by Nathan Hak Beer Sommelier at Beerwulf 31 March 2020

Beer with chocolate

Looking for a fun, adult Easter activity? Ditch the Easter bunny and get a little boozy with chocolate. Our in-house Sommelier has come up with some chocolate and beer pairings and beer blogger, Yvonne van Houtum, has some suggestions of how to get creative in the kitchen with some mouth-watering recipes!

Beer is tasty. Chocolate is tasty. But does it go well together? For some people it's a divine combination, for others it's something you eat separately. Taste, try and discover your own taste, that's what it's all about!

Beer with chocolate taste

Roasted malts can give all sorts of flavours in beer, from lightly caramelised flavours to very roasted espresso tones. And of course, chocolate! Stout and porter almost always have a touch of dark chocolate. Belgian Dubbel (Double) and Quadrupels are also examples of beers where you can often taste chocolate. All these beers are worth trying with dark chocolate: the chocolate flavours in the beer form a nice bridge with the chocolate.

Tips for beer and chocolate

When we combine beer and food, we usually first look at intensity: with a light dish you choose a light beer, with a heavy dish you choose a stronger beer.

With sweet dishes you're more likely to look for a beer that is at least as sweet as the food. Combining chocolate with beer can therefore be quite a challenge. Especially with sweet chocolate, the obvious choice is for a sweet beer, which limits the options. If the chocolate is sweeter, it quickly overpowers the sweetness in the beer, causing the taste balance in the beer to disappear. This is also the reason why dark, less sweet chocolate often goes better with beer.

Beer with dark chocolate

A combination you often encounter is a stout or porter with dark chocolate. Bronckhorster Nightporter with dark chocolate is a great example, a tried and tested combination!

The sweeter your beer is, the sweeter the chocolate can be. A good indicator is the cocoa percentage. With a dry stout (Jopen Extra Stout for example) choose chocolate with a (very) high percentage. An oatmeal stout (Fourpure Last Train Oatmeal Stout) is a bit sweeter, so you can try a sweeter chocolate with it. Same with the Thornbridge Little by Little milk stout, it's also a little bit sweet. It's a new one in the Beerwulf shop! Or, try Boon Kriek with dark chocolate for a mind-blowing cherry chocolate experience.

Beer with milk chocolate

Milk chocolate is always sweeter than dark chocolate, so it can be difficult to combine with most beers. Very sweet beers (Brasserie De Sutter La Folle des Bois for example) can handle that and in turn make a beautiful combination. Milk chocolate with coffee can also be a good option. The coffee tempers the sweetness and with a stout you can taste the tones of coffee and chocolate in both beer and chocolate.

Beer with white chocolate

White chocolate is made with cocoa butter only and is the sweetest chocolate. A sweet fruit beer with blackcurrant (Lindemans Cassis) can work well. The beer will reveal its fresh-sour notes more and the fruit is a nice addition to the chocolate.

White beer with white chocolate sounds better than it is, unless you give the chocolate an extra dimension, like Yvonne has below with her white chocolate lemon fudge with brittle.

Last Train Oatmeal Stout

Porter & Stout | 5.1% | 33cl

£ 2.49

Bronckhorster Nightporter

Porter & Stout | 8.0% | 33cl

£ 3.59

Brasserie De Sutter La Folle des Bois

Fruit Beer | 6.8% | 33cl

£ 2.69

Thornbridge Little by Little

Porter & Stout | 0.5% | 33cl

£ 1.99

Lindemans Cassis

Fruit Beer | 3.5% | 25cl

£ 2.29

Jopen Extra Stout

Porter & Stout | 5.5% | 33cl

£ 2.79

Temporarily sold out

Boon Kriek

Fruit Beer | 4.0% | 38cl

£ 3.19

Temporarily sold out

Beer recipes

....wih

White chocolate lemon fudge with brittle

This creamy, sweet white chocolate lemon fudge with brittle is easy to make and melts in your mouth. It’s soft but crunchy, due to the brittle, and has a dominant fresh and sour lemon flavour. The fudge goes great with a fresh, fruity and slightly sour white beer such as Blanche De Namur 4.5%.

You'll be surprised at how well porters pair with white chocolate - it's truly a delicious mix. Try the fudge alongside Magic Rock Common Grounds 5.4% and taste this explosion of flavours, reminiscent of a cappuccino with a dash of caramel.

View recipe here

Chocolate kisses

Crunchy, airy and coated in a generous layer of creamy milk chocolate: there’s nothing better than homemade chocolate kisses. Not only are they delicious, but they also look pretty and are very easy to make. You do need a certain measure of patience, however.

If you try these chocolate kisses with a fresh and fruity beer such as Wilderen Kriek, the sweetness in the kisses will be reduced somewhat. This combination also helps the fruitiness in the beer to shine through better.

View recipe here

Dark chocolate muffins with blueberries

These intense dark chocolate muffins have a nice chocolatey bitterness and a fruity, sour flavour thanks to the generous portion of blueberries. To make these muffins as delicious and beautiful as possible, we recommend you use high quality chocolate and sturdy muffin cases.

These muffins are chock-full of chocolate and go great with beers that have roasted flavours and notes of coffee and chocolate, such as Emelisse Espresso Stout or Beavertown Spresso. When this muffin is combined with intense beers, the chocolate takes centre stage and harmonises beautifully with the lovely, long aftertaste.

View recipe here