Guest post by Krys­tle, thanks Krys­tle!

Cof­fee, choco­late, and beer…these are a few of Welling­to­ni­ans’ favorite things — and thanks to a col­lab, you can now drink a fusion of all three. Local leg­ends Black Dog Brew­ery and Welling­ton Choco­late Fac­to­ry have teamed up to pro­duce the Bean Me Up Mocha Stout. You may be won­der­ing if these fla­vors all go togeth­er? After a thor­ough taste test at the Bean Me Up launch event this week I can con­firm they do. Stout can be a heavy beer that isn’t always easy to drink but this ver­sion is smooth and very drink­able due to the nice bal­ance of cof­fee and choco­late with a hint of lac­tose to give it the creamy pro­file (those who are lac­tose intolerant/vegan, be warned)

The col­lab has been a year in the mak­ing with time spent devel­op­ing the flavours and batch test­ing. Both par­ties are known for their care and atten­tion around taste and qual­i­ty with the prod­ucts they pro­duce so it’s a qual­i­ty brew. Top Dog from Black Dog Brew­ery Adri­an Klemp worked close­ly with Welling­ton Choco­late Factory’s co-founder Gabe David­son to get the cof­fee and choco­late blend just right. The final prod­uct had three dif­fer­ent types of choco­late added and was fer­ment­ed for a week to devel­op the flavours.

While tast­ing Bean Me Up there were a few mur­murs of how it would make a great ‘hair of the dog’ bev­er­age due to the caf­feine hit you get and we could imag­ine it pair­ing nice­ly with a big break­fast. Adri­an admit­ted he will often have a lit­tle taster in the morn­ing to start his day if he hasn’t had a cof­fee yet, so it’s ful­ly endorsed as a break­fast beer. Bean Me Up is best drunk slight­ly warmer to bring out the flavour pro­file and sits at 5.9% ABV.

As part of their exper­i­men­tal range, Black Dog has also launched Lone Wolf Cit­ra IPA, a sin­gle-hop IPA with Cit­ra hops from the US. It’s zesty, light gold in colour and has a sub­tle orange bit­ter­ness and comes in at 6.2% ABV.

Bean Me Up and Lone Wolf are avail­able now on tap at Black Dog Brew­ery (216 Cuba St) but don’t take your sweet time as these lim­it­ed edi­tion brews are only avail­able while kegs last.