9 Things Craft Beer Fans Are Surprised to Learn About Craft Chocolate

By David Nilsen

I lead a lot of beer and chocolate events, and the attendees tend to be craft beer fans who are being introduced to the idea of craft chocolate for the first time. It’s always fun to watch these folks discover craft chocolate for the first time, and there are things about the craft chocolate world that tend to surprise them.

Here are 9 things craft beer fans are often surprised to learn about craft chocolate:

It’s an agricultural product.

Because chocolate is a packaged product we’re used to buying at the store, many people don’t realize chocolate is an agricultural product. It’s made from cacao, the fruit of a tropical tree that grows within about 20° north and south of the Equator all around the world. Cacao is raised by farmers and harvested and processed by farm laborers, and its flavors reflect both the terroir of its growing region and the specific processes undertaken by its growers and workers after harvest. Rather than being just a sweet treat, chocolate is the product of a natural ingredient that deserves the same respect as coffee, wine grapes, or grain and hops.

It’s fermented.

After harvest, the seeds and pulp of the cacao fruit are scooped out of the pod and allowed to undergo a spontaneous fermentation. This fermentation process alters the internal structure of the bean and has a big impact on flavor. One of the main fermenters? Saccharomyces cerevisiae, better known in the beer world as ale yeast. This ubiquitous critter ferments the sugar in cacao pulp into ethanol, which then gets turned into acetic acid by acetobacter (a bacterial genus that plays a minor role in some wild ale fermentations as well). There are a host of other species involved too, some of them familiar from Lambic fermentations in the beer world. (Learn more about cacao fermentation here.)

It’s (usually) roasted similar to how dark malts are roasted.

While a small subset of craft chocolate makers do not roast their beans, most do. The process for roasting is very similar to the process by which roasted grains like chocolate malt, black patent malt, midnight wheat, roasted barley, and others are roasted for brewing. During this step, they take on flavors complementary to the flavors of those roasted grains, which is why “chocolate” is a common descriptor for beers brewed with these grains, such as Porters and Stouts.

It’s pushing back against human rights abuses in the cacao supply chain.

While chocolate is often thought of as a childhood treat imbued with a sense of carefree innocence, that’s unfortunately not the reality for many of the people tasked with growing and harvesting it. Most of the corporate chocolate companies are paying far too little for their cacao, keeping farmers in poverty and leading to numerous human rights abuses in the labor supply chain, including child slavery. They know about it, but they keep shifting blame and delaying making changes. Craft chocolate makers are committed to paying a sufficient amount for their cacao to allow farmers and laborers to live better lives. Look for transparency and traceability in how a maker reports their cacao sourcing practices.

It’s dealing with the same arguments about “craft” as beer is (but with different stakes).

Think you know what “craft beer” actually means anymore? Me neither. Is it about size? Ingredients? Ownership? Creativity? Whichever one(s) you want to choose as your metric, there will be exceptions to the rule. These same arguments are taking place in the craft chocolate world, though the industry is at an earlier stage of development than craft beer is. While some of the stakes of these arguments are the same as in beer, there are additional considerations within craft chocolate because of the last point—paying adequate rates for traceable cacao is ethically essential, and the possibility of hiding behind a trade term like “craft” without satisfying those standards makes this a thorny issue.

It’s wildly creative in both flavor and marketing.

Chocolate isn’t just chocolate. There’s way more out there than just dark, milk, and white chocolate. Just as brewers have added a wide range of ingredients to various beer styles, from the commonplace fruits, spices, and coffee, to the more esoteric donuts, candies, and Fruity Pebbles breakfast cereal—craft chocolate makers are similarly using chocolate as a blank canvas for a wide range of “inclusions”—what we call “adjuncts” (in the general sense) in beer—and yeah, that even includes Fruity Pebbles. And just like beer labels can be works of art that tell the brewery’s story, craft chocolate wrappers can be beautiful, eye-catching expressions of the creativity found inside.

It can be made with beer ingredients.

Just as cacao and chocolate are often used in special-release beers, beer and its main ingredients sometimes get used to make specialty chocolate bars and bon bons. There are bars made with malt—both sweet malt powder and actual malt grains, from base malts to roasted barley. There are bars made with cacao that has undergone unique pitched fermentations with brewing yeast. There are bars made with hops, and depending on how this is done, the bar might showcase hop flavor and aroma, hop bitterness, or both. There are even bars made with cacao steeped in various beers! (Learn about some examples here.)

It can be “homebrewed” (though it isn’t called that).

Craft beer in the United States took off after homebrewing was legalized in 1979, lowering the barrier of entry for people to learn the basics of brewing at a small scale with minimal cost. The same opportunities are available in chocolate making with small and often improvised equipment. Just as many professional brewers got their start as homebrewers, many craft chocolate makers got their start making bars in the home kitchen, honing their craft before going pro.

It pairs beautifully with craft beer.

A lot of folks think of wine as the natural pairing for chocolate (and it certainly can pair beautifully), but I personally think beer offers the most versatile pairing with chocolate. The range of styles and flavor expressions in beer means there is a beer for any chocolate. It’s not an effortless pairing, however, and there are as many train wrecks as their are pleasure cruises when bringing craft beer and craft chocolate together. That’s why I wrote the Pairing Beer & Chocolate zine, the only such publication on the market. Check it out and find out for yourself how well these can pair together!