It’s been a while now but when Callebaut was preparing it’s 100 years anniversary they were looking at the best way to celebrate and chocolate and their origin. For clarity, Callebaut is Belgian and is the world leader in chocolate. I don’t think they have any consumer product but they supply raw chocolate to the best chocolatier around the world.
They were planning high end celebrations in all big cities around the world and contacted us to bring beer along with chocolate. I mean it could have been other Belgian specialities but Witloof and chocolate didn’t make the cut, neither did speculoos or cuberdons…. After all people had to drink something.
More than just having chocolate and beer, the idea was to design chocolate desserts for a selection of our beers. I must have demonstrated a lot of love for beer and food back then because I was asked to go to Callebaut, meet their chef chocolatier and talk beer and chocolate. I had a couple other works to do but felt like that was a pretty awesome opportunity.
Alexandre Bourdeaux is their chief chocolate dessert master, which is probably an understatement. He welcomed me in his chocolate lab. It was all stainless and melted chocolate with a smell of roasted bread, butterscotch, nuts, vanilla, coffee, muscovado, almond, cherry, …. floating in the air.
After an inspiring visit of the ‘kitchen lab” with all forms of chocolate fountains, attemperators and tons of kitchenware I suggested to open some bottles.
I came with a fresh selection of beers. A wit beer, a sweet juicy lambic, a blond ale and a brown ale. I love when we taste beers at 10am and convince ourselves we are tasting, not drinking. Anyway, it was a very pro session. I took him through a very detailed tasting session, talking ingredients, fermentation, all things aroma, taste, mouthfeel, aftertaste….
And this is where the magic started. He knew which beer I was bringing so he already had lots of thoughts on a blanc page on how he would complement and contrast the beers with chocolate desserts using all baking options, fruits etc…
The day was a steaming dialog of “How about this? no that’s too sweet…, need to bring some dark flavors, let’s use dark roasted chocolate bitterness, or this one I made with Guatemala beans.
After many iterations, tasting and fine tuning we ended up with 5 propositions which were served around the world, from NY to Shanghai! The recipes were published for the occasion and you can consult them here!
When I meet a chocolatier,… I want to become a chocolatier!
