“Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy” – Benjamin Franklin

I never knew the magnitude of that quote until pairing craft beer with chocolate.

Tonight my friend Sasha and I joined 20 other beer-lovin’ women for a night of sensory exploration.  As part of Ontario’s Craft Beer Week, Barley’s Angles organized a pairing of six Ontario craft beers with white, milk and dark chocolate. I must be honest, although I’m a chocolate addict (who needs dark chocolate after every meal), I had no idea that the two brought out the best in one another.

In fact, beer naturally pairs quite well with chocolate (and cheese) because the carbonation actually lifts the fats off the palate. Or, as my friend Mirella (who heads up Barley’s Angels) says, “when you’re enjoying that rich Sunday brunch, what beverage do you traditionally drink? Champagne, because of the cleansing effect of the bubbles.”

Since everyone’s taste buds experience and interpret beer differently there are no “one-size-fits-all” instructions for pairing beer and chocolate. However, as a general rule, the beer should be as sweet, if not sweeter than the chocolate in question.

So as Sasha and I sat down to our tasting, we assumed we were just going to be enjoying some craft beer and some good quality chocolate. However, were we ever wrong!  When pairing the chocolate and craft beer, we were left with a lingering taste was better than the sum of its parts.

How did it work? Basically two rather distinct beers styles were paired with either white, milk or dark chocolate.  What I found incredibly interesting was that while the flavours of both beers were enhanced, one beer complemented the chocolate well, while the other brought out the contrasting subtleties of the beer style.

Let me explain…

The first chocolate to bat was a lovely milk truffle paired with Nickle Brook Maple Porter and Flying Monkey Hoptical Illusion.  As expected, when paired with a milk chocolate truffle, Nickle Brook’s Porter melted the milk chocolate into a sweet caramel bliss. The Hoptical Illusion, on the other hand, highlighted the citrus notes of the west coast hops, almost like an orange infused chocolate.

From there, we jumped to our dark chocolate pairing.  Since dark chocolate has a higher cocao percentage (therefore a great source of antioxidants), it pairs quite nicely with aggressively malted and higher alcohol beers.  Naturally, the dark chocolate was paired with Wellington’s Imperial Stout, but the big surprise was Beau’s All Natural Pan Ontario Beer – a blended beer from five Ontario craft breweries (Beau’s All Natural, Flying Monkey, Grand River, Great Lakes and Wellington), which was aged in bourbon barrels and released specially for Ontario Beer Week. While both beers we delicious, when paired with Beau’s Pan Ontario Beer, the dark chocolate actually took on an incredible coconut taste, similar to an Almond Joy candy bar.  Sasha particularly loved the Imperial Stout because “it tasted like a bacon breakfast” when combined with dark chocolate.

Just when we thought it couldn’t get any better, out came the King Vienna Lager and Cameron’s Auburn.  Although Sahsa and I can normally pass up the white chocolate, when combined with the subtle nutty flavour of the Vienna Lager, it resembled something of a tropical fruit basket, overflowing with fresh mangos and leeches.  The Auburn Ale, on the other hand, reminded me of freshly cut grass with a hint of sour apple.

Moral of the story – anytime you combine your two favourite things, you’re bound to walk away a happy woman!