Expert: Ed Westemeier - 7/22/2008

Question
  Is chocolate malt in beer the same kind of chocolate as in the kind we eat? Is brown ale considered a "dark" beer? Is a European import the best way to avoid (if one wishes)geneticly modified ingredients in beer since the E.U. is stricter concerning g.m. crops? Thank you.

Answer
No, chocolate malt is called that because it's roasted to the point where it has a brown color that looks like chocolate, and gives a sort of chocolate flavor to the beer. There are dozens of different kinds of malt with different designations (pale, crystal, caramel, Munich, black, etc.), but they're all just grains prepared a certain way in the malting process.

Dark is a relative term. There is no real dividing line between pale and dark beers.

Breweries all over the world (including Europe) have been using GM ingredients for quite a few years.