They Brew it, I sell it, You Drink it... and so do I..

Sunday 19 June 2011

Beer and Some Chocky!

After having a bit of a skinful last night in North Bar, I think I need a beer and some salts and sugars to help stave off the demons in my head.

I was thinking then, why not grab a couple bars of chocolate and a couple of beers, and veg out in front of the TV for a change. "Hell I can make this into a beer and chocolate bar matching session!" I thought to myself whilst picking a couple of beers up today.

So anyway..... here we go:


Beer number 1: Dragon Head, a 4% stout from the famed Orkney Brewery.

....... and a bar of Picnic.

The beer looks dark and inviting, with a small aroma of roasted grains and a little woody subtlety.

Light in body, but not in flavour. Quite oaky, with a little smoke in the mix, and the big dark malt bitterness lingering for a long time in the finish. A little nutty, some dried fruit, and a spicy bitter chocolate freshness. (see I thought about my chocky choice!)

But does it work as a pairing?  Well I think it does! The similar flavours of each work together alongside a sweetness of one and a bitterness of the other. This has been fun, it's nice to enjoy the simple things from time to time. So with that in mind, I'll move onto the second beer.


Carnegie Porter is a fantastic beer, a porter like no other. At 5.5% it's not as dark as the Dragon Head but much more in the aroma. This Baltic Porter is produced by Carlsberg Sverige and has a lot of history behind it.

..... It's going with a Toffee Crisp.

There's loads to pick out from the aroma; liqourice, chocolate, light treacle, rich dried fruits, some lactose and a bit of a vinous character.

Smooth, oaty, a tiny smidgen of salt, a little chocolate bitterness mixed in with a small amount of roasted malts in the background. It's the kind of beer which would go excellent with seafood, but tonight I'm rocking the Toffee Crisp yo!

Does it work though?

Well it works in the fact that they're completely opposite, but kind of still works at the same time. Very interesting stuff indeed, once again , it's a fun thing to try!

This got me thinking about a few other combos you could try out:

IPA with a Bounty
Nut Brown Ale with a Snickers
Barley Wine with a Daim Bar
Imperial Stout with Riesen pieces
Sam Smiths Strawberry beer with Red Quality Streets
Wheat beer with an Aero (feel the bubbles!)

Who knows, I may even do a beer pairing with some good 'proper' chocolate one of these days ;)

Just remember: as with life, never take beer too seriously (or try not too!)

8 comments:

  1. Cheers Dave, I had some fun with this. :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Brilliant!

    You have absolutely opened up a world of possibilities here!

    I have a bit of a sweet tooth, but haven't seriously thought about matching confectionery with beer before.

    Forget about 'proper' chocolate, this is definitely the way to go.

    The pics, as mentioned above, are seriously cool. They work so well. Can't imagine this has ever been done before.

    Not sure about the Bounty / IPA match proposal though...Bounty is the worst chocolate bar in the Mars range without a shadow of a doubt!

    Definitely gonna investigate a brown ale and Maltesers pairing over the next few days...

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thanks Chris, I did enjoy your piece on the TipoPils and Mario, but I have to admit I was a massive Sega kid too, still am, and didn't really ever stray from the system :)

    ReplyDelete
  4. Weird that you should post this so soon after my recent trip to Asda where the self-service gopher made comment on my purchases. I had a bottle of Hambleton Nightmare and a packet of Munchies. She confidently stated that beer and chocolate do not go together! I drew breath to retort and... just couldn't be bothered :-)
    The conclusion to this dull story being that they went very nicely together.

    ReplyDelete
  5. So this was the mystery pairing session mate, nice!

    Pictures look great.

    Another good pairing exercise BEER and FUN :)

    Cheers Phil
    @filrd

    ReplyDelete
  6. Nice work! There's some fun to be had here...

    IPA and Bounty is supposedly very good but I haven't tried it. I guess the coconut and grapefruit flavour is an established combo so why not?! Twix and Kit Kat are my chocolate bars of choice... what beers would you suggest with them?!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Mark - I was just guessing with the Bounty IPA :)
    I reckon a Twix would go well with something like Ram Tam, or Brodie's Prime and a Kit Kat would go nice with some Young's Double Choc Stout, or even an Odell Red Ale.

    ReplyDelete