The Story of Montezuma's
The Montezuma Chocolate makers are a small, family owned company based near Chichester in neighbouring Sussex and we decided to get together to try to develop a beer with a real chocolate character. Chocolate has a lot of fat in it and so most brewers avoid it, and use instead specially roasted malt that has a chocolate character. We worked on a way to take all the fat out of the chocolate nibs that are used in Montezuma's Lordy Lord dark chocolate, and we developed a number of beers using our darker brews. The Montezuma team really liked our Hogstar lager and encouraged us to try a lager variant - we didn't think it made sense as we felt the brew had to reflect the chocolate colour, but they insisted the taste was the important thing and they were right - the combination of our lager and chocolate just seemed to work. It was a real surprise to us, but it has gone on to win a number of awards and much acclaim and we think it is the worlds first genuine chocolate lager.