Newest Batch.
I bottled my latest batch of beer last night. Four gallons gave me about 36 bottles.
I really wanted to try my hand at a chocolate beer, but stouts are generally too dry for my taste, so I decided to go with a porter. And – you know me – I can’t leave anything simple, so I decided to make a Mexican dark chocolate porter. I bought about a pound of different styles of very ooh la la dark chocolates: Dagoba, Green&Black, some German labels, etc. and melted these into the wort along with about half a pound of lactose, for a hint of sweetness (the yeast will eat all the regular sugar you put in – that’s how you get the alcohol content – but they can’t digest lactose, so it stays sweet). Into the primary fermentation went some chiles (a very little bit!) and some more chocolate. During the secondary fermentation I added three vanilla beans and four cinnamon sticks.
My preliminary bottling taste was pleasant – not as sweet as I would have liked, but oh, so aromatically chocolate! Not even a hint of the chile, but you could taste the cinnamon and vanilla if you concentrated.
I have a ridiculous amount of fun thinking up brave new beers like this one, but I have even more fun creating the labels. Here’s my latest:
Those are roasted cacao beans on the left, and the cacao fruit on the right.
Since it’s so dark – almost completely opaque! – Josh wanted me to call it Frida’s Eyebrow… You know, thick, black, and Mexican. -sigh- Cute idea, really, but I don’t think I have the guts to serve someone a drink named after an eyebrow. Blech. So instead, it’s Xochiquetzal‘s – pretentious name, I know, but she was the Aztec goddess of chocolate, and she was the one the Aztecs honored by drinking xocolatl, the bitter chocolate-chile drink that the Spaniards added sugar to, and later the Swiss added milk to…
Ok, enough history lessons! 
The beer will be ready to taste for the first time in 2-4 weeks, and I’ll keep you posted.