some people that might be quite appealing.
Five to try:
1. Robinsons Chocolate Tom
2. Meantime Chocolate
3. Manchester Marble Chocolate Marble
4. Dark Star Espresso
5. Tunnel Shadow-weaver
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