Ah, Valentine’s Day, a day for lovers…

In Japan, it’s customary for women to give chocolate to men, but overseas it’s a little different, of course; couples give gifts to each other or to close friends, and the gifts to express one’s love include flowers, sweets and an array of other items.

Japanese brewers seem to have caught onto the custom, too, with several breweries bringing out chocolate beer for the season. But is chocolate really used in these so-called chocolate beers?

The best conclusion I can offer is that chocolate is not always used in chocolate beers. On the flip side, if there’s a chocolate beer that doesn’t use chocolate, that doesn’t necessarily mean the beer is a fake, either.

The chocolate in chocolate beer is from the “chocolate malt” that it uses. The malt has been roasted in a way that gives a chocolate flavor. Malt is generally divided into two varieties: base malt and specialty malt. In all beers, at least 50% of the light-colored barley malt used in brewing it is base malt. You can’t scrimp on this malt as it creates the fermentable sugars. Specialty malt is often used to control a beer’s color, sweetness, body and overall character. Specialty malts include caramel malt, crystal malt, amber malt, black malt and others, like chocolate malt. Mixing the various malts is a step in making beer.

With chocolate malt, it’s not so much deep black as a brown color, almost like chocolate. Used in beer, it produces a dark color, aromatic nose and roast flavor. When you restrict this chocolate malt to about 3% of the total malt volume, you get a beer light-brown in color with a nutty flavor. If you use more than 10%, you get chocolate flavor, strong bitterness and rather dark color.

Of course, there’s also chocolate beer that uses chocolate. But it’s just not the kind of chocolate that most people envision. It’s too hard to use, so a liquid chocolate is used instead. That, or even cocoa powder.

Either way, you’re going to have a beer with chocolate flavor. This is the season when we see a lot of it coming out. For all the women following Japanese custom: why not give your special other the gift of chocolate. In beer form.

by Kido Hirotaka

This article was published in Japan Beer Times # () and is among the limited content available online. Order your copy through our online shop or download the digital version from the iTunes store to access the full contents of this issue.