Drinking chocolate is not limited to nesquik, and hot cocoa, as it’s become a common ingredient in malted shakes known as beer. In a craft beer landscape more often dominated by pastry stouts and dessert beers, chocolate beers are almost common place. So a guide to the best chocolate beers available in package form of bottles or cans must be updated annually in time for the season.

Chocolate Cherry Stout

Firestone Walker

Partially inspired by the classic Bell’s Cherry Stout that brewmaster Matt Brynildson grew up on, the masters of smooth and creamy dark ales at Firestone Walker have made one of the most approachable in their ever changing lineup of stouts. At a highly drinkable 5.5% ABV, the Firestone Walker Chocolate Cherry Stout has all the flavors you would expect from it’s name, but delicately balanced in a way that most flavored stouts are not these days.

“We have a lot of experience in brewing with cocoa nibs as well as making cherry-infused beers at our Barrelworks wild ale cellar—but this is the first time we’ve brought it all together into a single beer,” Brynildson said.

The sweet and only ever slightly tart cherries lovingly cut the milk chocolate flavors that emerge from a complex malt backbone. Never bitter, but not too sweet either, Chocolate Cherry Stout approaches the notes of a chocolate cherry cordial without the burn. The secret is real cherries added early in the brewing process rather than post fermentation. This gives the flavors a chance to harmonize as the yeast does it’s work churning the melange of flavors while dissolving the sweet sugars and integrating the ripe flavor of the fruit skins and cherry meat while leaving behind an authentic cherry flavor.

Midnight Malt Cocoa Porter

Pelican Brewing

When you see chocolate or cocoa on a beer label these days, it’s often used in abundance so that you could almost close your eyes and imagine you are drinking a milkshake or dark chocolate syrup. There is a time and place for everything, but let’s pause for a minute to appreciate the quietly refreshing simplicity of a balanced Porter that doesnt hit you over the head with it’s cocoa. For those craving a return to the dark and toasty, debittered and unsweetened Porter’s of old, Pelican’s Midnight Malt will delight your senses.

“The vision was a beer not overwhelmed by super sweet, drippy milk chocolate, but a well made beer with chocolate accents, if that makes sense. A beer with chocolate, not chocolate mixed with some beer,” says Pelican’s R & D brewer Coren Tradd.

By trialing chocolate nibs from various companies, Pelican settled on Meridian Cacao Company’s direct trade nibs sourced from the Kokoa Kamili Fermentery out of Tanzania. Unlike many breweries, Pelican uses whole nibs in their “hoppinator” vessel created for dry-hopping, they slowly recirculate the beer through them in a process that can take a few days.

While there are many beers featured in this story that are all gooey chocolate, Pelican’s goal was to create a beer with chocolate, rather than chocolate with beer. 12oz cans of Midnight Malt are still available if you can find them, a winter/fall seasonal that will disappear with the brighter days but return again with the autumn leaves.

Big Bad Baptist Double Chocolate Double Peanut Butter Cup

Epic Brewing

Epic Brewing’s annual variants on their Big Bad Baptist Imperial Stout are often as epic as the brewery’s namesake. As if last years Chocolate Rapture version wasn’t already on our 2019 guide, this winter saw the release of a double stuffed chocolate and peanut butter rendition. By combining previous alternates of chocolate and peanut butter Baptist variants, the brewery pleases both crowds by doubling up on the fudge and nut butter for twice the stuffed stout. The heaping helping of Reese’s peanut butter cup ingredients helps the 13.5% abv whiskey barrel-aged liquid go down smoother, like peanut butter whiskey and and double fudge brownies.

Bar 2021

Matchless Brewing

It’s unclear if Matchless Brewing’s Bar barrel-aged Imperial Stout is named after candy bars or because it will drink you under the bar, but either way you won’t want to put down the bottle. This blended ale is slightly different on each annual vintage, the fresh but old 2021 edition uses both 2 and 1 year old Imperial Stout aged in Heaven Hill bourbon barrels with a bit of fresh young Imperial Stout that hasn’t hit barrels. This is all designed to push the different chocolatey notes in each of the 3 parts, and to amp that up they use whole Madagascar vanilla beans and cacao nibs from Ecuador and Columbia in the bright tanks.

In past years Matchless created peanut butter versions of Bar, for the 2021 variant they kept with the candy “bar” theme and infused some with hazelnuts. This limited release has become a popular treat among Washintonians, and it’s more easily available outside of the bar this year with 16oz cans.

Death By King Cake

Oskar Blues Brewing

Taking it’s roots from Christian feasts, the King Cake has become a colorful staple of Mardi Gras celebrations in Louisiana and the gulf. Taking it’s name from the Biblical Magi, the King Cake is often splattered with the traditional Mardi Gras colors of purple for justice, green for faith, and gold for power. While the cakes ingredients can differ, the Oskar Blues Brewery’s beery take combines the traditional flavors of cinnamon and nutmeg with orange and chocolate pastry notes that will put you in the mood for celebration. Imagine biting into a doughy cinnamon roll, with sweet juice, and white chocolate frosting while walking down Bourbon Street. Death By King Cake White Porter is now available for a limited time in 4-packs of 12 oz. cans.

Hershey’s Chocolate Porter

Yuengling Brewery

It only took 120+ years for two of Pennsylvania’s most iconic brands to form an all-star chocolate and beer team-up. Based on Yuengling’s nearly 200 year old classic American Porter beer, the Hershey’s Chocolate Porter was a one-off collaboration that was brewed again and put into 12oz bottles for the first time this winter. Brewed using a combination of Hershey’s iconic chocolate syrup, Hershey’s cocoa powder, and cocoa nibs, the beer was an instant hit and can be difficult to find. If you get your hands on a bottle, you will notice the unmistakable taste of Hershey’s chocolate injected into the just slightly roasty Porter to give it a chocolatey finish and make for a great pairing with barbecue, cheese, and tamales. Available in 12oz bottles, 6-packs, and draft in Fall and Winter in 22 states.

Chocolate Stout Nitro

Rogue Ales

As one of the pioneers in the fermented chocolate maltshake suds game, Rogue Ales are no strangers to creating world-class cacao infused concoctions. Year after year we come back to the Chocolate Stout which has been brewed for well over a decade, but now we have a new way to enjoy it with a soft and creamy injection of nitro. Until fairly recently you could only obtain a nitro pour from a specialty tap line or from a proprietary Irish widget, but now brewers have figured out to can and deliver that soft and fluffy mouthfeel only achieved by nitrogenated beverages without any special gadgets. Rogue sources chocolate from Mane Concentrates, and injects it into tanks full of Stout post fermentation, and then runs that through a centrifuge to create a clean and tight chocolate milkshake beer that is marginally sweet and not high octane. Chocolate Stout Nitro is now available year-round in 4-pack 16-ounce cans and draft with national distribution.

Sexual Chocolate

Foothill’s Brewing

As the great lyricist John Wozniak once said, “I like sex and candy.” Foothills Brewing arguably made one of the first great chocolate beers of the modern era after an erotic evening with a chocolate fountain, or so the legend goes. Foothills Sexual Chocolate is a Russian Imperial Stout with bucketfuls of caramel, pulled espresso shots, buttery blackstrap molasses and responsibly wrapped Peruvian cocoa nibs penetrating all those rich and decadent flavors. Pour all that on top of a stimulating 75 IBU’s of hop bitterness and an arousing 9.6% ABV and you get Sexual Chocolate in a glass.

Cocoa Cow

Sunriver Brewing Co.

As a child, you might have imagined a magical chocolate cow whose udders spurted chocolate milk, and dreamt of obtaining such a majestic beast some day. If that kid grew up to become a chocolate milk loving brewer, then Cocoa Cow would be the beer they made. Packed with cocoa nibs from Africa and milk derived sugar for sweet creamy Neskwik flavors, Cocoa Cow resembles a milkshake with just enough roasted chocolate malt and piney hops to remind you it’s a beer. 

Super Nebula

Block 15 Brewing

Super Nebula is the street name that Block 15’s regular draft Nebula oatmeal stout takes on after spending hard time in oak with turkeys. By beefing up in its cell, Super Nebula amps up to an impressive 13.25% abv, so it can take on a year in solitary Basil Hayden bourbon barrels. Nebula comes out a changed Stout, inked up with charred woody notes, complex spices and sweet vanilla tannins. Before it’s ready to be released back into the wild, Block 15 enters Super Nebula into a re-education program with a hand selected assortment of direct trade cocoa nibs, this year 2021 featuring wild harvest heirloom cocoa nibs from Bolivia.

As is custom these days, Block 15 has three different versions of the annually released Super Nebula. With the variants of 2021 being a maple, and freshly roasted “Flame On” coffee beans from Bespoken Coffee Roasters, and another matured in Pedro Ximénez barrels conditioned with the cocoa nibs and candied milk caramel dulce de leche. Available now in 500ml bottles, but hard to get.