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Beer and chocolate: How to enjoy them together

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Beer and chocolate can go together very well. We show you which types pair best with each beer. Don't miss it!

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Julio Cerezo - Beer Sommelier
Director of Sabeer Beer Academy

As was the case of the memorable pair of comedians, Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau, playing two divorcees with very different customs sharing an apartment, beer and chocolate at first sight would appear to be two contradictory foods, opposites in origin, flavour and the moments when we drink or eat them, apparently destined to collide and never to combine.

Nevertheless, despite this apparent antagonism, beer and chocolate have many things in common, and together they can make for a surprisingly satisfactory culinary experience, on the condition that we choose each of them carefully to ensure that they complement each other appropriately.

Unlike beer, which is almost always bitter, chocolate is often considered a sweet. Nevertheless, if we pay close attention to the aisles in our supermarket, we will find chocolate with a certain degree of bitterness, mainly when it has a high cocoa concentration of over 70%, and it is this that plays down that apparent antagonism.

Likewise, the huge diversity of brewing styles and the array of flavours and bouquets, ranging from sweet or acidic can be just as noticeable as the typical bitterness of beer. Therefore, there are many possibilities of combining beer and chocolate, rather than directly discarding the idea, and it can be a surprisingly pleasant experience, due to the way both products can please our senses through similarity or contrast.

If we are looking for similarities or affinity, the most obvious combination between beer and chocolate would be with stouts. Stout obtains its colour from the roasting of the cereal it is made from, and it is therefore not surprising that it can have a flavour that is reminiscent of coffee, cocoa, caramel or liquorice. We can also find the same flavours in chocolate, which is the result of how the cocoa beans are roasted. All these nuances stemming from their common origin, i.e. roasting, blend easily together to make a surprisingly pleasant pairing, far removed from the norm.
 

But the result can be even more surprising when instead of looking for similarities, we look for a contrast between the flavours of beer and chocolate. For example, if we combine a more acidic beer with sweeter chocolate, it can become a very special experience, such as when we try salted or spicy chocolate, which has become very popular in recent years, making for gourmet delicacies.
There is no need to limit combining beer with chocolate. In fact different desserts with chocolate as an ingredient can pair perfectly well with beer, such as brownies, tiramisu and Sachertorte as just some examples.
Finally, we would like to highlight that another way to enjoy beer and chocolate is to try some of the beers that include cocoa in the recipe. Although there are not many, and they can be hard to find, it is becoming a more common practice among craft brewers, who add cocoa infusions to their stout beers to highlight the common flavours that they share.
As you can see, there are many options and I am sure that if you try them, you will end up enjoying this unlikely combination, just as much as the unlikely pair of Hollywood comedians.

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