Great American Beer Festival 2023 Preview Guide: Chocolate Beers

September 18, 2023 | David Nilsen

There are some excellent chocolate beers being poured at the Great American Beer Festival 2023! Ranging from rich dessert concepts to beers highlighting cacao in unique ways, here are the chocolate beers you need to try when you’re at the festival.

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From Bean to Beer | The New World of Chocolate Beers

February 17, 2021 | David Nilsen

Chocolate beer is nothing new. Brewers have been throwing cacao nibs into stouts for years now. But with a growing recognition among brewers of the flavor potential of fine cacao in various forms, the possibilities for how chocolate can be used in brewing are expanding rapidly. And that’s exciting.

I started a podcast in 2020 called Bean to Barstool, which uses craft beer and bean to bar chocolate as dual lenses for exploring the world of flavor. I wrote in the initial media announcement for the show that people should “think of it as a dream journal written in the complex alphabet of beer and the eloquent vocabulary of chocolate.”

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