I love tasting new food. New spirits (AKA Adult Beverages), not so much. Especially not beer.
Beer to me has been always a can of bitter "stuff" that is drank by men or rowdy women. Since I'm not either, it took a bit of a arm twist to try Wild Ophelia Chocolate with Goose Island Beer - and only because the Latina Lifestyle Bloggers Collective and SoCal Lady Bloggers were VIPs at two uber exclusive tasting events.
The first event was held at the Whole Foods in Venice and had the specialty insight from the only female beer expert & educator at Goose Island Beer, Suzanne Wolcott; and the lovely folks from Wild Ophelia Chocolate.
Although I want to believe that the event was solely and just for my beer conversion, Suzanne was patient, kind, but most importantly, understood my apprehension in trying something that I normally don't like.
She paired each chocolate perfectly with each beer, while giving a backstory and history about each beer we tasted.
It was quite educational, yet fun, but above all, something that I am very glad I did.
I also found out that chocolate can bring out the flavor of the beer, and that Goose Island beer had a distinctively wine quality to it - quite unlike the cans of backyard BBQ brews. In other words, this tasting made me a convert and a fan of the Sofie beer, which was the lightest of the selection we tasted.
The following day we headed north and landed at every woman's dream: Benefit Cosmetics in Santa Monica.
Not only were we surrounded by pretty things, lust worthy makeup, and the company of women that loved it as much as we did, we also tried rare vintage Goose Island Beer, and yes, chocolate.
The stars of the evening were the Goose Island Belgian ales, which included the Juliet, a blackberry sour ale, Lolita, a raspberry sour ale, and my absolute favorite, Madame Rose, a cherry sour ale.
I did, of course, purchase a few pretty things and spent a couple of days with some pretty awesome ladies. I'm now also a beer convert. As in, I like Goose Island Beer. A lot.
How about you...Do you like beer? Have you tried it with chocolate?