7.5% ALC/VOL • IBU 50 • Limited
About The Brew
Chocolate and chili reads as a novelty pairing, which gets the history exactly backwards. For most of chocolate’s existence it wasn’t sweet and it wasn’t food — the Maya and Aztec drank it, ground cacao whisked into water until it foamed, bitter and spiced with chili and vanilla. Sugar was the European edit, added centuries later. The version that seems like a stunt on a beer menu is closer to the original than a candy bar is.
Stout is a natural home for it. The roasted barley that gives the style its coffee-and-dark-chocolate backbone is doing half the work before any adjunct goes in — which is why chocolate additions in a stout tend to deepen what’s already there rather than sit on top of it. Cinnamon rounds the edges, and chili does something no other ingredient can: it arrives late, as heat rather than flavor, after everything else has already had its say.
At 7.5% and 50 IBUs, Sweet Ride is built to carry all of it. Rich and full-bodied, dark chocolate and roast up front, warm baking spice through the middle, and a slow chili warmth that shows up on the finish and lingers. Bitterness runs high for the style, which keeps the sweetness in check and stops the whole thing from turning into dessert.
Sweet first. The ride comes after.
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