Dogfish Head Craft Brewery Theobroma

Hello beer lovers and welcome to another edition of the NorCal Beer Blog's brew review.

Tonight’s featured beer is Dogfish Head Craft Brewery Theobroma Chile Beer. I’ve been a fan of Dogfish Head’s off-centered beers for some time and when I saw this one I figured why not try it.

From the Dogfish Head Craft Brewery website: “Theobroma is a celebration of chocolate, the food of the gods. This Ancient Ale is based on chemical analysis of pottery fragments found in Honduras that revealed the earliest known alcoholic chocolate drink used by early civilizations to toast special occasions. The discovery of this beverage pushed back the earliest use of cocoa for human consumption more than 500 years to 1,200 B.C. As per the analysis, Dogfish Head's Theobroma (translated into "food of the gods") is brewed with Aztec cocoa powder and cocoa nibs (from our friends at Askinosie Chocolate), honey, chilies and annatto (fragrant tree seeds). It's light in color, not what you expect from your typical chocolate beer (not that you'd be surpised that we'd do something unexpected with this beer!). This beer is part of our Ancient Ales series -- along with Midas Touch, Chateau Jiahu, Sah'tea and Ta Henket -- so step back in time and enjoy some Theobroma.”

Let’s get started!

Appearance: Pours a bright orange color with a tiny white head and very little lacing.

Aroma: Like nothing I’ve smelled before.  Cocoa, honey, chilies, spices and slight malt scent.  Smells similar to some of the meads I’ve inhaled.

Taste: Sweet and tasty starting with the honey, then the cocoa and finally a slight chili pepper spice. Each flavor enters and exits as the next one arrives.  Very interesting.

Overall: I don’t know if I would categorize this beer as a Chile beer, but there’s one thing I can tell you, Dogfish Head Craft Brewery’s Theobroma is pretty spectacular.  I wouldn’t call it an everyday drinking beer, but I find it truly special that Dogfish Head has created their Ancient Ales series in an effort allow us to step back in time to enjoy what the ancients enjoyed.  At 9% ABV this is an easy bottle to kill solo so if you’re interested in enjoying a history lesson by all means pick a bottle up.  I enjoyed it completely and hopefully you will as well.

Cheers!

Mark Harvey