Fu Wan Chocolate - Beer Yeast #3 "American Ale Style Rough Ground Chocolate" 70% dark (bar) - Aug. 27, 2025

Chocolate of the Day

Fu Wan Chocolate
Beer Yeast #3 "American Ale Style Rough Ground Chocolate" 70% dark (bar)
Good ++ 
Weight: 1.236 oz. (35 g.) in total bar
Calories: 222 calories in 1 bar
Cost: $18.99 for 1 bar
Purchased from: Caputo's, online order

Welcome to Day #4 of Chocolate, Beer and Hops Week, featuring chocolates that contain some beer/beer ingredients (hops, malt, yeast other fermented flavors), and chocolates related to beer pairings.

Today's Beer Yeast #3 "American Ale Style Rough Ground Chocolate" 70% dark (bar) was made by Fu Wan Chocolate (Ping-Tung County, Taiwan). 

Aroma notes for this bean-to-bar chocolate included: dark chocolate; fizzy/fermented fruit (orange, peach, pineapple, apple, and much more) and fruity beer. 

These remarkable notes are possible if a maker is located near cacao trees, where chocolate can be made "in-country." And today's bar is one of those cases. Once harvested, cacao seeds surrounded by sweet fermenting pulp start to develop flavor almost immediately.*

The rough, stoneground texture and mouth feel--with tiny bits of cacao nibs (with surfaces presumably undergoing layered states of fermentation)--enabled a tasty, more multi-faceted flavor spectrum.

Flavors included the fruity spectrum mentioned in aroma notes (above), only with more depth and flavor fun. There was a fleeting hop-like bitterness, but it was very balanced and overshadowed by the lighter/brighter fruit notes.

This was a well-executed ride through the land of authentic cacao + fruity, fermented beer-like flavors--flavors that continued into a long and satisfying fruity finish. 

Thank you to Fu Wan Chocolate for this chocolate. It was very tasty and educational, especially with recent news about researchers "finally cracking" how flavor development is built with cacao/chocolate using specific microbes that can be applied to cacao fermentation facilities in the field immediately following harvesting cacao pods. (Fermenters and makers were already aware of this, but good to know the rest of the world is catching up; watch for more flavorable and fruity chocolates ahead.)

Maker's Tasting Notes: Orange, Grape, Pineapple, Pear.

Ingredients: Ping-Tung Cacao Liquor, Sugar, Cacao Butter, Yeast

Allergen-related information: "May contain traces of nuts and milk." 

*Most makers in the U.S. and Europe may have close ties to cacao farmers and co-ops in more equatorial climates, but nothing beats being in the same location, when it comes to sampling and influencing fermentation flavor development choices. (Think wineries in California and northern Mediterranean Europe; or beer-making regions in northern Europe and the Pacific Northwestern U.S.--where ingredients are grown and fermented in the same region.) The same is true in Asia, Africa and elsewhere.