Bean to Barstool Podcast | Pairing Spirits & Chocolate with Shay Pal

While host David Nilsen mostly pairs craft chocolate with craft beer here at Bean to Barstool, there’s a world of great beverages out there for pairing with great chocolate. David’s good friend Shay Pal seems to have paired bars with most of them through her adventurous tasting and traveling. In this episode, Shay and David discuss how she approaches pairing with craft chocolate, how she avoids getting overwhelmed by the choices in front of her, and how she selects which spirit, wine, coffee, or cocktail to pair with any given bar. This is a fun conversation filled with curiosity, a trait that defines Shay. Follow along as David and Shay discuss pairing spirits and chocolate!

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Bean to Barstool Podcast | How to Pair IPAs with Craft Chocolate

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. Let’s pair IPAs with craft chocolate!

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Bean to Barstool Podcast | Defining “Craft” with Clay Gordon

There might not be a more loaded term in beer and chocolate than “craft.” What does it mean, who gets to use it, and who gets to decide who does or doesn’t fall under its umbrella? Is craft about size and ownership? Is it about processes and ingredients? Is it some other ineffable quality? There is no perfect answer, and the parameters and stakes are different for both beer and chocolate, but it’s a fascinating topic for discussion.

In this episode David Nilsen talks with Clay Gordon, one of the most respected names in the world of craft chocolate, to discuss the meaning of craft, how the term’s usage and meaning differ in the beer and chocolate worlds, how tasting and judging have influenced beer and chocolate differently, and, toward the end, how we both approach chocolate pairings with beer and other beverages.

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Bean to Barstool Podcast | Moksa Brewing’s Pastry Stouts with Cory Meyer

Moksa Brewing in Rocklin, California (just outside Sacramento), is one of the country’s most prolific and best producers of Pastry Stouts. These usually high alcohol and high gravity Stouts use ingredients like cacao, coffee, vanilla, and others to recreate the flavors of beloved desserts or create whole new flavor concepts. Moksa’s Pastry Stouts are indulgent but precise.

In this episode we talk with Moksa head brewer Cory Meyer about how he works with cacao, vanilla, and other adjunct ingredients, how he sources single origin examples, and how the Moksa team comes up with the concepts for these dessert beers.

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Bean to Barstool Podcast | Bonus: All About Malt

Hops get a lot of buzz from beer lovers because of their expressive, fruity aromas and flavors, but malt is really the foundational ingredient of beer. You can technically brew beer without hops (though all commercial examples contain them), but you can’t brew it without malted grain, and the different malt varieties offer a dazzling rainbow of potential colors, aromas, flavors, and textures for building a new beer. So what is malt, how is it made, how is it used in brewing, and what flavors and characteristics does it provide for beer? In this bonus episode, we talk all about malt.

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Bean to Barstool Podcast | How to Host a Beer & Chocolate Pairing at Home

Bean to Barstool host David Nilsen’s new book Pairing Beer & Chocolate: A Guide to Bringing the Flavors of Craft Beer and Craft Chocolate Together is out now. In honor of the release, David talks in this latest episode of Bean to Barstool about how to host a beer and chocolate pairing at home. How do you plan it, how do you guide the event itself, and how do you give your friends a memorable evening with beer and chocolate? We’ve got you covered.

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Bean to Barstool Podcast | One Cacao Tree with Raven Hanna

Raven Hanna lives on the big island of Hawai’i, and her backyard is a picture of what most of us see when we hear the phrase tropical paradise. She has a PhD in molecular biophysics and biochemistry, and she loves science, but she also loves her senses, and the opportunity to immerse herself in the natural world. Her book One Cacao Tree: Backyard Cocoa, Tiny Fermentations, and Chocolate Making in the Tropics is an accessible, tangible guide to every step of cacao’s journey, from growing to fermenting, grinding to tempering.

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Bean to Barstool Podcast | Somerville Chocolate & Aeronaut Brewing

In this episode of Bean to Barstool, we’re looking at a fascinating collaboration between a craft chocolate maker and a craft brewery. Eric Parkes at Somerville Chocolate is a tenant in Aeronaut Brewing’s building in Somerville, Massachusetts, so he makes chocolate just a short distance from where brewmaster Mark Bowers and Director of Brewing Operations Filipe Garcia are brewing beer. This has allowed for an ongoing creative exchange between these worlds, yielding unique beers made with cacao and unique chocolate bars made with beer, brewing ingredients, and cacao and other ingredients that have been first used to make beer. The relationship has allowed for creative experimentation and mutual education. In this interview, Eric, Mark, Filipe, and host David Nilsen discuss the benefits of this arrangement and look in detail at the beers and chocolate bars that have come from it.

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The PorchCast Ep. 110 | Lady Justice Brewing

In episode 110 of The PorchCast, the whole gang got back together to chat with Betsy Lay and Alison Wisneski, co-owners of Lady Justice Brewing.

The Lady Justice crew recently … Read More

Bean to Barstool Podcast | Nick Davis of Jamaica’s One One Cacao

Nick Davis makes bean to bar chocolate at One One Cacao on the northeast coast of Jamaica. The cacao trade on the island has been tainted by a colonial past of slavery and oppression, but is now being reclaimed as farmers and makers take back agency. Nick shares his thoughts on the good and bad of inclusions, the challenges and opportunities in Jamaican cacao and chocolate, the historical and modern impacts of colonialism on both, and how making chocolate has allowed him to reclaim some of his family’s story and power that had been taken by that colonial harm. I’m so grateful to Nick for his time and his insights, and I think you’re going to enjoy this conversation as well.

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Bean to Barstool Podcast | TCHO Chocolate’s Relationship to Craft Beer

Today we’re talking with Brad Kintzer, the chocolate maker at TCHO Chocolate in Berkeley, California. In our conversation, we discuss TCHO’s corporate ownership, how they source their cacao, and the flavor labs TCHO has established in many cacao growing regions to work with growers on a mutually-informed flavor lexicon for chocolate and to improve quality.

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Bean to Barstool Podcast | Mushrooms in Beer and Chocolate

Mushrooms aren’t the first ingredient we usually think of for flavoring beer or chocolate, but many craft brewers and craft chocolate makers are using different species to create unique flavor experiences and, in some cases, provide unexpected health benefits. In today’s episode, we talk all about using mushrooms in beer and chocolate.

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Bean to Barstool Podcast | Luke Owen Smith Talks with Phoebe Preuss of Living KoKo

In this episode of the Bean to Barstool beer and chocolate podcast, New Zealand beer and chocolate journalist Luke Owen Smith interviews Phoebe Preuss of Living KoKo. They talk about Living KoKo’s relationship with Samoan cacao farmers and cacao supplier Savai’i Koko. They also discuss Penina, Living KoKo’s non-alcoholic chocolate beer brewed in collaboration with Brewicolo and made with cacao and hopped with Citra, Amarillo and Ekuanot hops.

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Bean to Barstool Podcast | Learning/Unlearning: Agronomist Sarah Bharath on Unlearning What We Think We Know

I never come away from a conversation with cacao agronomist Sarah Bharath without learning something, and it’s probably because Sarah never comes away from anything without learning. Her curiosity and excitement to learn drive the very important work she does working with cacao farmers to better understand the ecosystems of their cacao farms, how to work with the land and its resident microbes, and how to adapt fermentation practices to a changing environment and climate. For Sarah, learning and teaching form a symbiotic relationship, each thriving best in the other’s company. Cacao lavado is a great example (more on that in a bit).

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Bean to Barstool Podcast | All About Vanilla

Vanilla is a very familiar flavor for most of us. It’s so ubiquitous, in fact, that the word is used as a pejorative for anything that is commonplace and mundane. But that’s not being fair to this fascinating tropical spice, which can display a wide range of expressive aromas and flavors, and can be used in unique ways throughout world cuisine. In North America and Europe, it’s mostly associated with desserts, pastries, and other sweet treats, to the point that vanilla is often taken to be sweet on its own. That assumption is turned upside down in many other global food traditions however, in which vanilla can be used in savory or spicy dishes. Its heady but gentle profile allows it to work in support of a variety of other flavors.

And it’s of interest to this podcast because vanilla is used so extensively in craft chocolate and, often, in craft beer as well.

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Bean to Barstool Podcast | Favorite Beers & Chocolates of 2023

Today’s episode is a look back at my favorite beers and chocolates of 2023. You’ll also hear from several friends and colleagues in the beer and chocolate worlds who share their own favorites from the last year as well.

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Bean to Barstool Podcast | Adam Krantz of Monsoon Chocolate

Monsoon Chocolate is making bean to bar chocolate in the desert climate of Tucson, Arizona. It’s not a region we might think of as a hotspot for craft chocolate, but as founder Adam Krantz explains, the southwest has a strong historical claim to cacao, and he wanted to honor that heritage while also pushing the boundaries of flavor with unique regional ingredients like chiltepin chilis or mesquite.

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The PorchCast Ep. 109 | Metro State Brewery Operations Program

In episode 109 of The PorchCast, Korey and Tristan were joined by Katherine Strain, Lab Manager and Lecturer for Brewery Operations in the School of Hospitality at Metro State, along with Bernardo Alatorre, Director of the Brewery Operations Program at Metro State to talk about the incredible Brewery Operations Program along with the newly opened Charlie Papazian Brewing Education Lab.

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Bean to Barstool Podcast | Chocolate Educator Max Gandy aka Dame Cacao

Max Gandy, perhaps better known in the craft chocolate world as Dame Cacao, was one of the first chocolate educators I started following on Instagram many years ago now when I was first getting into the scene. With her Dame Cacao website and various podcasts over the years, she’s been a calm and knowledgeable voice within craft chocolate for nearly a decade now. She’s also incredibly well traveled, and has spent time at many cacao origins.

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Bean to Barstool Podcast | Flavor as Icon & Ritual

Today’s episode is a break from the normal format of Bean to Barstool. This episode doesn’t look any specific beers or chocolates. Instead, host David Nilsen talks with his sister, Shan Escobar, about the experience of interacting with flavor, how they both approach that, what it satisfies for each of them, and how that experience is informed by their strange religious childhoods. It’s about flavor as icon and ritual. This is a conversation made all the more poignant during the holidays, when we gather with family and friends and, as Shan says, “the veil is thin.” Listen in on this candid, vulnerable conversation.

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