Three chocolatey beers for Easter

As you can see from the new chocolate e-book I’ve been doing quite a lot of *research* into chocolate and chocolate-flavoured drinks and beer is no exception.

Sometimes it’s the malts that makes them taste chocolatey but others have real chocolate in the form of cacao nibs added.

You might think that would make them especially good with chocolate or chocolate cake but funnily enough that’s not the case. The actual chocolate tends to strip out the chocolate flavour in the beer. They’re better with something contrasting like a chocolate chip cookie or - and this is match no 98 in the book - a slice of banana bread. With chocolate chips if you insist.

Hawkshead Tiramisu imperial Stout, Cumbria 10%

Brewed in collaboration with Cigar City Brewery of Tampa Bay Florida this is brewed with coffee beans, cacao nibs and 8 varieties of malt. You get a really good coffee hit as well as the chocolate. £5.29 currently from the Hawkshead website but if you’re lucky you’ll pick up a bottle in a specialist offie

Wild Beer Co Wildebeest, Somerset 11%

A similar vibe from the irrepressible Wild Beer Co who describe their Imperial espresso chocolate vanilla stout as "the liquid equivalent of the lotus position". I think of it more as an after-dinner bevvy - it’s brewed with Valrhona cocoa nibs, Columbian coffee and vanilla. £5 a bottle from the WBC website

Wiper and True Hard Shake Imperial Milk Stout, Bristol 10.7%

This may actually be my favourite of the three brewed with chocolate malts, vanilla and cocoa nibs - no coffee this time. REALLY smooth, deep and chocolatey. They very helpfully list all the outlets where you can find their beers - as you'd expect it's widely distributed around Bristol. Expect to pay about £4 a 330ml bottle (retail)

To download a copy of my chocolate ebook 101 Great Ways to Enjoy Chocolate and Wine (and other delicious drinks) click here

The Durham Brewery White Stout

I had a conversation on Twitter before Christmas with Elly from The Durham Brewery about whether there was a perfect beer for Christmas pudding.

She reckoned their 9% Belgian Tripel-style Bede’s Chalice would do the job and offered to send it to me to try.

What with one thing and another I didn’t catch up with it until well after Christmas was over so can’t try out the combination. My feeling is that it’s slightly drier and more savoury than is ideal for Christmas pud - a barley wine I think would be better

I was however very taken with their White Stout which I tried at the same time. As they explain on the label “Before porter brewers commandeered stout to mean a strong porter, a stout beer was a strong beer. It did not have to be black. We have recreated the style using modern hops and a full malt body.”

I find it a big, savoury brew, well-suited to meat (they recommend it with roast lamb with garlic and rosemary), shepherd's pie or cheddar cheese. It’s not as sweet or aromatic as many IPAs, more like a full-bodied red like a malbec. Watch out though: at 7.2% ABV a 500ml bottle will gobble up 3.6 units, over a quarter of your weekly 14 unit (ha!) allowance. You could happily share it between two though.

Disclosure: I was sent a selection of beers to try by The Durham Brewery.