Have you ever wondered about the best beers to pair with cheese?
According to research, 70% of Dads prefer personal, thoughtful gifts for Father’s Day over practical presents. Mixing up their fave food and drink into a perfect pairing is very thoughtful!
To help you make the right choices, cheese consultant and author Emma Young has provided her top tips on he best beers to pair with cheese.
Emma says: “As with wine, different styles of beer match better with different styles of cheese. The varied styles, flavour, production methods and mouthfeel of beer allow for some great pairings.”
According to Emma there are several key reasons why beer works so well with European cheese, let’s take a look:
Carbonation – as with champagne pairing well with Brie and Camembert, the bubbles in lagers, pilsners and American IPAs cut through the rich paste of a cheese.
Bitterness – bitterness is a key flavour of beer. In a similar way to bubbles cutting through cheese, bitterness provides a welcome addition of a primary flavour which lends well to softening the richness of a cheese.
Acidity – not to be confused with bitterness, this mouthwatering, primary sense is one of the most important elements in pairing cheese to help keep everything structured.
Malt – the malty notes in certain beers work beautifully with cheeses, such as crumbly blue cheeses which already host malty flavours within.
Fruit – this refers to both the fruit you find with the use of certain hops, as well as the fruit in fruit beers and sours. It provides a welcome contrast to rich, creamy cheeses.
As a cheese specialist, Emma’s approach to pairing is to start with the cheese first. Here are a few pairings she recommends:
The Best Beers to Pair with Cheese
Brillat-Savarin paired with Blackberry Sour
This cheese is a soft white rinded cheese like a Brie or Camembert but with the addition of cream. Rich and indulgent, it works well not only in the normal savoury guise but also to being eaten like a dessert. The blackberry sour is a perfect match – the fruit and cream combination bring something our palates are already acclimatised to, followed by the acidity in the sour cutting through the rich, unctuous paste.
Cantal PDO paired with a Pale Ale
Made in the Cantal department in Auvergne, this is one of France’s oldest cheeses. It is a firm cheese with a punchy acidity alongside a savoury, salty and fruity flavour. The fruit aromas and juiciness of the pale ale enhance the savoury notes and brought out the fruit flavours of the cheese.
Fourme D’Ambert PDO paired with a Nitro stout
The salty, mushroom, malty and rich textured blue benefits well from the rich, malty, torrefied notes in the stout. The chocolate element within the nitro stout was important for this particularly perfect match. Stout is the soulmate for blue cheeses due to the many typical flavours shared in both blues and stouts – such as coffee, nuts, chocolate and malt.
Langres PDO paired with a Hazy Session IPA
The cheese is meaty, savoury, powerful and rich. The hazy session IPA gives a little carbonation and hoppy bitterness to cut through the paste and enough flavour to hold up to the cheese without taking over.
Comté PDO paired with an orange lager
Its flavour is mild and balanced; its texture is firm and soft. Its aromas are variable and delightful, including buttery and woody notes, that will perfectly blend with the fruity, clean and crisp flavour of an orange lager.
Doesn’t it all sound SO delicious!
