Nostalgia Chocolate Provides Cacao for Craft Breweries
By David Nilsen
Tyler Cagwin of Nostalgia Chocolate loves craft beer almost as much as he loves chocolate, and he’s bringing these parallel passions together in unique—and delicious—ways. In addition to his Hop Aged 70% dark chocolate bar (which we discussed in this episode of the Bean to Barstool podcast), he’s been partnering with craft brewers to provide cacao nibs for their chocolate beers.
Nostalgia Chocolate is located in Syracuse, New York, and his relationship to the brewing community began close to home. He first provided cacao for Meier’s Creek Brewing in nearby Cazenovia. He reached out to director of brewing operations and sales Jordon Pollock and brewmaster Ivan Dedek and the trio sat down to taste through nibs of different origins.
“Tyler came in and we got to try different nibs and bars, going from Costa Rica to Tanzania to Guatemala,” says Jordan. “They were just incredible.”
The experience opened the brewers’ eyes to the flavors cacao could contain, and they ultimately settled on Tanzanian nibs from the Kokoa Kamili collective. Tyler says these beans produce a smooth, creamy chocolate with notes of sweet dark cherry. Meier’s Creek first used this origin in Choccy Milk, a chocolate bourbon vanilla Porter that comes in at 6% ABV.
“It’s a full body beer with sweet notes of cocoa as well as vanilla to lighten it up,” says Ivan. “The one thing that really shines through is those cacao nibs. They were super fresh when they came in and it really shows through in the beer.”
More recently, they used the same cacao in Mocha Joe’s Stout, a 12% ABV Imperial Stout also brewed with coffee from Salt City Coffee, the same company who provides coffee for Tyler’s Salt City Coffee dark chocolate bar. Meier’s Creek used a device called a hop back to infuse the cacao flavors in the beer. The device is normally used for infusing bright hop aromas into a beer, but can be used for other ingredients as well.
“We’ll fill that with nibs, and then after fermentation we’ll drop out the yeast and recirculate the tank through that hop back with the nibs in there,” explains Ivan. “We do that for 12 to 24 hours and extract as much flavor from the nibs as possible.”
Black Excellence
Tyler recently worked with a brewery much farther from home on a similar beer concept. Wren House Brewing in Phoeniz, Arizona, used those same Kokoa Kamili nibs from Tyler in Black Excellence, a 9.5% ABV Imperial Stout also brewed with coffee and vanilla. All three extra ingredients were sourced from Africa—the coffee is from Kenya and the vanilla from Madagascar—and the beer was brewed in collaboration with the Brewz Brothaz podcast and Eastern Market Brewing—both out of Detroit—as a way to celebrate Black achievements. Proceeds from the beer benefitted the NAACP.
The beer lives up to its name, thoughtfully showcasing its adjunct ingredients while maintaining a cohesive flavor profile. While the cacao notes are subtle, Tyler says he thinks they came through well in the beer.
“I roast the beans for breweries just the way I would for my bars, so that’s going to make some of those fruit profiles shine,” he says. “There is a bit of a cherry note present in there.”
The subtle cherry note is accentuated by the gentle acidity of the roasted ingredients—cacao, coffee, dark malt—and that acidity also works with the mild hop and roasted malt bitterness to help balance out the sweet perception of the beer’s flavors.
Other Collaborations
Tyler worked with World War II-themed War Horse Brewing on Cherry Cordial Churchill, a 7.5% ABV Oatmeal Stout brewed to emulate the eponymous sweet treat.
“They used the Colombian nibs for that, which has some really nice pomegranate notes to it,” he says. “There’s so much cherry flavor in this beer that the cacao provided some complementary notes.”
Nearby Grow Brewing used the same nibs in A Dark Bloom Hot Cocoa Stout, an 8% ABV American Stout also brewed with vegan marshmallow.
“[That beer] was brewed in such a way that it picked up a lot of chocolate flavor, and then the marshmallow hits you at the end and really mellows it out,” says Tyler. “It feels like there’s some fluffernutter that just went over your tongue and recoated it.”
Nostalgia also recently provided Indian cacao nibs for Willow Rock Brewing PBCMS, or Peanut Butter Chocolate Milkshake. This 10% ABV Imperial Stout brings together familiar dessert flavors without tasting overly sweet.
“There’s some peach notes to those Indian nibs, and some smooth, subtle nuttiness,” Tyler explains. “I think it worked perfectly here, because this is one of the most interesting dark beers I’ve tried.”
On Monday, February 13, Tyler will be helping to lead a beer and chocolate pairing at Willow Rock Brewing, pairing his chocolate with their excellent beers. One week later, he’ll do the same at Buried Acorn Brewing.
Tyler plans to continue working with more breweries, and sees these partnerships as becoming a significant part of his business.
“If I could find six more breweries that I could work with on a close level, I think that’d be pretty cool.” he says, noting that breweries are now using cacao products in more than just Porters and Stouts. He recently provided cacao husks for a sour beer to be brewed at Heritage Hill Brewing.
Beer and chocolate are both agricultural products that bring together creativity and technical expertise. There’s plenty of both qualities at Nostalgia Chocolate, and Tyler is excited to share them with his friends in the brewing world.
“I love working with breweries. They’re easy-going and it’s obviously an end product that I love.”