Now then. I like coffee flavours in beer. But I also like coffee flavours in chocolate. Which one is better? There's only one non-Harry-Hill way to find out: drink 'em, eat'em, blog 'em.

Let's start with the Brewdog Coffee Imperial Stout. It pours an opaque brown washing away to black edges. A flicked wrist offers a light roast coffee/hazelnut puree aroma. So far, so promising. So, a sip: bitterness. Burnt coffee grounds. Harsh. Dry. Some longer gulps knocked the rougher edges off but there was still a resinous, off-puttingly hoppy lick to it. Even the scorched coffee got lost towards the end.

Perhaps some chocolate can redress the balance. Lindt Coffee is billed as dark but actually smells and feels milkier. Digging around showed that it was 47% chocolate, so it was actually more towards the milk end of the spectrum after all. A first nibble gave an understated coffee flavour with a grainy feel, offering just enough resistance against the tongue. Paired with the Brewdog, the beer does taste better, that slight chocolate sweetness taking the edge off the hops and letting the beer drop a gear to achieve a frothy quality.







Shit or bust time. Perhaps a hardcore chocolate can save the day. And in my collection, there was none more hardcore than Hotel Chocolat's The Purist - 100% Ecuadorian cocoa. No shine to the bar, an almost dusty aroma, rolling the first sliver around the mouth you feel pure cocoa powdering around. The first bite brings bitterness but also a surprising cream note with dusty intensity breaking in waves. Alongside the Brewdog, the beer is elevated into a different league. Coffee now climbs out of the glass, jolting into the chocolate palate in a reverse mocha moment.

Only one way to go now - Mikkeller Beer Geek Breakfast. I love this beer; it appears three time on my unwritten list of 'beer experiences yet to enjoy' (namely; drink more than one bottle of it to myself in a sitting, drink a bottle of it for breakfast, drink any of the Beer Geek Brunch varieties). It's so soft, the oatmeal in it working wonders to round out the body and carry the light cofee and creamy chocolate flavours. Such a stunning chocolate nose, too. It's a very easy going beer, no overloading on the palate, just enough consistant carbonation tp keep pushing out the flavours.

Alongside the Lindt bar it's... not much different. But dip some of The Purist in and you're mainlining cocoa. It's smothering your nose, dusty chocolate coats your palate, washy coffee intensifies the flavour. It's almost too flucking much. And hurrah for that - great beer and great chocolate desrves to take your taste buds to the edge and back again. A hyperreal combination.

Mucho kudos to Craig Garvie for the Brewdog Coffee Imperial Stout and to BEERmerchants.com for the Mikkeller Beer Geek Breakfast. >

Time for another Pete Slosberg-inspired tasting. Take a caramel centered chocolate and pair with a chocolate stout. Is the result double the fun or twice as nasty?


Let's start with the beer - Young's Double Chocolate Stout . It certainly had good carbonation with an audible effervescence, its rocky head soon settling to an off-cream band.

There's obvious chocolate on the nose, but it's a curious dusty drinking chocolate. No, scrub that - it's liker a creamy hot chocolate gone cold. There's a lick of sweet chocolate too, like a syrup shot. Unsurprising, perhaps, given that it uses chocolate essence as a flavouring.

With little roast up front, the sweet chocolate taste is slightly cloying on the palate. Perhaps a chunk of chocolate would change things? I'd struggled to find anything vaguely artisanal so I'd settled for Cadbury's Dairy Milk with Caramel. It was surprisingly good - bit on the cold side but the caramel filling was soft and deep flavoured. The next slurp of beer was bitterer - the darker dry chocolate flavour now placed in sharp relief to the sustained sweetness of the caramel.

Then it all went a bit strange.... the chocolate got tastier, the beer weaker. The washy dark chocolate from the beer enhanced the caramel filling of the Dairy Milk, but with each sip the beer became thinner in flavour and higher in bitterness, any roasted notes having deserted.

I expected more from the beer; instead of interesting chocolate bolstered by coffee and roasted malts, I got flavours that started heavy-handed and ended up bitter and washy. I found it disconcerting to read the label's assertion that the beer was 'best served chilled'. To me, for a dark beer, that's tantamount to an admission that there's little flavour in there to be savoured in the first place.

Perhaps another beer would make a different impression. I had a bottle of Marble Chocolate knocking around; not strictly speaking a stout but it seemed robust enough for this tasting. And it looked good from the off, a nearly black body with a dappled cream head, clear roast on the nose alongside a clean creamy chocolate flavour. A far better beer than Youngs, so I'd high hopes for the pairing effect.

Well, the chocolate tasted fantastic, that first merging of the beer's roasty notes with this surprisingly tasty caramel. And then... the next mouthful of beer was quite bitter, as if my taste buds had given up on sensing sweetness. More chocolate was fine, more beer was gross - far too bitter, no sense of roasted malt, harsh bittering off-coffee flavours.

Overall, not a very successful pairing. Perhaps the thick milk chocolate swamped the beers, perhaps the beers just didn't have strong enough roast characteristics to cope. If anyone knows how I can get hold of Cocoa Pete's Caramel Knowledge in the UK (or, indeed, any of the Cocoa Pete range) then do let me know as I'd love to try the pairing again with what is obviously a far more robust chocolate. In the meantime, I may have to find a full-blooded stout and a darker caramel bar (??) and try this again sometime soon.
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Winter's on the way and my tastebuds crave cacao and Coffea arabica. There's a number of beers that have chocolate or coffee flavours to them. And plenty that would go well with a slab or two of Hotel Chocolat's finest. So, let's kick off the chocolate-coffee trip with a swift trip round Derby on a wet Sunday.


Breakfast at the Babington Arms kicks the day off. And what finer accompaniment to a plate of bacon and eggs than a half of, er, Robinson's Chocolate Tom? To be fair, I finished breakfast first. This beer promised a lot, although I'd have liked to see a full-blooded 8% Old Tom with chocolate flavours rather than this watered-down version. Truth be told, it was a poor compromise; none of the juicy autumnal fruits of the barley wine, too much of a drinking chocolate cloy.

Decent coffee was called for and Grand Cafe Caruso know how to make it. Espresso that's short, strong and hot. Cappuccino that's the proper three thirds of coffee, milk and foam. I'll take either/or, the former for the quick hit, the latter for the slow burn over a crossword or two. Next stop was to pick up a collection of single origin chocolate bars from Thorntons - I'll be trying those out later this month alongside a range of beer styles.

Then it was more-beer time. The Brunswick offered its usual Sunday lunchtime entertainment of landlord Graham relieving regular Lou of a few quid courtesy of another ill-advised wager. But the two new beers were mediocre - sorry, Graham - so I moved on next door. And what a result awaited at the Alex - Dark Star Espresso. Here was an effortless beer, ridiculously easy drinking given the clearly defined coffee flavour. Lifted by Challenger with a solid roasted base, I'd have been more than happy to take another one of these. This could have been a bitter mess, but the coffee levels work wonders for me.

A couple of undemanding beers followed at the Smithfield (Millstone Royal Oak) and the Royal Standard (Moorhouse Pendle Witches Brew). Frankly, I only popped into the pubs as it was slapping it down with rain. I needed a good coffechoc beer to get me back on track, so chanced my arm at Derby's other Spoons.

The Standing Order is one one those that looks great inside (huge high ceilinged former bank) but usually has an undemanding beer range. Not today, though - the bar was bristling with ten guests as part of the autumn festival. And there at the end was Meantime Coffee Porter. There'd been a deal of debate about the beer on Scoopgen, some finding it thin, others revelling in its depth. I was glad to find it in fine form with sustained bitter coffee and a robust roast note. In comparison to the Dark Star - a close second.

Glad to have tried these two beers on cask. There are plenty of bottles in the war chest and a variety of chocolates on their way. Next post on this topic will look at some of those bottles.
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