Chocolate pale ale ideas??

[mjphoto]

Hello everyone,

I am trying to come up with something slightly more out of the box than an IPA for a local home brew competition. I am not a huge fan of dark beers (flavour mainly) and have some chillis become ripe in my garden (pretty hot ones) and im thinking about maybe trying a chilli chocolate pale ale.

Now my question is why can't I find much inspiration in terms of recipes/previous brews (good or bad) out there? Taking the chilli out of it does the chocolate (and im talking flavour not colour) and pale ale (thinking an APA type base) just not work?

Anyone have any experience or can point me in the right direction for info on brewing this sort of thing or a recipe to gather some ideas from?

Thanks
Matt

 

[chickypad]

Many folks get chocolate flavors in their beers from dark roasted malts. I think you are saying you want to brew a beer that is pale in color but has chocolate flavors? You might try searching "white stout" or "golden stout" for some ideas. Some brewers are making these "stouts" that are pale in color and get flavor from actual coffee or chocolate additions without using dark roasted malts - see for example the article on Stone's golden stout below.

http://www.newschoolbeer.com/2014/11/stone-brewing-golden-stout-enjoy-12-26-14-release-week.html

 

[Morrey]

Adding to Chickypad's comments, the use of Cocoa Nibs in your process may be something to consider. These nibs are the heart of the cocoa bean and are roughly the size of a grain of barley if you haven't seen them before in your LHBS. I soak the nibs in vodka for a week or two, then strain out the solids thru a coffee filter and discard. Use the liquid tincture adding to your beer as you keg or bottle. Tinctures are nice to deal with since you can flavor your beer slowly and not get too much in there as you keep tasting as you add for a nice, chocolatey taste.

You can also make a tincture from the chili peppers too. I suggest adding slowly (if you try this) so you don't make mistakes.

You could make the tinctures and try adding them to a commercially available Pale Ale and see if this hits the right notes for you.

 

[rhys333]

If you load up on German Munich 10 (say 30% or more) it can have a chocolate note to it believe it or not. Also Victory up around 8% or more. Nibs as stated too.

 

[rhys333]

I'll also add, if I were trying to get a chocolatey pale ale, I think I would back way off on the flavor and aroma hops so that the malt comes through more. I guess it might end up being a mash up between a brown ale malt-wise and an APA colour and IBU-wise. Could be interesting!

 

[Weezy]

I made a pale coffee beer that came or nice. The idea was a simple beer to let the coffee shine. The same concept might work well for a truly cocoa centric beer. My base beer was 80% golden promise, 10% flaked barley, 10% C15, 20 IBUs of fuggles (with commercial cold press coffee concentrate added to the keg)

Here's a real nice article on using cocoa:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/brewing-with-chocolate.html