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Belgian Chocolate Ale
I just got back from a business trip to DC. While I was there not being able to sleep because of the noise (the sound of a door opening always wakes me up and in hotels, someone is always opening a dratted door!) I noticed an establishment kitty corner from my hotel with bright red neon words "Capitol City Brewing Company". I figured it was either coffee or beer, and either one of those was welcome at that point so I went exploring.
Turns out it was a pub/eatery. They had great baked potato soup and phenomenal beer to include Belgian Chocolate Ale which I fell completely in love with. So now I am obsessed with making a clone version.
Any suggestions on where to begin? I tried running some ideas through Beertools but haven't come up with one yet which seems to fit the bill. At the pub they said they used cocoa hulls... (which baffles me... I use those for mulch....) but not much else was mentioned and an email to the establishment has netted negative results.
Ideas?
Friggin cool idea for a beer. I was interested so I tried to find info on the cocoa hulls. Only thing I can figure is that its a cheep way to get the chocolate flavor into the beer without having to deal with all the side effects from commercially available products (e.g. sugar in syrups and powders, oils in bars ect...) one brewer stated that getting the actual cocoa beans can be dificult so if a brewery were trying to extract some flavor without to much costs hulls might be an inventive way to go. Some of the resources I looked at suggested that the hulls did retain the cocoa flavor albeit at a much lower potency. If I were to try it at home I think I would try to get the actual beans. Heres a blog by someone who apparently brews often with chocolate, http://www.kaboodle.com/reviews/brewing-with-chocolate can't vouch for them as I only found it on google. Good luck let me know how it turns out.
Ommegang's Indulgence is another great example of a belgian style chocolate beer. Maybe an email to Ommegang would net some results.
I would go with a porter style grain bill without any roasted barley, maybe like a marris otter base with some brown malt, dehusked carafa, crystal 120, tad crystal 80, and a subtle belgan yeast like WLP575. Maybe hopping with EKG/styrian goldings. A lower mash temp and a good dry finish. Just wingin it but as I am writing I may try punching one of these up. I have a Ommegang three philosophers chilling right now for my after dinner treat.
Jen,
You should really try and send Cap City an email to see if they'll give you any details on brewing the beer. They are all pretty good guys and while I think they play it a little too safe on some of their beers, they are all very good. Their one off special beers tend to be very good, which is really telling.
DT
dmofot wrote:
Jen,
You should really try and send Cap City an email to see if they'll give you any details on brewing the beer. They are all pretty good guys and while I think they play it a little too safe on some of their beers, they are all very good. Their one off special beers tend to be very good, which is really telling.
DT
I did, they are ignoring me! :-)
Thirsty - I'll look in to that. At least that might give me some sort of baseline. I was just hoping for the easy way out!
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