Sometimes there are ingredients that go so well together in a dessert that I just can't help but wonder how they might turn out as a beer interpretation. With imperial stouts being my beer style of choice, it was only a matter of time before I started trying out different pairings like chocolate+chili in "Firestarter", coffee+chocolate in "Darkest Days" or more recently coconut+chocolate in "Decay Of Disregard". One combination that I've always enjoyed but had never tried myself though was that of cherries+chocolate. Normally cherries get added to the beer as either whole fruit or puree, but what I had in mind was actually to use a homemade black cherry jam that I've enjoyed ever since I was a child. These aren't regular cherries either, in fact they are derived from smaller wild cherries (Prunus avium var. silvestris) making them much darker in color with an almost black-purple tone and a distinctive bitter-sweet taste. With a couple of jars brought over from Romania, I got in touch with the very knowledgeable Truly Craft Chocolate to ask for advice on what origin chocolate to use in this beer. As per their recommendation, I went with cacao nibs from Cameroon beans that had been freshly roasted right here in Munich, Germany. With key ingredients mindfully sourced, I crafted a recipe with more unfermentable sugars to counterbalance the highly fermentable cherry jam, thus avoiding an overly dry beer and instead maintaining a sweetness reminiscent of cherry chocolate desserts. After primary fermentation, followed by a long refermentation and conditioning on the cherry jam and cacao nibs, the beer was finally ready to be packaged safely, with bottles ultimately stored in the cellar for long term aging.