As beer continues to creep into haute cuisine, it is slowly gaining acceptance as a pairing beverage with chocolates. Its proponents, among whom I count myself, go so far as to suggest that a good beer and chocolate pairing can be more sublime than a good wine and chocolate pairing.
Here is a list of organic beers and organic and/or fair trade chocolates for your Valentine’s Day beer and chocolate love tryst.
Equal Exchange, organic and fair trade Very Dark Chocolate (71% cocoa) with Wolaver’s Oatmeal Stout.
Try Dagoba’s Roseberry, made with with raspberries and rosehips, with the Reunion Beer I blogged about yesterday. Dagoba makes fair trade and organic chocolates and used to be a very small company but was recently bought out by Hershey’s. An acquaintance of mine, a dedicated fair trade advocate, works for Dagoba and tells me her mission is to spread the fair trade mission to other parts of Hershey. I wish her the best in those efforts and in the meanwhile, the buyout means it will probably become easier to find Dagoba’s premium chocolates more widely available in the marketplace.
Shaman’s Vision is made by Huichol Indians in Mexico, who still revere chocolate as a food of the gods. Made with organic dark chocolate and a sprinkle of coconut, I suggest pairing this one with a brown ale, dry stout, or porter like Butte Creek Organic Porter.
Newman’s Own Sweet Dark Chocolate Orange is made with organic Costa Rican chocolate, organic milk and sugar, and orange peel. Try it with the Dogfish Head Chicory Stout, made with roasted chicory, organic Mexican coffee, St. John’s wort, and licorice root.
Ithaca Fine Chocolates was the first US company to make a certified Fair Trade chocolate bar (they’re Organic too). Plus, proceeds support children’s art education. Get a mixed box of their chocolates and a mixed case of Wolaver’s organic ales and experiment with matching the flavors!
If it’s a hopped beer, will the aphrodisiacs in the chocolate cancel out the effect of the anaphrodisiacs in the hops?
I think it makes you drunk and horny but unable to, ahem, fill the order.
Dagoba is now owned by Hersheys?!?! Oh no! I actually bought some today, choosing it over some locally made bars because I thought they were also still independent.
I’m afraid so, yes. Happened last fall. The chocolate is still really darned good, and I feel confident that the folks running Dagoba itself are quite committed to organics and fair trade, but if local and/or small is more important to you then Dagoba is definitely out of the question. I guess the issue of “local” begs the question of how local is local when all the sugar and cocoa are grown overseas anyway. But local ownership of the manufacturing/marketing company is important too, so you may well want to support your local hometown chocolatier instead and encourage them to adopt fair trade and organic certifications.
Here’s are some articles about the Hershey’s buyout of Dagoba:
http://www.slashfood.com/2006/10/20/hersheys-buys-dagoba/
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/11/dagoba_sold_to.php
[...] another option, see this entry from the the Beer Activist blog: Beer and Chocolate Love Tryst Chris O’Brien is Senior Director of the Responsible Purchasing Network and a beer [...]