How to Pair Beer and Chocolate
White chocolate pairs well with Duvel Tripel Hop Citra
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Looking for a fun and delicious Valentine's, Galentine's or date night option? A beer and chocolate tasting might be the answer. Often when we are thinking about pairing alcoholic beverages with food, we automatically go to wine. But beer is such a good option. There's a massive range of flavours and types to pair with any meal or food. But have you ever thought about beer and chocolate before? Let's have a look at that today.
Beer and chocolate showcase very similar flavours. Thinking about coffee, roastiness, bitter sweetness; beer and chocolate use a balance of bitterness and sweet to make delicious flavours. Another similarity is that they are generally better when they are made by craftspeople. So check out your local breweries and bottle shops. And don't forget to check out local chocolate makers.
Beer & Chocolate – How is Chocolate Made?
Chocolate is made from cocoa beans. Originally these were ground and the powder was used to make a drink. Then in 1826, a Dutchman called Van Houten developed the cocoa press. This separated the cocoa butter from the cocoa beans. In the 1840s Frys in the UK discovered that if you mix the cocoa butter with the cocoa powder, it stabilized and made chocolate. Finally, we got to milk chocolate when the Swiss started adding milk powder to their chocolate. Let's remember that white chocolate isn't technically chocolate, it hasn't got cocoa in it. It is however made of cocoa butter that has milk powder and sugar added to it. Chocolate purists will tell you it's not chocolate, but it's still delicious and goes really well with beer.
Beer & Chocolate – How is beer similar to chocolate?
So where do the similarities between chocolate and beer lie? Beer is made from an ingredient called malt. This is generally barley that has been toasted and roasted to make different flavours, aromas and colours in the beer. Roasted malts can actually add chocolate aromas and flavours to beer. And as I said previously, beer and chocolate both balance bitterness and sweetness to make delicious flavours. Think about how hoppy beers often have a slight touch of sweetness just to balance themselves out. And even the darkest roasty stouts will still have a touch of hop bitterness to balance out the sweetness from the malts. By combining beer and chocolate flavours, we can come up with some really innovative and delicious pairings.
Do you have a favourite type of chocolate? Let me know in the comments, and I can help you pair it with a beer!
How to pair beer and chocolate
A selection of beers and chocolate you can easily get from the supermarket but make delicious pairings with.
But how do we pair beer and chocolate? There are some fundamental beer and food pairing techniques that we need to think about. You can simply match flavours. A chocolate flavoured beer is obviously going to go very well with multiple forms of chocolate. And a fruit beer would go very well with chocolate that has fruit notes or added fruit to it. You can also think about matching sweet with sweet and bitter with bitter. For example, a sweet fruit beer might go really well with a white chocolate that is much sweeter or a milk chocolate. Whereas when you have bitterness in your IPAs and pale ales, you may want to use more dark chocolate that has that bitter sweetness.
Stout is a classic example to pair with chocolate. There are multiple different types - sweeter milk stouts will go really well with milk chocolate, and darker roastiness might go with a darker, bitter chocolate, perhaps with again, fruit in there. It's also important to consider intensity. If you've got an intensely dark flavoured chocolate, you're going to want to pair that with an intense beer. A double IPA, for example, will go really well with a 70% dark chocolate that has a touch of salt or spice - you're matching the intensities of the flavours. If you've got a lighter chocolate pair it with a much lighter beer.
Don't forget to also think outside the box. Why not just get several of your favourite beers, several of your favourite chocolates and just try them together and see what combinations you can make. Everybody's tastes are different and you are the expert of what you enjoy. So have some fun with it and put together some things that you find delicious.
Beer and Chocolate Pairing Recommendations
Let me share some possible beer and chocolate pairings that you could get very simply from your supermarket. I picked these beer and chocolate pairings from the supermarket for accessibility so that you can just go get them straight away. However, I do highly recommend that you look at local bottle shops, local breweries and local chocolate makers to see if you can get something really interesting and to support those local businesses. Remember that independent craftspeople are going to be making some absolutely beautiful offerings for these beer and chocolate pairings.
Beer and Chocolate Pairing 1 – Dark Chocolate
Dark chocolate can go with an IPA, a stout or a witbier. This particular version here has sea salt. This intensity will bring out the intensity of an IPA. I think the bitter and hoppiness of this IPA could go really well with the bitterness of the dark chocolate. And the salt is going to add a little bit of interest to the sweetness of the malt in the IPA.
A bitter dark chocolate is an amazing option to have with stouts because there will be bitterness in the beer from roasted malt. Make sure you get one with high amounts of cocoa in there - you want your beer to be less bitter than your chocolate. So think about that when you're selecting your stout.
Belgian-style witbier is also going to go really well with a dark chocolate, it's got a spiciness to it, and the orange notes in the witbier will go really well with the chocolate. Think about chocolate orange type combinations.
Beer and Chocolate Pairing 2 – Chocolate with Fruit
A combination that I've discovered I really like from opening a chocolate variety box and just trying it with different beers was dark chocolate and raspberry and a milk stout. The dark chocolate brings out the roasting notes of the beer. Whereas the raspberry has a lovely sweetness that goes with the milk stout. I found this bar of Galaxy Fusions with meringue in it as well. So that sweetness is going to balance with the lactose sweetness of the milk stout.
You can also pair chocolate with fruit with beer with fruit. A Kriek, which is with cherries or a Framboise raspberry beer could be very matchy matchy with this chocolate. Or think about mixing up different berries and fruits - maybe a strawberry chocolate with different fruit beers. Or chocolate-covered strawberries? Play around with flavours to see what you enjoy.
Beer and Chocolate Pairing 3 – Milk Chocolate
With milk chocolate, you want a less intense beer. I found Cocoa Wonderland from Thornbridge, which is a Chocolate Porter, which is an obvious match with your milk chocolate. A porter would go really well with a milk chocolate because it's going to have those chocolate notes, it is not as roasty or as intense as a stout and is going to be slightly lighter. Don't forget that the carbonation in beer is also going to go really well with your milk chocolate. It will wash the thickness from your mouth and want you to drink and eat more.
Beer & Chocolate Pairing 4 - Nutty Milk Chocolate
Another excellent combination with a milk chocolate is a brown ale. It will have chocolate and caramel notes. Additionally, a milk chocolate with nuts will go really well with a brown ale because it has those nutty notes from its malt base. Possibly also a fruit and nut bar will bring out the dried fruit characters of these beers.
Beer and Chocolate Pairing 5 – White Chocolate
I'm a big fan of white chocolate, but of course, this is very sweet. So you have to think about what you balance with that sweetness. A hoppy beer, or here we have Duval Triple Hop Citra will go well with the white chocolate. It's got lots of carbonation that's going to wash away the fat and the solid of the chocolate from your mouth, which makes you want to drink more. It has bitterness, which will balance the sweetness of the white chocolate. And also Citra is going to add some lovely citrus notes that will pair well with the vanilla creaminess that comes from white chocolate. White chocolate will also obviously go with the fruited beers. Just think about tart fruit coolie on a creamy cheesecake, you want to go for something that's got a bit more tartness to it than lots of sweet. We want to balance out the sweetness from the white chocolate. Finally, a witbier with lots of citrus and coriander spice would pair well. But also the bitterness and the carbonation from this beer will balance the sweetness of the white chocolate.
How to host a beer and chocolate pairing
So you've picked your beers and your chocolates, you've made your pairing selection. But how are you going to go about doing a beer and chocolate pairing evening? Perhaps you want to do this as a Valentine's event. Maybe you want to do it as a party with friends for Galentines Day. Or you could do it as a date night. Here are my top tips for hosting a beer and chocolate tasting party:
Choose between four and five pairings - you only want to have about a third of beer per person and a few bits of chocolate then it can be quite a nice relaxed evening where everyone tries together and you still have some time for social drinking afterwards.
Remember the selection that I've shown you is from the supermarket. This is very accessible if this is the first time you're doing beer and chocolate or beer and food pairings. However, do look at local producers. Perhaps speak to your favourite local brewery and see if they have any suggestions of chocolate that pair with their beers. They may know a local Chocolatier who can help you out.
Will you have pre-selected beer and chocolate pairings for your guests? Or you could just put out a selection of beers and a selection of chocolates and let people choose their own to come up with some innovative and interesting flavour combinations.
When you are tasting beer and chocolate, perhaps try the beer and try the chocolate separately. Then you're going to want to take a piece of chocolate, chew it in your mouth, but leave it on your tongue. Take a sip of beer to wash the chocolate away to get the combination of those flavours and see how they taste to you.
Finally, for all of us geeks, let's take some notes! Take some notes of which beer and chocolate you put together. Did you like it? Did the combination go well? Are there any tweaks you have made? Share these with your other guests at the end of your event.
If you're interested in hosting a beer and chocolate pairing and need some help, I've got a beer and chocolate pairing printables kit in my Etsy shop right now. It will help you create the perfect Valentine's or date night experience and it's an instant download so you can start planning right away. Head to my Etsy shop here to find out more.
