The Art of Darkness

[randy_byers]

The Big Time had a little festival of beer and chocolate yesterday evening. Scott and I donned our beer aficionado hats for the event. There were eight dark beers and four Theo chocolates on offer. The owner of Theo Chocolate was on offer too. Well, I guess he was just there shaking hands with everyone. He asked us how we liked the chocolate. I told him the curry chocolate was fantastic. The vanilla wasn't half bad either. I wasn't hot on the Ghana, although Scott liked it just fine. The other one was a blend of some kind that was quite good.

On the beer side, there were three of their regular dark beers (Coal Creek Porter, Buck Mulligan Dublin-style Stout, Old Rip Oatmeal Stout) and five that were infused or conditioned in various ways. The best of these was Holy Mole, which was a winter ale conditioned with roasted cocoa nibs, fresh serrano and poblano chiles, and cinnamon. In other words, a Mexican mole flavor. I love mole, and I loved that beer. I was also quite fond of the Sweetheart of Darkness, which was the oatmeal stout infused with Lindemann's Framboise lambic. The coffee porter and coffee stout were a bit too strong on the coffee side for my tastes, while the stout infused with cocoa nibs didn't taste very chocolatey to me at all.

I was quite buzzed after consuming samples of all these beers and xanthines. Some of the beers should still be available today, I would guess. Theo chocolates seem to be more widely available now too. I found a bar of Theo's orange-flavored chocolate by the checkstand at Market Time last week, and it was utterly delicious.

Comments

[holyoutlaw.livejournal.com]

My favorite Theo is the Bread and Chocolate, with the Vanilla second. Yeah!

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

What flavor is the Bread and Chocolate? Bread-flavor?

[holyoutlaw.livejournal.com]

It's dark chocolate, with tiny bits of buttered, salty bread. So it's crunchy and a little salty.

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

Ooh, that does sound good.

[reverendjim.livejournal.com]

I like the sound of Holy Mole, though the only chilli flavoured beer I've had was, as expected, appalling. It'd be interesting to taste it done "properly".
I made Claire bounce last night when I told her, over a pint of Dark Star Espresso Stout, that I'd picked up a bottle of BrewDog's Coffee Imperial Stout on Saturday. I rather think she wants some.

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the chile flavor in the Holy Mole was very subtle, and blended well with the cocoa and cinnamon.

I'm not sure where I'm at on coffee-flavored beer. Wasn't real wild about either one at the festival. I love coffee on its own, so I dunno.

I finally tried the Southern Tier Choklat, which is a chocolate-flavored imperial stout. It had been promoted to me as tasting like a German chocolate cake, and that's not far off. Probably too rich every day use, but quite nice. Maybe we'll spring some of that on Claire at Corflu.

[reverendjim.livejournal.com]

Oddly, whilst I like a few coffee flavoured beers I'm not a fan of coffee. Though I have been thinking I should give it another try recently.

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

What I want to know is why we don't have chai-flavored beer yet. Or green tea beer, yeah, that's the ticket.

[reverendjim.livejournal.com]

I was thinking that chai-flavoured might be a bit milky (milk stout??) but green tea would go well. Stick some tea in with the hops at the boil; yeah, can see that one working. I was just musing on "if only I had a brewery" when I thought, well what I do have is the internet. So...

http://www.harro.co.uk/ikibeer.html

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

‘The use of green tea and yuzu transforms this product into something truly innovative. ... This is a great restaurant beer with wide appeal.’

Strange praise. But actually it does sound interesting, and I'd certainly try it.

Inspired by your prowess with the intertubes, I give you: Chai Cream Ale.

[reverendjim.livejournal.com]

Chai Cream Ale "contains alcohol" apparently. Who'd have thunk it?

Hm, I've just found a few more chai beers, including porters and stouts. I do wonder if they actually have tea in them though or if it's just the spices that go in chai. Then again, with some "coffee" beers is more to do with the roasted malts than having actual coffee in.
Though I've noticed there's a Mikkeller one that uses that stupidly expensive coffee that's been through the digestive tract of a civet cat. I'm not really sure I want that in my beer.

[suaveswede.livejournal.com]

The tea flavor is almost non existant. If i had´nt known that it was suposed to be there i´m not sure i would have picked up on it.

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

Is that the green tea and yuzu beer? So it tasted more like citrus?

[suaveswede.livejournal.com]

Nope not even that in any great amount it tasted generic blond beer

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

Ah well, then I guess I'll just skip it after all!