Mandy Naglich has written a book that explores how our senses interact with food and beverage, and how understanding our senses can help us better enjoy our favorite indulgences. How to Taste: A Guide to Discovering Flavor and Savoring Life (Citadel) combines science and whimsy to teach us more about our sensory world and bring our favorite flavors to life. Listen in as we talk with Mandy Naglich about her book How to Taste.

In this episode Leila Carvajal of Cocoa Supply tells us the story of her family’s company, a story that begins on a small cacao farm in Ecuador in the 1800s. She talks about their business and sourcing practices, the cacao farms they work with, and the products they offer for bean to bar chocolate makers and craft breweries.

Today we’re going to demystify beer by talking about beer ingredients, brewing processes, and frequently asked questions. This will hopefully make beer easy to understand for the chocolate lovers who listen to this show, or anyone who wants to better understand this beverage without being talked over, or talked down to. Some of this will sound complicated at first, but we’ll go through it step by step!

In today's episode of Bean to Barstool Bite Sized we talk with Emily Stone of Uncommon Cacao, one of the leading companies providing ethically and traceably sourced cacao for bean to bar chocolate makers. Emily talks about the process of beginning a relationship with a new partner at origin and her desire for transparency in cacao sourcing to be a two way street between farmers and makers.

In this episode David Nilsen talks with Arron Liu of Chocobien in Hong Kong. Chocobien is a bean to bar chocolate company that produces many truly unique bars that employ flavors and ingredients from other artisan food and beverage segments, including beer, whiskey, coffee, sake, tea, and more. Arron talks about the ideas behind these bars, the partnerships and processes that went into their development, and the satisfaction this curious and creative maker finds in achieving the flavors he could only hold in his imagination at the start of each experiment.

In this episode of Bean to Barstool Bite Sized, we spend about 5 minutes with Hazel Lee, the creator of Taste with Colour: The Chocolate Tasting Flavor Map. The map allows people to use color to identify flavors, and Hazel talks about how this process can be beneficial to folks of all levels of tasting experience, and why no one should feel intimidated when sharing their own tasting impressions.

In this episode we take a deep dive into cacao fermentation with Sarah Bharath. Sarah works with cacao farmers in Trinidad & Tobago on behalf of Meridian Cacao, assisting them in improving their farming and post-harvest processes. Sarah is both a passionate advocate for cacao farmers and an inquisitive researcher whose curiosity drives her enthusiasm for always learning more about this fascinating crop. Today we talk all about the cacao fermentation process, how the variables of that process impact the flavors of chocolate, and how climate change is forcing farmers and scientists to constantly adapt to new realities.

In this episode of Bean to Barstool Bite Sized, we spend about 5 minutes with Natalie Suwanprakorn of Xoconat in Bangkok, Thailand. Nat makes her Up in Smoke bar by smoking cacao nibs over a Thai aromatic candle often used for Thai desserts. It’s a wonderfully evocative bar, and your reaction to it will largely depend on whether or not you have a cultural familiarity with the smoke of this candle. I didn’t, and it brought to mind bibliosmia, the smell of old books - quite a comforting and intriguing quality for this book lover. Listen in as Nat shares the story of this bar, how it was made, and its significance for her as a Thai chocolate maker.

In this episode we talk with Estelle Tracy. Estelle leads wine and chocolate pairings through her business 37 Chocolates. In this conversation, Estelle and I talk about the differences and similarities between pairing craft chocolate with wine and beer, how she got started with chocolate and wine, and what she’s learned along the way.

Bean to Barstool host & Final Gravity co-editor David Nilsen shares details about the forthcoming Final Gravity zine—a new quarterly print beer publication—as well as the launch of the Final Gravity Patreon to support it! Listen in to get all the exciting details about this project and learn how you can be involved.

In this episode we talk with brewers at Hi-Wire Brewing in Asheville, North Carolina, about 10W-40, a family of Imperial Stouts brewed with French Broad cacao, Dynamite coffee, and Ugandan vanilla. We talk with Peter Batinski, head brewer at Hi-Wire’s South Slope location in Asheville, where he trials many of Hi-Wire’s beers and leads innovation, and Hank Marshall, head brewer at the Big Top, Hi-Wire’s production brewery near Biltmore Village in Asheville.

In this episode of Bean to Barstool Bite Sized we hear from Annabelle Popa, an artist and graphic designer who has created many of the eye catching labels for Rabid Brewing in the south suburbs of Chicago. When you enter Rabid’s taproom, you’re greeted by an enormous 9'x16' mural hanging over the bar that depicts a fanciful scene telling a mythological version of beer’s origin story. Annabelle painted that mural, and here she talks about the creation process for that and the creative give and take of designing beer labels.

In this episode we talk with Arcelia Gallardo, the founder and chocolate maker at Mission Chocolate in Sao Paolo, Brazil. Arcelia has taken a long and winding road to making world class chocolate in Brazil, and as she’ll explain, her own journey is interwoven with the growth of the cacao industry and bean to bar chocolate scene in Brazil over the last decade. Arcelia also talks about the exciting craft beer scene in Brazil right now, and its relationship to cacao.

In this episode of Bean to Barstool Bite Sized, host David Nilsen spends five minutes with Erica Gilmour of Hummingbird Chocolate. Hummingbird is in Lanark County, Ontario, the maple sugar capital of a region known for its maple. Fittingly, they make a bar that celebrates this sweet regional distinctive, and as the maple run is currently in full swing, we felt it was a good time to share Erica’s thoughts on working with this evocative ingredient.

Sarah Bharath works with cacao farmers in Trinidad & Tobago on behalf of Meridian Cacao, assisting them in improving their farming and post-harvest processes in hopes of increasing the amount of fine flavor cacao Meridian is then able to purchase and pass along to craft chocolate makers. In this episode, we talk with Sarah as well as Chris Heier, head brewer at Half Hitch Brewing in Cochrane, Alberta, Canada. Chris is one fourth Tobagonian, and has brewed a beer and made his own chocolate with Meridian’s Trinidadian cacao from Jagassar Estate.

Bean to Barstool host David Nilsen shares announcements about upcoming Bean to Barstool projects, including The Bean to Barstool Guide to Bocks zine, the Beer Chocolate Virtual Tasting, and a brand new project that will pay writers.

In this episode we talk with Nicole Hewat, founder of World Tree Chocolate. World Tree offers curated chocolate boxes based on flavor preferences, but Nicole is also an artist, and she has used cacao in various forms for watercolor paintings as well as illustrations for a book about the cacao-growing and chocolate-making process. During our conversation we talked about flavor and the tasting experience, her process for creating her paintings, and the way flavor can interact with our emotions and the art we take in during the tasting process.

In this episode of Bean to Barstool Bite Sized, host David Nilsen spends five minutes with Sara Ratza of Ratza Chocolate in Tarpon Springs, Florida. Sara spends a few minutes talking about the botanicals in her Aphrodite and Self Love bars and how they can potentially benefit our bodies. Listen in as Sara discusses chocolate for our love lives, loving ourselves, and loving cacao.

With Valentine’s Day around the corner, today we talk with Michele Hauf, who has written a romance novel themed around craft and bean to bar chocolate called Lust and Chocolate. During our conversation we talk about her process for writing the book, her own journey into craft chocolate, and whether or not chocolate is really an aphrodisiac.

Bean to Barstool host David Nilsen, author of Pairing Beer & Chocolate, talks about how to pair craft chocolate with Doppelbock, a strong German lager style often released in mid-winter by U.S. craft breweries. The malt flavors of Doppelbocks work beautifully with a variety of dark chocolate styles, but there are things to keep in mind when you’re reaching for a bar to pair with these strong beers. Listen to this super quick episode as Advanced Cicerone David Nilsen explains how pair Doppelbock with chocolate.