Stone Brewery

Chocolate and Beer Pairing
Monday, July 9th, 2007

Last Monday I attended the Chocolate and Beer Pairing event at Stone Brewery. I have been meaning to get up there for some time, to tour the brewery. It took a night of chocolate to actually get me to act on that thought...!

None the less, the event was fantastic. Each "pair" was introduced by the representatives of Stone and Chuao.

The CEO of Stone Brewery is well-spoken, clearly excited about beer and thoroughly knoweldgeable (he better be!). Not to mention, he's pretty darn cute!

The woman representing Chuao was a little less confident in her public speaking skills, and it showed. She didn't speak clearly about the qualities of the chocolates, instead ending all the choco-introductions with one-liners.

Here are the pairings we tried:

Stone Pale Ale with Melao salt butter caramel in milk chocolate.
Stone Smoked Porter with Candela macadamia praline in dark chocolate.
Stone IPA with Cinco de Mayo lemon tequila ganache in dark chocolate.
Arrogant Bastard Ale with Caracas dark bar with nuts.
Stone Ruination IPA with Picante spicy caramel.
Stone Vertical Epic Ale with Cardamon ganache dark chocolate.

The Picante Pair was my favorite (and it won by loudness of applause), and the Melao was my second fave (though by applause I think it was Cinco de Mayo, which was also a very good pair).

Interestingly, the pairings were created primarily for similarities in flavors, which surprised me. I would have guessed a more balancing approach, with the yin-yang thing going on. For example, the Stone IPA was very citrus-y, and they paired it with a very lemony caramel chocolate. They referred to this effect as "the flavor lock." I guess they know what they're doing because they really did go well together.

I am looking forward to many more adventures in beer in the future.