Craft Everything Else

Sure, there’s a whole rainbow of craft beers to try and love. But now breweries are branching out to lend their skills to other foods and beverages. Here are some hot craft beer-adjacent trends this year.

 

Coffee

Craft brewers have long been putting coffees in beer, starting with heavy stouts and inky-black coffee brews. Now, coffee is moving into lighter varieties and brewers are even putting the beer skills into coffee.

Columbus, Ohio’s Hoof Hearted Brewery & Kitchen introduced its single-origin beans from Africa, Indonesia and South America in 12 oz. bags along with a canned cold brew.

Look for more of this in the coffee aisle of your local grocery.

 

Bread

Again, we know all about leavening bread with beer. And now, craft brews are turning into great loaves. Michigan’s Beer City Bread Co. bakes loaves from craft beer and natural European sourdough starters. Each bread is aged more than 24 hours and crafted using a unique dough handling technique.

Toast is a British company that goes in the other direction. They make beer from bread, which they contend is one of the most wasted food items every year. In the United Kingdom, they say, up to 44% of bread is never eaten. Toast uses that previously wasted bread to make beer, and says they’ve rescued more than 1 million slices.

 

Chocolate

Chocolate brews are not new, especially the chocolate stout. Now, chocolatiers and brewers are teaming up to make beer chocolates. Moonstruck Chocolate Co. makes a truffle collection that features brews from Widmer Brothers, Rogue Ales, Deschutes Brewery and Full Sail Brewing. The truffles feature four types of beer — wheat, brown, porter and IPA.