As you may be aware, there are a few variations of Chocolate Malt. I decided to explore some of these roasted malts a bit more and a brewed a beer with a focus on English chocolate malt. My Chocolate Malt Stout might not really be very Stout like, but we did learn a few interesting points from this experiment.

Using Just Chocolate Malt In A Stout

The point of this was to brew in the style of a Stout using the basic backbone of a normal stout making process, but just attack the roasted malt side using one malt. I was really interested in the flavor difference of English Chocolate malt at 450°L and decided I’d go with nearly a pound of just that particular malt. I ended up adding a touch of pale chocolate too just to round out the nuttiness.

John once brewed Northern Brewer’s Oatmeal Stout. I was very taken back at how much chocolate character there was in that beer and wondered if the use of English Chocolate malt was a switch I should make from my normal American 350°L chocolate malt made by Briess.

Not Quite A Chocolate Success

The beer I brewed used Pale Base Malt, Munich Malt, Chocolate malts and CaraMunich basically falls very flat of my goal. There is very little chocolate character in it. The malt character is very dry but deeply rich from the Munich Malt. I think it was a mistake to use Munich malt in this stout. It added an element to the beer that was out of place.

Since filming this video, some of my impressions have changed about the flavors of this beer. John mentioned that as the beer was warmed, he got the impression of smoked meat. I found it somewhat solvent-like. I had several people come by over the holidays that also sampled the beer. Someone mentioned a Hefeweizen quality as well. All this leads me to believe that this beer is flawed on the fermentation side. My yeast blend was made from two slurries of WLP001 and WLP002, but maybe I picked up a contaminating microbe. Perhaps those slurries were just too old despite restarting them.

The chocolate malt alone without more crystal malt or other roasted malts to support the flavor profile is still a realistic issue here. But it’s hard to really nail that down when the fermentation is clearly flawed. The beer has continued to go south even in the cold keg which only supports the notion of a problematic fermentation.

What do you think? Please comment below and tell us about your own related experiences with English vs American Chocolate Malts.