Coffee And Chocolate Flavors In Your Beer

The home brew club I'm a part of met last night. There were a lot of good beers there but one stood out to me over the others. It was a coffee chocolate stout that really showcased the coffee and chocolate. It was rich and espresso like and not something you would want a lot of but it definitely stood out to me because I've never been able to get that kind of flavor into my beers.

I have always read that moderation is the key to adding spices and other extras to your beer. Apparently my fellow home brewers weren't reading the same books and articles. To get the coffee flavor they brewed a pot of coffee with 4x the amount of coffee  for an average pot and added that to the boil. They did the same thing for the Dutch baking chocolate powder they used for the chocolate taste.

I don't have any personal experience with this method of adding flavor to my beer but I will experiment with it and post the results here. If you've had experience with this method please leave a comment.