3 Beans, a Beer, & a Chocolate Bar (Ep. 18)

A Venezuelan chocolate maker, a Canadian brewer, and a Danish designer walk into a Norwegian bar. Stop me if you’ve heard this one.

Norway is high on my list of places to travel as soon as it’s safe again. In the meantime, I can travel there with my senses through beers brewed here in the U.S. that seek to recreate Norwegian brewing traditions and ingredients, and through Norwegian bean to bar chocolate. 

In this episode, we talk with Xoco by Corina, a Norwegian bean to bar maker who is partnering with Lervig Beer, a prominent Norwegian craft brewery, to create 3 Bean Stout Chocolate, a 70% dark chocolate bar that is perhaps more evocative of the Amazon than the Arctic, but nonetheless demonstrates the tapestry of influences that make beer and chocolate so exciting.

The music for this episode was sampled from an instrumental version of the song “Come Home” written and performed by indie folk musician Anna ps from her 2016 album Umbrella. You can find out more about Anna at her website.

Guests:

Corina Gimenez has been working with chocolate for 14 years. She is a specialty chocolate maker located in Norway, a place she has called home for the 10 years. Her cacao and chocolate knowledge and experience is deeply rooted to her heritage as a Venezuelan, born in Caracas. As a culinary educated and experienced professional, she uses all her senses and knowledge to create recipes with exciting Scandinavian flavour combinations, bringing a new twist to the Food of the Gods.

David Graham grew up in Saskatchewan, Canada. After obtaining his master’s degree in neuroscience, he worked for a couple years as a research assistant at a Canadian university before taking a leap of faith in November 2013 by moving to Stavanger, Norway, to start a job as a brewer at Lervig Beer. He’s been with Lervig ever since—now managing all of production—seeing change both at the brewery as well as the craft beer industry in general.

Nanna Guldbæk is a Danish graphic designer. She has been the Art Director at Lervig Beer in Norway since 2018. Nanna was educated as a Product Designer at Kolding Design School in Denmark and Kingston University in London, UK, but works across and within graphic design, illustration, and product design. Her work with Lervig focuses on a strong character driven universe, complex colours, and inspiration from the brutal, breathtaking nature of Norway.