Many Belgian beer styles pair beautifully with craft or bean to bar chocolate, and the beers of the Chimay line exemplify this. Let’s talk about craft chocolate pairings for Chimay’s Trappist ales!

In this episode, David Nilsen talks with brewing scientist Zadkiela Rios about pairing beer and chocolate and how travel and her science background inform her tasting process and experiences.

Standard-strength Porter and Stout styles such as American Porter, English Porter, Oatmeal Stout, Milk Stout, Irish Stout, and some American Stouts tend to cast a wide net when paired with chocolate and can work solidly with a wide range of chocolates. In this bonus episode, David Nilsen explains which types of craft chocolate to seek out and which to avoid when pairing with standard-strength Porters and Stouts.

Sour ales are a fantastic platform for fruit flavors. The acidity of the base beers dovetails with the brightness of the fruit and can help sell the flavors of the fruit more authentically. There are challenges to pairing these beers though, and most of them are related to variability of the beers themselves: there are so many different ways to make a fruited sour ale. In this bonus episode, David Nilsen walks through the different types of fruited sour ale and explains which types of craft chocolate and seek out and which to avoid when pairing with them.

IPAs are the most popular family of beer styles in craft beer today, they aren't the first beers most people think of for pairing with craft chocolate. While IPAs can pair beautifully with craft chocolate, it’s not an effortless pairing. IPAs present challenges that can lead to chocolate pairings with harsh, bitter, astringent, and/or clashing flavor qualities. In this bonus episode, we’ll look at some common styles of IPA, discuss their sensory attributes, and discuss chocolates to seek out and chocolates to avoid when planning pairings with each.

How do you host a beer and pairing in your home? In this episode, Advanced Cicerone David Nilsen gives guidance on how to plan and guide a beer and chocolate pairing to give you and your friends a memorable evening.

Fall beer styles like pumpkin ales, Märzen, Festbier, and even fresh hop and wet hop beers can pair great with craft chocolate, and today we’re going to talk about some of my favorites and recommendations to check out. Listen to this bonus episode to learn which bean to bar chocolate bars will work best with each seasonal style.

What types of craft chocolate should you pair with Belgian Witbier and Bavarian Hefeweizen, two both standard strength wheat ales with expressive fermentation flavors? Listen is an Advanced Cicerone David Nilsen, author of Pairing Beer & Chocolate, describes these styles and recommends craft chocolate bars to pair with them.

In this episode we talk with Estelle Tracy. Estelle leads wine and chocolate pairings through her business 37 Chocolates. In this conversation, Estelle and I talk about the differences and similarities between pairing craft chocolate with wine and beer, how she got started with chocolate and wine, and what she’s learned along the way.

Bean to Barstool host David Nilsen, author of Pairing Beer & Chocolate, talks about how to pair craft chocolate with Doppelbock, a strong German lager style often released in mid-winter by U.S. craft breweries. The malt flavors of Doppelbocks work beautifully with a variety of dark chocolate styles, but there are things to keep in mind when you’re reaching for a bar to pair with these strong beers. Listen to this super quick episode as Advanced Cicerone David Nilsen explains how pair Doppelbock with chocolate.

Join Advanced Cicerone David Nilsen, French Broad Chocolates, and Burial Beer for two events celebrating beer and chocolate. In this episode of Bean to Barstool, David talks with the folks between Decadence on Display and Sips + Sweets, which will both take place in Asheville in November.

Bean to Barstool host and Advanced Cicerone David Nilsen has written and published a guide to pairing craft beer and craft chocolate. This 70-page, full-color zine provides all the information you need to begin pairing craft beer and craft chocolate.

When you’re pairing beer and chocolate, you aren’t pairing a meal; you’re pairing a moment. So how do you make that moment the best it can be? There are some special considerations when it comes to pairing craft beer and bean to bar chocolate, and in this episode beer writer David Nilsen walks some of through those, offering tips on how to pair chocolate and beer. He also shares some of his favorite beer and chocolate pairings from the past year.

Beers and chocolates featuring smoke or spice flavors require graceful dance partners that can both set them free and keep them on beat. Find some great examples in this episode.

Beer and chocolate make graceful dance partners if we just give them the right music and room to move.