A Brief Overview of Specialty Cacao Ingredients for Creative, Standout Beers

In Collaboration with David Nilsen [Freelance beer journalist, speaker, podcast host, & Advanced Cicerone©. Author of Pairing Beer & Chocolate book]

Beer is an agricultural product, and brewers understand the importance of farming for good malt and hops. The same is true for good chocolate. When you’re making a chocolate beer, it’s easy to think of these dessert flavors as artificial or confectionery, but the cacao fruit, whose seeds give us chocolate, is grown by farmers, and well-made chocolate is an expression of the hard work and skill of cacao farmers and farm laborers around the world. A well-made chocolate beer can be too.

Thinking about cacao, vanilla, and other “dessert” ingredients as the agricultural and botanical ingredients they are can open up new worlds of possibility as we recognize their nuances, regional variations, and storytelling possibilities.

Agriculture & Story - a Little Bit About What We Do

Cocoa Supply has been sourcing, manufacturing, and importing excellent cacao products and other crops from Ecuador to North American and European shores for decades. We have deep family roots as cacao farmers dating back to the nineteenth century in this beautiful South American country, and we work directly with farmers to ensure both that the cacao and other crops we purchase are of the highest quality, and also that the families who grow them are compensated fairly.

Based on what your goals are for a particular beer, you can choose a format of cacao that will help you best achieve that outcome. Just like there’s a big difference between chocolate malt, black patent malt, and debittered malt, even though they’re all dark and roasted, there are differences between the formats, origins, and processes of cacao. It’s best not to go with a “throw some nibs in there and see what happens” approach, but to work backward from the flavors and attributes you’re looking for, and the physical and temporal restraints you’re working with in your brewery. 

We’ll explore these product options each in more detail in future posts, with insights from brewers who have used them, but for now, let’s take a brief overview of the products Cocoa Supply offers and how they can be used.

Cacao Nibs

Cacao nibs are the classic ingredient for getting chocolate flavor into beer. Nibs are the fermented, dried, fragmented, and roasted beans of the cacao fruit. They’re what chocolate is made from, and they’re the most common ingredient for adding chocolate flavor to beer. 

And they’re the most common for a reason—they provide a true chocolatey flavor and a silky mouthfeel to beer thanks to their high fat content. Fat is, of course, the mortal enemy of beer foam, but in practice, nibs rarely create problems with head formation and retention. Ironically, roasted nibs can actually contribute some mild bitterness to beer, helping to balance the sweet impression (or reality) of some chocolate beers.

Cacao Husks

After cacao beans are roasted, they are cracked into nibs and separated from the thin, brittle husk that surrounds each bean. Typically, husks are a waste product of the chocolate-making process. They can be composted or even used as mulch, but one way or another, they have to be disposed of, like spent grain or trub from the brewing process.

While husks can’t be turned into chocolate, they do have a notably chocolatey aroma and flavor. They can be steeped in hot water to yield a light but delicious chocolate tea, and they can be treated the same way in beer to get a chocolatey flavor without a rich mouthfeel and without a potential impact on head retention. One well-known brewer of sour ales has used husks in mixed-fermentation, barrel-aged settings to get a light cocoa accent without impacting foam. Best of all, since they’re a waste product (and lightweight), they’re typically cheaper than nibs.

Cacao Butter

As mentioned above, a significant proportion of the mass of cacao beans is fat, which we call cocoa butter once it’s pressed from the beans. I know what you’re thinking: Why would I add fat to my beer? Fats kill beer foam, and cocoa butter doesn’t add as much flavor punch as nibs or husks anyway.

The challenges are certainly there, but some brewers have seen amazing results by getting creative with cocoa butter. Cold-steeping can yield a creamy texture and vanilla-and-milk flavor that can accent softer fruit flavors like peaches, and can work well in conjunction with vanilla as well. We’d love to see it used in a pale, light coffee blonde ale to imitate a latte.

Cocoa Powder 

Cacao nibs can be ground into a powder to be added to foods and drinks, including beer. Powder is easy to work with, but it can leave some sediment in the beer, so many brewers elect to steep a separate “tea” with this powder and then add that to the conditioned beer. Powder can also be used in conjunction with another form of cacao to fill out the flavor.

Powder can be used in its natural form, or it can be treated with an alkalizing agent that reduces the cacao’s acidity and some of its impression of bitterness. Sometimes called “Dutch-process” cocoa powder, this alkalized cocoa powder is used by many brewers to yield a less-intense chocolate impression than nibs. 

Cacao Pulp

Cacao is a fruit, and while its seeds get most of the glory, the pale pulp of the fruit is delicious as well. It’s tangy, sweet, and bright, and it tastes nothing like chocolate, instead evoking comparisons to mango, passionfruit, lychee, and other tropical fruits. See where this is going?

Fruit beers are fantastic warm-weather seasonals, offering approachable flavors even for folks who aren’t fans of traditional beer flavors. Tasting a fruit beer with cacao fruit pulp can be an eye-opening experience. The flavor is bright and surprising, and helps with telling the agricultural story of the tree that gives us chocolate. Cocoa Supply offers cacao pulp as both puree and freeze-dried powder. 

Fruit Purees

Speaking of fruit, Cocoa Supply can provide more than just cacao products. We can provide freeze-dried and pureed fruits, including passionfruit, strawberry, hibiscus, green apple, pineapple, and others (along with the aforementioned cacao) to help you create any style of fruit beer you want to brew, including sours, wheat ales, or even unique IPAs.

Vanilla

The bean of the vanilla orchid is cacao’s best friend, dovetailing perfectly with the richness of chocolate and adding heady, intoxicating aromas. Because we’re used to vanilla being used in desserts in North America and Europe, vanilla can pull off a bit of a magic act by increasing a beer’s perception of sweetness without actually contributing any sugar. This can really help sell the chocolate character of a beer with a low residual sugar content.

Additionally, vanilla can be a very nuanced botanical ingredient and can lend delicate floral notes in some cases. In some global cuisines, vanilla is used in spicy dishes, opening intriguing possibilities for experimental chili beers. We provide both ground and whole bean vanilla.

Ask Questions

Beer is an amazing vehicle for presenting the world’s fruits and botanicals, a flexible canvas on which to paint with a variety of unexpected flavors. Conversely, those flavors can help introduce your beer to new audiences, or delight, comfort, or surprise your current fans. Reach out to us to ask about our products and how best to use them in your next beer. We can provide insight into best practices or even brainstorm ideas alongside you. Flavor magic happens where experience and curiosity meet. Let’s talk!