Coffee and chocolate vs coffee and vanilla

Chocolate and vanilla complement each other obscenely well. I don't have the culinary vocabulary to describe it, but it's kind of like vanilla changes the cocoa flavor to chocolate. Why not both?
That said, with coffee, my personal preference would be chocolate.

 

Me and my buddy just brewed a FBS cloneish beer. We did coffee, chocolate and also some oatmeal. I personally would do coffee and chocolate, seems like a solid match up.

 

I make an Imperial Oatmeal Stout with Bakers Chocolate in the boil aged on cocoa nibs and then coffee grounds. Pretty amazing chocolate covered coffee bean flavor. I like a more potent coffee aroma, so I let the beer sit on the coffee grounds for 48 hours then rack to a keg. Vanilla might get you more of a latte flavor. Could be nice!

 

I am a big fan of combining all 3 as well as each of them on their own. I would personally prefer cocoa and coffee over vanilla and coffee.... but when it comes to any of the combinations, it is very critical that you pick the right coffee for what you are trying to achieve. In stouts, I'll typically go for a more bold coffee bean with a lot of chocolate notes or one that is complimentary to other things going on in the stout. I can't stress how important coffee choice is. The right one will bring your beer to the next level.

 

BOTH. WITH BOURBON AND OAK AS WELL!!!!! Just my 2 cents.

 

Go by taste of the bean. Not the taste of the brewed coffee. My favorite drinking coffees never work in my beer. Gotta watch out for some light or medium roasted coffees. They can turn into green pepper pretty quick. So far I have found Costa Rican and Peruvian dark roasts work best with chocolate.

 

I did an fbs clone from the byo article. I subbed out the Sumatran and kona for espresso roast. It turned out well, and included 4 oz of chocolate and cocoa nibs as well as coffee. Great recipe, would do it again in a heartbeat.