Midwest Craft Chocolate Festival: Cacao, Farming, & Flavor in the Heartland

Zadkiela Rios is a chemical engineer by training and a brewing professional by trade. Zadky isfrom Venezuela originally and is currently working in Australia, and she's best known to beer, beverage, and chocolate fans on Instagram as @Zadky_Beer_to_Bar. She and I have followed each other for years, and it’s been fun to not only follow her interest in pairing beer and craft chocolate—a niche interest not too many other people have put an emphasis on—but also her polyglot fluency in a range of indulgences, including spirits, wine, and cigars as well. In this episode, Zadky and I discuss pairing beer and chocolate, how tasting and loving other beverages gives her a broad perspective, the role of travel in expanding her flavor vocabulary, and how her science background informs her tasting experiences. Listen in and learn from Zadkiela Rios.  Check out David's new book Pairing Beer & Chocolate: A Guide to Bringing the Flavors of Craft Beer and Craft Chocolate Together.Follow Bean to Barstool on social media!InstagramFacebookPinterestSign up for host David Nilsen's newsletter to get regular updates!

The inaugural Midwest Craft Chocolate Festival will take place Friday-Saturday, November 22-23 in the small town of Rushville, Indiana. This is a really unique event in the world of craft chocolate. Most of our festivals are in big cities on the coasts—New York, Seattle, San Francisco—but craft chocolate is all about cacao, the farms where it’s grown, and the farmers and farm workers who grow it, so where better to hold a celebration of chocolate than a farming community in America’s heartland? Rushville is a small town about an hour southeast of Indianapolis, and the town leaders are eager to introduce their downtown to the world and vice versa. During their annual Christmas on Main event on the weekend before Thanksgiving, the town will welcome a craft chocolate festival that will bring bean to bar makers, chocolatiers, cacao farmers, and educators together to celebrate all things craft chocolate.This festival is the brainchild of Dustin Cornett, the chocolate maker who owns Chocolat Cafe. He’s also the creator of the Craft Chocolat Challenge, an internationally-recognized competition for bean to bar chocolate makers. The event is being hosted and supported by the great folks at Heart of Rushville.In today's episode we talk with Barb Genuario, whom many of us know on Instagram as @chocochaser. Barb is an educator and writer and the co-founder of the D.C. Chocolate Society. For many years, she was an assistant chocolate maker at Harper McCaw before they closed, and she is one of the most enthusiastic cheerleaders for craft chocolate. Barb is one of the organizers of the Midwest Craft Chocolate Festival, and I talked with her recently to get the details for the event and learn the unique vision behind this festival.We also hear from Leila Carvajal Erker, CEO of Cocoa Supply. Cocoa Supply is the title sponsor of the Midwest Craft Chocolate Festival, and I reached out to Leila to ask what has her excited about the festival. Leila has been on the Bean to Barstool podcast several times in the past, once to talk about the background of her company and their focus on providing excellent cacao nibs for craft breweries, and once to talk specifically about the cacao fruit pulp products they’ve developed for brewers and other beverage makers. More details can be found on the festival website. Tickets can be purchased here. Check out David's new book Pairing Beer & Chocolate: A Guide to Bringing the Flavors of Craft Beer and Craft Chocolate Together.Follow Bean to Barstool on social media!InstagramFacebookPinterestSign up for host David Nilsen's newsletter to get regular updates!

While the bean in Bean to Barstool primarily refers to cacao for chocolate, and the barstool to craft beer, we have also covered craft coffee and spirits on this podcast periodically, and we’re looking at doing that more often going forward. Today’s guest brings both of those worlds together, giving new meaning to the name Bean to Barstool. Charlene Cabioch is a barista and mixologist from France who has a deep knowledge of both specialties, and has professional awards to prove it. She was a winner at the Aeropress World Championship in 2019, and the Coffee in Good Spirits Championship for coffee-infused cocktails in 2021 and 2023. In our conversation today, Charlene talks about what happens during a coffee or cocktail competition, how her love for coffee developed, and how curiosity drives her passion to learn more about her favorite foods, beverages, and the processes and ingredients behind both. Charlene also works with cacao in her cocktails, and we talk about that as well.Charlene is an enthusiastic and energetic personality, and I loved getting to learn from her during our conversation, so listen in as we talk coffee, cacao, cocktails, and curiosity with Charlene Cabioch.  Check out David's new book Pairing Beer & Chocolate: A Guide to Bringing the Flavors of Craft Beer and Craft Chocolate Together.Follow Bean to Barstool on social media!InstagramFacebookPinterestSign up for host David Nilsen's newsletter to get regular updates!

Few names in craft chocolate carry as much esteem as Goodnow Farms. Tom and Monica Rogan founded the company in Sudbury, Massachusetts, in 2015, and they cover pretty much the full spectrum of what bean to bar chocolate is all about in their portfolio of chocolate bars, including elegant single origin bars, classic inclusion bars with coffee, nuts, or fruit, unusual inclusions like caramelized onions or green Sichuan peppers, and bars made in collaboration with craft alcohol producers. In this episode, Monica and host David Nilsen talk about those collaborations with distilleries and cideries, the compatibility of coffee and cacao, developing unique flavor concepts, and how Tom and Monica find the right profile to let single origin beans sing. Specific bars discussed in this episode using alcohol include Lawley's Rum, Putnam Rye Whiskey, and Demon Seed made in collaboration with Boston Harbor Distillery, and Unfiltered Hard Cider made in collaboration with Downeast Cider.Other bars discussed include Caramelized Onion, Herbaceous Green Sichuan Pepper, Las Palomas Coffee, Café con Leche, El Carmen with Coffee Crunch, and a variety of single origin bars. You can learn more about Goodnow Farms and order their bars at goodnowfarms.com.Guest: Monica Rogan is the CEO, co-founder, and chocolate maker at Goodnow Farms Chocolate. Her passion for creating exceptional bean-to-bar, single origin chocolate has made her a leader in the craft chocolate industry.Monica has spent years developing strong, direct relationships with cacao farmers and producers throughout Latin America, ensuring mutually beneficial relationships and access to consistently high-quality beans. Transparency, traceability, and an emphasis on fine flavor define her approach to chocolate.Her chocolate has received seven consecutive Good Food Awards, hundreds of international fine flavor awards and a spot on Food & Wine’s list of “The Best Chocolate in America.”Monica has a background in construction and real estate development, a BS from James Madison University and an MBA from Pepperdine University. While not making chocolate, Monica enjoys traveling and exploring, edible landscaping, refinishing old furniture and doing science experiments with her children and husband. Check out David's new book Pairing Beer & Chocolate: A Guide to Bringing the Flavors of Craft Beer and Craft Chocolate Together.Follow Bean to Barstool on social media!InstagramFacebookPinterestSign 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. Today we hear from Raven Hanna, a molecular biochemist and biophysicist and the author of the book One Cacao Tree: Backyard Cocoa, Tiny Fermentations, and Chocolate Making in the Tropics. In this clip, Raven talks about tasting everything we can to expand our flavor vocabularies, and about how creating stories around tasting experiences can help us remember those flavors. Enjoy!You can learn more about Raven here, and purchase her book here.You can listen to my entire interview with Raven here.Check out David's new book Pairing Beer & Chocolate: A Guide to Bringing the Flavors of Craft Beer and Craft Chocolate Together.Follow Bean to Barstool on social media!InstagramFacebookPinterestSign up for host David Nilsen's newsletter to get regular updates!

Standard-strength Porter and Stout styles such as American Porter, English Porter, Oatmeal Stout, Milk Stout, Irish Stout, and some American Stouts feature roasty flavors and aromas from the presence of roasted malts. These grains are roasted similar to how coffee beans and cacao beans get roasted, and take on many of the same flavor notes—coffee and chocolate are two common flavor descriptors for these beer styles.Beers in these styles tend to cast a wide net when paired with chocolate and can work solidly with a wide range of chocolates, making them good to have on hand for impromptu pairings. The trick here is transcending the good pairings to find the great ones.The versatility of beers in these Porter and Stout styles make them good choices if you’re hosting friends for an in-home beer and chocolate pairing. If you don’t have specific courses planned, one of these styles will work with a number of different bars and allow your guests to find some easy combinations.In this bonus episode, David Nilsen explains which types of craft chocolate to seek out and which to avoid when pairing with standard-strength Porters and Stouts.You can read more about Porter and Stout styles here.You can order my book Pairing Beer & Chocolate on the Bean to Barstool shop or on Amazon.Check out David's new book Pairing Beer & Chocolate: A Guide to Bringing the Flavors of Craft Beer and Craft Chocolate Together.Follow Bean to Barstool on social media!InstagramFacebookPinterestSign up for host David Nilsen's newsletter to get regular updates!

Bean to Barstool celebrated its 4th birthday in August, and today host David Nilsen looks back at the initial idea behind the site and podcast, what's changed over the years, and what the plans are for continuing to grow Bean to Barstool.Thanks to everyone who has listened so far. We're looking forward to what's ahead! Check out David's new book Pairing Beer & Chocolate: A Guide to Bringing the Flavors of Craft Beer and Craft Chocolate Together.Follow Bean to Barstool on social media!InstagramFacebookPinterestSign up for host David Nilsen's newsletter to get regular updates!

Sour ales are a fantastic platform for fruit flavors. The acidity of the base beers dovetails with the brightness of the fruit and can help sell the flavors of the fruit more authentically. There are challenges to pairing these beers though, and most of them are related to variability of the beers themselves: there are so many different ways to make a fruited sour ale. In this bonus episode, David Nilsen walks through the different types of fruited sour ale and explains which types of craft chocolate and seek out and which to avoid when pairing with them.As mentioned in the episode, you can read more about beer fermentation here, or listen to a bonus episode explaining beer fermentation here.You can order my book Pairing Beer & Chocolate on the Bean to Barstool shop or on Amazon.Check out David's new book Pairing Beer & Chocolate: A Guide to Bringing the Flavors of Craft Beer and Craft Chocolate Together.Follow Bean to Barstool on social media!InstagramFacebookPinterestSign up for host David Nilsen's newsletter to get regular updates!

Hey, everyone. 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. Today we hear from Brian Simpson of Riverbend Malt in Asheville, North Carolina. I spoke with Brian all the way back in 2020 for this podcast, but we met up recently for a beer when he was passing through Dayton, and I want to reshare some of his thoughts from that older episode here. Brian shares his thoughts on the meaning of local in craft beer. We prize beers that are brewed locally, but where are the ingredients from? Can a beer be local if it isn’t grown locally? Take a few minutes this morning to hear from Brian on what local or regional malt can do for beer.You can find out more about Riverbend Malt here.You can listen to my entire interview with Brian here.Check out David's new book Pairing Beer & Chocolate: A Guide to Bringing the Flavors of Craft Beer and Craft Chocolate Together.Follow Bean to Barstool on social media!InstagramFacebookPinterestSign up for host David Nilsen's newsletter to get regular updates!

In this episode we talk with Franz Zeimetz of Lost Origin Coffee Lab and Casa Bruja brewery and Jaime Pérez of Bocao chocolate, all from Panama. We discuss the state of craft chocolate, craft beer, and coffee in Panama, and a series of experiments and collaborations they've pursued between these three worlds. Franz has used raw cacao fruit from Jaime in a mixed-fermentation Saison, and is experimenting with various cacao and coffee fermentations. You can find out more about Bocao here, Lost Origin Coffee Lab here, and Casa Bruja here.Also mentioned in the episode are Dark Matter Coffee, Omega Yeast, and White Labs. If you want to learn more about cacao fermentation, listen to this episode with cacao agronomist Sarah Bharath.  Check out David's new book Pairing Beer & Chocolate: A Guide to Bringing the Flavors of Craft Beer and Craft Chocolate Together.Follow Bean to Barstool on social media!InstagramFacebookPinterestSign up for host David Nilsen's newsletter to get regular updates!