The Best Chocolate Beers of Great American Beer Festival Week 2022
By David Nilsen
The Great American Beer Festival in Denver is an annual celebration of American craft beer in all its variety and splendor, and beer lovers flock to the Mile High City to check out hundreds of breweries pouring their best beers. In addition to GABF, the Denver Rare Beer Tasting and numerous other events dot the city throughout the week. Beers of every style are available to be tried during GABF week, and here I’ve gathered the best chocolate beers I found while I was in Denver.
Pairing & Collaboration at Lady Justice
Before we get to my list of the best chocolate beers of the 2022 Great American Beer Festival, one event of GABF week was all about chocolate and beer, and I had the honor of leading it. I teamed up with Lady Justice Brewing to put on a beer and chocolate pairing in their small, inviting taproom, and it was a big hit.
The most popular pairing of the event was the brewery’s Have You Heard the Buzz Bock and Omnom’s Black & Burnt Barley bar. The Bock was brewed with peach vanilla black tea and bourbon barrel-aged honey, but those ingredients were very subdued when tasting the beer. I wanted a bar that would bring them forward, and felt an assertive caramel profile would do that. The almost-burnt caramel notes of this bar made with Carafa III malt and puffed Icelandic barley pulled forward the peach, vanilla, and bourbon notes of the beer and allowed them to shine.
The other pairings from the event included:
- Sunday Best Hazy Pale Ale with Baiani Orange Zest 70%
- Cerveza Bruja Pumpkin Ale with Latitude Dark Milk
- Barrel-Aged Rye Porter with Qantu Maple & Maras Fleur de Sel
We’re hoping to do this event again next year!
While I was at Lady Justice, I had the chance to taste Unconfirmed Details, their recent collaboration beer with Cerebral Brewing. This Imperial Stout was aged in Laws whiskey barrel and conditioned on Ecuadorian cacao nibs from Miette et Chocolat and coconut. The cacao nibs had been aged in empty an empty Laws barrel first and then added to the Stout. After they were removed, Miette dried them back out and made a bar from them.
Tasting these side by side was fascinating. The beer offered rich, caramely chocolate with subtle coconut notes, liked melted dark chocolate poured over sweet shredded coconut flakes. The bar from Miette had a lovely rippled mold, and combined flavors of cocoa powder, oak, brownie, and subtle cherry.
Top 10 Chocolate Beers of GABF Week
Radiant Comfort Blanket - This Imperial Stout was aged 18 months in 17-year-old Wild Turkey Master’s Keep and 8-year-old Elijah Craig bourbon barrels and conditioned on Bolivian Itenez Wild Harvest cacao nibs from Chocolate Alchemy, Texas pecans, and Vermont maple syrup. Despite the complex array of ingredients, the beer is fairly simple in the best way. The impression I got was of chocolate-covered raisins, with the syrup providing that impression of dried fruit.
“When sourcing nibs for beer I am generally looking for nibs with lowish acidity and astringency, and upfront ‘chocolate’ notes rather than something overly fruity or flora and the Itenez fits that bill,” Radiant director of brewing Andrew Bell told me. “[This origin] has pretty strong and straight-forward chocolate notes with some caramel notes that I thought would play well with the maple syrup and pecans.”
Corporate Ladder Purchase Order 002 - Purchase Order 002 is an Imperial Stout brewed with Ugandan and Haitian cacao nibs from Ethereal Confections. It’s a beautiful execution of a classic, straight-forward concept, with nuanced chocolate notes against the underlying roast of the Stout.
Cerveceria Colorado Pozolito Lindo - This 5.5% ABV Porter was inspired by Pozol, a pre-Colombian Mexican beverage made with fermented corn dough and roasted cacao. The beer is brewed with unfermented cacao nibs, cacao husks, and nixtamalized corn, all from Denver’s Cultura Chocolate. The beer offered roasty, nutty coffee notes with a light kiss of sweetness and a subtle roast acidity with gentle earthiness. This was poured at GABF as well as at Cerveceria Colorado’s Great Mexican Beer Fiesta, always one of the highlights of the week for me.
Verboten Not a Speck of Light: German Chocolate - At the Denver Rare Beer Tasting I had the chance to try Verboten’s interpretation of German chocolate cake, and it was excellent. This 13.5% ABV Imperial Stout was aged in bourbon barrels and conditioned on Fiji cocoa husks from Nuance Chocolate, as well as vanilla, toasted coconut, and pecans. The sweetness of the concept was tempered by the dry roast of the grain bill.
Radiant Germany by Way of Texas - Another German chocolate cake impersonator, this one used Fijian Rakiraki cacao nibs from Chocolate Alchemy, as well as Texas Hill Country pecans, Papua New Guinea vanilla, and coconut. This beer was actually a blend of two base beers: one was aged in a 17-year-old Woodford Reserve Master’s Collection Very Fine Rare barrel and the other in a Thomas H. Handy Sazerac Rye Barrel from Buffalo Trace’s Antique Collection. The pecans hid just behind the coconut and pushed it forward, while the beer balanced its sweet influences with its regal foundational qualities.
Jagged Mountain This Beer Really Ties the Room Together - I spent some time in the Jagged Mountain taproom, and was impressed with this Blonde Stout brewed with coffee, lactose, and Ugandan cacao (they didn’t provide the source). The beer offered notes of vanilla and controlled accents of cacao and coffee.
Seedstock Lights Out Mocha Stout - This lower ABV Stout was brewed with coffee and TCHO Ghana cacao nibs. The beer was light and dry with gentle chocolate roast and nutty, dry coffee. This was excellent, and a great summer beer for the coffee and chocolate crowd.
Westfax Peanut Butter Chocolate Beta Wave - This Imperial Stout is brewed with TCHO Ghana cacao nibs and peanut butter powder, and aged 20 months in Laws Wheat Whiskey barrels. The beer impressively retains the hop bitterness of the Imperial Stout style, a quality sometimes lost in dessert-influenced versions. A bitter roast profile supports solid chocolate notes, while the peanut butter mostly floats around as an aroma influence.
Transient Junie Reserve #2 - I tasted this one at PorchDrinking’s 10th anniversary festival. Transient used Violet Sky cacao nibs (no word on origin) and salted caramel in this Imperial Stout and aged the beer in Blis Maple Bourbon barrels. The beer is thick and chewy, with bourbon and maple up front and drier cacao notes beneath.
Cheluna Coco-Xoco - This 7% ABV Porter is brewed with TCHO Ghana cacao nibs, vanilla, and coconut. The coconut is front and center, with subtly acidic cacao behind it with vanilla and nutty notes in the background.
Other Notable Chocolate Beers
Firestone Walker Parabolita - I’m still waiting for word from the brewery on the origin and source for the cacao nibs in this Imperial Stout also brewed with salted caramel and vanilla, but it’s fun to see a brewery of this size brewing a chocolate beer.
Epic Big Bad Baptist - Epic recently switched to using Ethereal Confections for their cacao, and I’ll soon be tasting through a number of their variants for this storied chocolate Imperial Stout.
Fremont Bourbon Barrel-Aged Dark Star Coconut Cacao - Fremont is among the most esteemed barrel-aging breweries in the country, and this Imperial Stout brewed with coconut and Theo cacao nibs was rich and indulgent.
Solvang Cacao For Your Lifestyle - Solvang director of operations Fred Garcia used to hold the same position with Imlak’esh Organics, and sources the regeneratively-farmed, heirloom Ecuadorian and Peruvian cacao for this Chocolate Imperial Stout through that company. This is an excellent partnership to keep an eye on.
Corporate Ladder Champurrado- Champurrado is an Imperial Stout brewed with Ugandan and Haitian cacao nibs from Ethereal Confections, cayenne pepper, cinnamon, agave, vanilla, and marshmallow. I found this one a bit spicy, but another beer writer I was with loved it.
I can’t wait to get back to Denver for next year’s event to taste more great chocolate beers!