Bean to Barstool

Raven Hanna lives on the big island of Hawai'i, and her backyard is a picture of what most of us see when we hear the phrase tropical paradise. She has a PhD in molecular biophysics and biochemistry, and she loves science, but she also loves her senses, and the opportunity to immerse herself in the natural world. Her book One Cacao Tree: Backyard Cocoa, Tiny Fermentations, and Chocolate Making in the Tropics is an accessible, tangible guide to every step of cacao's journey, from growing to fermenting, grinding to tempering. In this episode, Raven and David discuss the book, what it's like to be surrounded by natural wonder, how cacao grows and tastes with other botanicals, using story to make flavors memorable, and so much more.You can learn more about Raven here, and purchase her book here.You can purchase David's new book Pairing Beer & Chocolate: A Guide to Bringing the Flavors of Craft Beer and Craft Chocolate Together here. Follow Bean to Barstool on social media!InstagramFacebookPinterestTikTokSign up for host David Nilsen's newsletter to get regular updates!

Beer is fermented (usually) by one of two closely related species of yeast. In this quick bonus episode, we look at what how beer fermentation works, the differences between ale and lager, and how yeast and fermentation impact beer flavor. Enjoy this quick primer on beer fermentation!Follow Bean to Barstool on social media!InstagramFacebookPinterestTikTokSign up for host David Nilsen's newsletter to get regular updates!

Today we're looking at a fascinating collaboration between a craft chocolate maker and a craft brewery. Eric Parkes at Somerville Chocolate is a tenant in Aeronaut's building, so he makes chocolate just a short distance from where brewmaster Mark Bowers and Director of Brewing Operations Filipe Garcia are brewing beer. This has allowed for an ongoing creative exchange between these worlds, yielding unique beers made with cacao and unique chocolate bars made with beer, brewing ingredients, and cacao and other ingredients that have been first used to make beer. The relationship has allowed for creative experimentation and mutual education. In this interview, Eric, Mark, Filipe, and I discuss the benefits of this arrangement and look in detail at the beers and chocolate bars that have come from it.You can learn more about Aeronaut Brewing here.You can learn more about Somerville Chocolate and order bars here.Aeronaut beers discussed in this episode include Coco Sutra and a barrel-aged Baltic Porter with cacao.Somerville bars discussed include Hops Dark Milk, Beer Fermented Dark, and two variations of a Beer Soaked bar made with the cacao from the above-mentioned Baltic Porter. Follow Bean to Barstool on social media!InstagramFacebookPinterestTikTokSign up for host David Nilsen's newsletter to get regular updates!

Hops are the primary seasoning in beer, but what actually Are hops, and how are these used? In this quick bonus episode, we look at what hops are, how they're used, when they're added during the brewing process, and how they impact beer flavor. Enjoy this quick primer on hops!Follow Bean to Barstool on social media!InstagramFacebookPinterestTikTokSign up for host David Nilsen's newsletter to get regular updates!

Nick Davis makes bean to bar chocolate at One One Cacao on the northeast coast of Jamaica. The cacao trade on the island has been tainted by a colonial past of slavery and oppression, but is now being reclaimed as farmers and makers take back agency. Nick shares his thoughts on the good and bad of inclusions, the challenges and opportunities in Jamaican cacao and chocolate, the historical and modern impacts of colonialism on both, and how making chocolate has allowed him to reclaim some of his family’s story and power that had been taken by that colonial harm. I’m so grateful to Nick for his time and his insights, and I think you’re going to enjoy this conversation as well.Mentioned in the episode are Grenada Chocolate, Dandelion Chocolate, Baiani Chocolate, and Bean to Bar Brasil, among others. Nick also mentions Sarah Bharath of Meridien Cacao, who has appeared on the show several times. You can listen to those conversations here, here, and here. Guest bio: Nick Davis started One One Cacao as a bean to bar then tree to bar chocolate company in 2016. Based in Jamaica, he moved from the U.K. (where his parents settled in the ‘60s) to the island as a journalist. He did a story on Mott Green and the legendary Grenada Chocolate Company and the rest is his-story.  Follow Bean to Barstool on social media!InstagramFacebookPinterestTikTokSign up for host David Nilsen's newsletter to get regular updates!

Welcome to Bean to Barstool Bite Sized, where we spend about 5 minutes with some of our favorite people from craft beer and craft chocolate. In today's Bite Sized we hear from Arcelia Gallardo from Mission Chocolate in Sao Paulo, Brazil. When Arcelia first moved to Brazil and began making bean to bar chocolate, the quality of the Brazilian cacao that was available at the time was not great, but she was committed to working with it. After her friend at Chocolate Maya in Santa Barbara tasted one of Arcelia’s two ingredient bars and suggested the cacao wasn’t quite ready for that challenge, Arcelia decided to set her chocolate apart by using the natural bounty of Brazil, employing fruits and nuts that were unique to the new culture she found herself in. Here’s Arcelia to talk about the steps that led to working with ingredients like cupuacu and baru nut.You can find out more about Mission Chocolate here order their bars through Bar & Cocoa here.You can listen to my full episode with Arcelia here.Follow Bean to Barstool on social media!InstagramFacebookPinterestTikTokSign up for host David Nilsen's newsletter to get regular updates!

Today we’re talking with Brad Kintzer, the chocolate maker for TCHO Chocolate in Berkeley, California. In our conversation, we discuss TCHO's corporate ownership and how they source their cacao. We also talk about the flavor labs TCHO has established in many cacao growing regions to work with growers on a mutually-informed flavor lexicon for chocolate, and to improve quality. We spend about the last third of the interview talking about TCHO’s relationship to craft beer, both through the cacao nibs they provide to hundreds of brewers through their relationship with BSG (Brewers Supply Group), a major ingredient provider, and through direct collaborations with breweries like Fieldwork and Faction. These collabs have resulted in some really unique chocolate beers, and most recently, a beer chocolate bar called Hoppy Hour made with Cascade, Centennial, and Chinook hops. Listen in as we talk with Brad Kintzer at TCHO.You can learn more about TCHO and purchase their bars here, and you can purchase the Hoppy Hour bar specifically here. Follow Bean to Barstool on social media!InstagramFacebookPinterestTikTokSign up for host David Nilsen's newsletter to get regular updates!

Hops get a lot of buzz from beer lovers because of their expressive, fruity aromas and flavors, but malt is really the foundational ingredient of beer. You can technically brew beer without hops (though all commercial examples contain them), but you can’t brew it without malted grain, and the different malt varieties offer a dazzling rainbow of potential colors, aromas, flavors, and textures for building a new beer. So what is malt, how is it made, how is it used in brewing, and what flavors and characteristics does it provide for beer? In this bonus episode, we talk all about the basics of malt.Follow Bean to Barstool on social media!InstagramFacebookPinterestTikTokSign up for host David Nilsen's newsletter to get regular updates!

Mushrooms aren't the first ingredient we usually think of for flavoring beer or chocolate, but many craft brewers and craft chocolate makers are using different species of mushrooms to create unique flavor experiences and, in some cases, provide unexpected health benefits. In today's episode, we talk all about using mushrooms in beer and chocolate.We talk with Marika Josephson of Scratch Brewing about brewing  with foraged mushrooms from the brewery's southern Illinois property, including Chanterelle, Turkey Tail, Black Trumpet, Oyster, Wood Ear, and others.  You can listen to previous interviews with her here and here, and order her book of brewing with foraged ingredients here.We talk with Sara Ratza of Ratza Chocolate in Tarpon Springs, Florida, about using mushrooms with health benefits in her bean to bar chocolate, including Reishi, Chaga, Lion's Mane, and others. You can listen to her previous episodes here, here, and here, and order her bars and her book on herbal hot chocolate here.And we talk with Jesse Bussard, former director of the Craft Maltsters Guild, a sustainable agriculture expert, and a grower and hunter of mushrooms, about what makes mushrooms so cool.You can listen to the episode with Oliver Holacek of Primo Chocolate in which we further discuss mushrooms, including the possible therapeutic applications for psilocybin mushrooms in chocolate here. Follow Bean to Barstool on social media!InstagramFacebookPinterestTikTokSign up for host David Nilsen's newsletter to get regular updates!

Welcome to Bean to Barstool Bite Sized, where we spend about 5 minutes with some of our favorite people from craft beer and craft chocolate. In today's Bite Sized we hear from AJ Wentworth from Chocolate Conspiracy. AJ loves craft beer almost as much as he loves craft chocolate, and has collaborated with several breweries around the Salt Lake City area on beers and bars that blur the flavors lines between beer and chocolate, including bars made with Uinta Baba Black Lager, Level Crossing Soul Rex Doubla IPA, and Kiitos Coffee Cream Ale. We talk about his development process for those bars and working with the bold flavors of Double IPA.You can find out more about Chocolate Conspiracy and order their bar here.You can listen to my full episode with AJ here.Follow Bean to Barstool on social media!InstagramFacebookPinterestTikTokSign up for host David Nilsen's newsletter to get regular updates!

In our first ever guest episode of Bean to Barstool, New Zealand beer and chocolate journalist Luke Owen Smith interviews Phoebe Preuss of Living Koko. They talk about Living Koko's relationship with Samoan cacao farmers and Savai'i Koko. They also discuss Penina, Living Koko's non-alcoholic beer brewed brewed in collaboration with Brewicolo and made with cacao and hopped with Citra, Amarillo, and Ekuanot hops. I interviewed Luke back in Episode 37 to talk about beer and chocolate in New Zealand, and he’s also shown up on the last couple year end episodes to share his favorite beers and chocolates of 2022 and 2023. In the latter, one of his favorite beers of last year was Penina. I knew I wanted Living Koko on the show, and Luke seemed like the perfect person to make that happen. Enjoy!You can learn more about Luke Owen Smith here.You can learn more about Living Koko here.  Follow Bean to Barstool on social media!InstagramFacebookPinterestTikTokSign up for host David Nilsen's newsletter to get regular updates!

Is chocolate really an aphrodisiac? In this episode of Bean to Barstool Bite Sized we hear from Michele Hauf, author of Lust and Chocolate, a romance novel themed around craft and bean to bar chocolate. With Valentine's Day right around the corner, spend 5 minutes this morning with Michele as she talks about creating the world of her novel about a plucky food reporter tasked with tracking down and reviewing the world’s most coveted chocolate (and maybe, just maybe, falling in love along the way). She also talks about a thoughtful way in which chocolate really might be an aphrodisiac.You can listen to the entire extended interview with Michele here.You can order Lust and Chocolate from Amazon here.Follow Bean to Barstool on social media!InstagramFacebookPinterestTikTokSign up for host David Nilsen's newsletter to get regular updates!

Manoa Chocolate in Kailua, Hawaii, makes a variety of single origin bars with beans from farms all around Hawaii, and they also make a range of bars celebrating other crops popular on the islands, like coconut, mango, and passionfruit. Today though we’re going to talk about Manoa’s relationship with craft alcoholic drinks. Manoa makes popular bars made with both rum and whiskey made locally, and they run a wine bar that offers both casual pairing guidance and structured pairings. They’re even working with a local brewery to make a beer made with cacao and then chocolate made with those nibs. All of this, of course, is super interesting to me here on Bean to Barstool, so I sat down recently with founder Dylan Butterbaugh to talk about rum, whiskey, wine, and beer as they relate to Manoa Chocolate.I can’t wait to hear how that beer and chocolate turn out. If you’re near Kailua, check out Manoa’s wine bar, and please, order some beer. I promise it pairs beautifully with chocolate, and I’ve written an entire zine to prove it, which you can order on the bean to barstool shop.In the wake of the Maui wildfires in 2023, Manoa also created a special chocolate bar called Support for Maui to raise funds for relief efforts. That bar is still available, so be sure to check it out on manoachocolate.com.Thanks to Dylan for spending a few minutes with us today, and thanks to all of you for listening. I hope you enjoyed this bonus episode of Bean to Barstool.Follow Bean to Barstool on social media!InstagramFacebookPinterestTikTokSign up for host David Nilsen's newsletter to get regular updates!

In this episode of Bean to Barstool Bite Sized we hear from Chris Heier, co-founder and head brewer at Half Hitch Brewing in Cochrane, Alberta, Canada. At the height of the pandemic when most people were learning to make sourdough bread, Chris was learning how to make bean to bar chocolate. He's one-fourth Trinidadian, and he sourced cacao from Trinidad & Tobago through Meridian Cacao and made chocolate from it. He also made a chocolate Porter with the same cacao, and in this quick episode, Chris tells us about developing that beer and what he learned along the way. You can listen to my full interview with Chris here.Follow Bean to Barstool on social media!InstagramFacebookPinterestTikTokSign up for host David Nilsen's newsletter to get regular updates!

I never come away from a conversation with cacao agronomist Sarah Bharath without learning something, and it's probably because Sarah never comes away from anything without learning. Her curiosity and excitement to learn drive the very important work she does working with cacao farmers to better understand the ecosystems of their cacao farms, how to work with the land and its resident microbes, and how to adapt fermentation practices to a changing environment and climate.  For Sarah, learning and teaching form a symbiotic relationship, each thriving best in the other’s company. Sarah’s been on the show twice before, and you can listen to those episodes here:Episode 55 with Chris Heier of Half-Hitch BrewingEpisode 59 on Cacao FermentationIn this episode, Sarah and I start out talking about cacao lavado, or unfermented cacao. It’s a perfect example of how Sarah approaches topics: cacao Has to be fermented, right? Sure, except when it doesn’t, and how do we know when that is unless we break an accepted rule and experiment, right? We then transition to talking more directly about the nature of learning and teaching. A few months ago I wrote a blog post on beantobarstool.com about the cycles of knowledge and confusion that accompany any dedicated effort to learn about something like beer or chocolate, particularly related to the organizational systems that have developed to make sense of both fields. Listen is as we talk about learning, unlearning, and teaching, and how each informs the others. Follow Bean to Barstool on social media!InstagramFacebookPinterestTikTokSign up for host David Nilsen's newsletter to get regular updates!

In this episode of Bean to Barstool Bite Sized we hear from Nicole Hewat, the creative mind behind World Tree Chocolate. Nicole is an artist who has created a variety of artwork using cacao and coffee. She published a children’s book about chocolate illustrated with cacao butter-based paintings on glass, and also sells landscape paintings made with paint made from cacao husks and coffee. Listen in as Nicole explains her process for each.You can learn more about World Tree Chocolate here.You can listen to my full interview with Nicole here.Follow Bean to Barstool on social media!InstagramFacebookPinterestTikTokSign up for host David Nilsen's newsletter to get regular updates!

Vanilla is a very familiar flavor for most of us. It’s so ubiquitous, in fact, that the word is used as a pejorative for anything that is commonplace and mundane. But that’s not being fair to this fascinating tropical spice, which can display a wide range of expressive aromas and flavors, and can be used in unique ways throughout world cuisine. In North America and Europe, vanilla is mostly associated with desserts, pastries, and other sweet treats, to the point that vanilla is often taken to be sweet on its own. That assumption is turned upside down in many other global food traditions however, in which vanilla can be used in savory or spicy dishes. Its heady but gentle profile allows it to work in support of a way variety of others flavors. And it’s of interest to this podcast because vanilla is used so extensively in craft chocolate and, often, in craft beer as well. In this episode we explore the flavors and agronomy of vanilla. We talk with Dr. Alan Chambers from the University of Florida Tropical Research and Education Center. He works with tropical fruit crops to better support growers in southern Florida, and he quickly gained interest and expertise in the science and cultivation of vanilla after taking the position in 2016. He is now a foremost expert in all things vanilla.We also talk with Sean Buchan, the founder and head brewer at Denver’s Cerebral Brewing. Sean works with a variety of single origin vanillas in his beers to highlight their variety. Here we talk about beers like Vanilla Rye Here Be Monsters and others that serve as liquid tributes to the amazing vanilla orchid.I hope this episode helps you appreciate how unique and varied vanilla really is. Far from being an avatar for homogeneity, vanilla is a fascinating and diverse spice with a wide range of expressions that reward attention. In this episode, Sean mentioned working with Ethereal to source cacao for some beers. We interviewed Michael Ervin and Marisa Allen from Ethereal back in Episode 08, which you can listen to it here. Follow Bean to Barstool on social media!InstagramFacebookPinterestTikTokSign up for host David Nilsen's newsletter to get regular updates!

Today’s episode is a look back at my favorite beers and chocolates of 2023. You’ll also hear from several friends and colleagues in the beer and chocolate worlds who share their own favorites from the last year as well.Guests include:Ruvani de Silva  (beer writer)Mandy Naglich (beer writer) - Listen to Mandy & I discuss her new book How to Taste.Estelle Tracy (chocolate educator) - Listen to Estelle & I discuss pairing chocolate with wine & beer.Emma Wargolet (beer writer)Caterina Gallo (chocolate expert)Luke Owen Smith (beer & chocolate writer) - Listen to Luke & I discuss the New Zealand beer & chocolate scenes.Shay Pal (chocolate expert) - Listen to Shay & I discuss one of our favorite chocolate bars.Amanda Camp (beer PR professional)Click each to read the full lists of my favorite beers, chocolates, & pairings from the past year.You can listen to previous years' annual favorites episodes here: 2022, 2021, 2020.The following articles & episodes are mentioned in this episode:Precious and Grace—Brouwerij Van Steenberge's Tripel Van De GarreEpisode 71: Adam Krantz of Monsoon ChocolateEpisode 30: Nostalgia ChocolateCacao Fruit Pulp in BeerYellow Springs & Urban Artifact Partner to Benefit Women's Brewing ScholarshipCheck out the Bean to Barstool shop to order zines, beer cards & prints, and issues of Final Gravity (and preorder Issue 03 now!)You can support us on Patreon here.Happy New Year! Follow Bean to Barstool on social media!InstagramFacebookPinterestTikTokSign up for host David Nilsen's newsletter to get regular updates!

Monsoon Chocolate is making bean to bar chocolate in the desert climate of Tucson, Arizona. It’s not a region we might think of as a hotspot for craft chocolate, but as founder Adam Krantz explains, the southwest has a strong historical claim to cacao, and he wanted to honor that heritage while also pushing the boundaries of flavor with unique regional ingredients like chiltepin chilis or mesquite.I love talking with chocolate makers or brewers who are using ingredients and flavors from their region to color outside the lines of tradition, or perhaps more accurately, to erase and redraw those lines. Tradition is not a fixed thing. Norms change. We can expand the guidelines for tomorrow’s makers and tasters by thinking creatively today.Listen in as we talk with Adam Krantz of Monsoon Chocolate.Partner businesses mentioned in the episode include Hamilton Distillers/Whiskey Del Bac, Desert Provisions,  Santa Ana Pueblo, Uncommon Cacao (listen to my interview with founder Emily Stone), and Meridian Cacao (listen to my interview with agronomist Sarah Bharath). Check out the Bean to Barstool shop here! Follow Bean to Barstool on social media!InstagramFacebookPinterestTikTokSign up for host David Nilsen's newsletter to get regular updates!

Max Gandy, perhaps better known in the craft chocolate world as Dame Cacao, was one of the first chocolate educators I started following on Instagram many years ago now when I was first getting into the scene. With her Dame Cacao website and various podcasts over the years, she’s been a calm and knowledgeable voice within craft chocolate for nearly a decade now. She’s also incredibly well traveled, and has spent time at many cacao origins. Having Max on the podcast is long overdue, so I reached out to her recently to rectify that wrong. In our conversation, we discussed her journey within craft chocolate, the way going to origin can change our perspectives on chocolate, and what has to happen for the general public to come around to craft chocolate. We also spent some time discussing cacao liquors and other alcoholic beverages made by farmers in different regions. You can learn more about Max and her work on her website Dame Cacao, and on Instagram & Facebook. You can learn more about sponsors at their websites:Beer ScholarFifth Street Brewpub Follow Bean to Barstool on social media!InstagramFacebookPinterestTikTokSign up for host David Nilsen's newsletter to get regular updates!