Top of the chocs

Ben McFarland gets all gooey at a beer and chocolate tasting

Being a beer writer has its upsides. As careers go, it’s not quite up there with ‘serial lottery winner’ or ‘bed-tester,’ but there’s certainly shoddier ways to cough up for the mortgage, that’s for sure.

I’m sure there are ‘proper’ journalists dodging bullets in Iraq or working undercover in the Mafia underworld whose noses would turn up at the notion of a beer writer but, frankly, I’d take my gig any day.

Rarely have I been more resolute of this sentiment than earlier this month, merrily walking through the plush streets of London’s Mayfair on my way to a day’s beer and chocolate tasting.

I may be changing my waistline more than the world, I thought to myself as I skipped down Park Lane, but I’d take flapjacks and chocolate torte ahead of flack jackets and concrete boots every time.

The setting for this hard day’s toil, this vigorous cutting-edge investigative journalism, was to be the headquarters of the Chocolate Society in Shepherd Market, once renowned as a haunt for very posh ladies of the night.

For anyone with even the modest of sweet teeth, the Chocolate Society is a thigh-rubbing and salivating place to be. Set-up to develop a nation’s taste for the world’s finest chocolate and promote the wares of cocoa-producing countries everywhere, the Chocolate Society is to fine chocolate what Tiffany’s is to diamond rings.

We’re talking proper chocolate here, not Hershey kisses or the stuff you buy in newsagents. We’re talking gloriously textured chocolate that’s chock.....

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By Ben McFarland

Section : Beer and Food

Page number : 40