Chocolate beers for Easter

Chocolate finds its way into beer by many interesting routes. Dark, roasted malts–- what give stouts their distinctive colour – create chocolate flavours in beers from milky and cocoa to the darkest of dark chocolate. Some brewers put cocoa nibs into the boil or fermenter to produce a chocolate aroma and flavour, or add a few helpings of essence or flavour extract. There’s also talk of a mysterious new experimental hop making its way to these shores that might soon be adding hints of chocolate to your IPA.

If you’re tasting chocolate in your beer, think about it a little closer – is it milk or plain chocolate, sweet, bitter, roasted or a bit like coffee?

The Porterhouse has a special Chocolate Truffle Stout on draught in their bars over Easter. Based on their award-winning Plain Porter, this seasonal beer was made with chocolate essence and cocoa, and paired with vanilla. It’s rich and smooth but not too strong at 5 per cent.

Milk stout

Buried at Sea is a milk stout by Galway Bay. The addition of lactose gives it a light, silky chocolate characteristic but it’s balanced and drinkable at 4.5 per cent.

If you want to take it up a notch, have a try of The World's End Imperial Chocolate Vanilla Stout (8.5 per cent) by Blacks of Kinsale. Imperial usually means stronger – in flavour and alcohol – and this stout is brewed with Fairtrade cacao husks and Madagascan vanilla pods which give it a rich body and mouthfeel.

For a particularly tasty Easter beer treat, try Dublin brewery Hope’s Export Stout No4. This is jet black, with a lovely coffee and vanilla aroma. It’s smooth and complex and needs a few minutes to open up. At 7.5 per cent, you’ll feel a gentle alcohol warmth after a few sips and a building bitterness from its delicious dark chocolate tang.

@ITbeerista beerista@irishtimes.com