Beer and Chocolate

Beer and Chocolate? You may have heard about pairing red wine and chocolate. It can be a very nice combination if you can find the right red wine. But what about pairing beer and chocolate? It's easier than you may think.

There are so many variations of a varietal wine such as Cabernet, that it can be difficult to match just the right one with your favorite desert, chocolate. In the winemaking world, vintners make very different wines from the same grape variety. One will make it dry, another will make it sweeter. One will use American oak, another will use French. The resulting wines have very different characters. Sometimes, only a true oenophile can determine that they are in fact all of the same varietal. This is not true with beer.

Historically, beers brewed in a region had the same flavor profile since they were made using the same malts and water. These beers were brewed for hundreds of years and are now identifiable as a distinct style of beer. The word "style" as we use it today is simply a way for us to communicate the characteristics of those beers that developed in a region and which all shared a common flavor profile. Brewers today that want to brew a stout will use the ingredients and processes that will produce a beer that is very similar to the stouts originally brewed in Ireland. So a stout brewed in Oregon will taste very similar to a stout brewed in Dublin.

This makes it easy to pick any beer in a particular style and pair it with food. The pairing will exhibit similarities no matter which beer you choose. Thus we come to beer and chocolate. There are certain styles which, by virtue of their flavor characteristics such as bready, toasty, caramel, toffee, roasty, chocolaty, coffee and fruity notes, just seem to go well with chocolate.

Two categories of beer that pair well with chocolate are:

• Dark beers such as Porters and Stouts. These are made with highly kilned roasted malts and caramelized barley. The combination yields a beer with complex roasty and big caramel and toffee or coffee flavors. Pair these beers with chocolate truffles with caramel fillings and/or nuts, or even a milk chocolate bar with caramel. Any high quality chocolate works well with Porters and Stouts. Experiment and have fun.
• Belgian Ales will often exhibit soft caramel sweetness and spicy phenolics from the special yeast they use. These beers go very well with fruit infused chocolates, such as a chocolate covered strawberry, or raspberry truffle. Belgian Dubbels and Tripels are especially nice with chocolate. Both have residual sweetness and lots of fruity esters which pair well with your favorite chcoclate desert. Who knows more about beer and chocolate than the Belgians?

These are just a couple of possible pairings. Any darker beer, even an amber ale, will pair nicely with chocolate. It is a little more difficult to find lighter beers that pair well with chocolate because most are highly hopped and the bitterness just doesn't work well with chocolate. Look for wheat beers or light fruity beers and match with chocolate and fruit combos.

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