Tell us your odd food and beer pairings...

So every now and then you're drinking a beer and eating something and it hits you; "damn! That's good together!" I had that not long ago with a not so surprising combo of stout and a bowl of captain crunch.

Today while feeding my 8 month old brewing assistant and enjoying an eisbock I all of a sudden realized that cottage cheese and eisbock are excellent together! Pretty sure it needs to be the full fat kind though. Don't believe me? Try it!

What random pairings have you found by chance? Cheers and happy new year!

I've had donuts with doppelbock, they go pretty well together IMHO. BTW, those donuts were the plain old, ordinary glazed kind.
Regards, GF.

On Christmas I found that my Dusseldorf Alt cuts through the thickness of butternut squash soup very well and adds some ying to the yang.

That's yin & yang. I found my robust vanilla porter went better with my cheese bomb & town house crackers than Danish butter cookies. I also made a sirloin tip roast with beef bulion & my whiskely stout that was good. My son bought these cool seasonings in a sectioned off jar. Basil & sundried tomato & rosemary & garlic went well with the sirloin & potatos roasted in the oven. Then used the resulting broth to make gravy in the cast iron skillet & browned the meat in. Surprisingly good the way the oak & bourbon in the beer combined with the beef juices & herbal seasonings. Sea salt & black pepper as well.

Weirdest, and best one ever was at a beer dinner. The chef made shellfish chorizo, grilled octopus and grilled leeks and paired it all with Goose Island Sofie. Unbelievably good and completely unexpected pairing.

Shellfish chorizo huh? That's a new one for for me, but sounds good! I'm now wondering where this beer dinner was and what the pp price was?
Too bad Goose Island is now a part of InBev, I can only imagine the quality will drift over time, ever in search of the almighty profit margin and mass market. Oh well, plenty of new shops out there to replace them!

With all these pointers it's tempting to make a shared spreadsheet on HBT with pairing ideas that's searchable. Hmmmm.....

Pizza and any beer that is not overly bitter or made with burnt grains. :rockin:

I can't put my finger on it, but I think it was a combination of the saltiness of the chorizo and the spiciness (flavorful spicy, not hot spicy) that paired so well with Sofie. It had strong cumin and garlic-y flavors.

It was the best beer dinner I've ever been to. There are several restaurants that do beer dinners around here. The one I was talking about was kind of an all-star dinner with the chefs from five of those restaurants (some of which are world class - Google Sanford Milwaukee) and each chef paired with a different brewery. If I remember right, it was Goose Island, Three Floyds, Bell's (they brought a cask of Hopslam which was paired with a squash soup and veal sausage), Founder's, and the host gastropub, Hinterland.

I had an IPA served with a salad at a beer vs wine dinner that was fantastic. Maybe it's a common pairing, but it was a surprise to me.

I saw a podcast recommending DIPA and carrot cake, OMG!

I did a wonderful Dunkel Doppelbock, dropped a scoop of Dark Chocolate ice cream into the 2nd half of the glass, it was one of the better things I have ever consumed!

Pete's Wicked Strawberry Blonde, and a slice or two of New York style cheesecake, is absolutely delicious!!

any super hoppy IPA and mango sorbet. Summertime love! The big guy loves IPA and chocolate chip cookies (with walnuts of course).

When I was a kid it was Budweiser and Superman Ice Cream. And it was awful, but we weren't about to waste either of them!

Brown ale goes well with oatmeal raisin cookies.
Regards, GF.

gratus fermentatio said:

Brown ale goes well with oatmeal raisin cookies.
Regards, GF.

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doesn't everything?

Melana said:

doesn't everything?

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Good point!
Regards, GF.

Crisp seeded toast with butter, fresh made SWMBO's almond butter, NZ Manuka honey and my own freshly cracked Leftover Pale Ale. Sweet, nutty, buttery and subtly bubbly.

Sent from my SM-T310 using Home Brew mobile app

I had always found Southern Tier Creme Brulee to be absolutely revolting until I had it paired with a dessert (flourless white cake) and aha! It was good! I think it was meant to be paired with sweet desserts.

JonM said:

I had always found Southern Tier Creme Brulee to be absolutely revolting until I had it paired with a dessert (flourless white cake) and aha! It was good! I think it was meant to be paired with sweet desserts.

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Try pairing it with some kind of creamy blue cheese, I had it with Cambazola one time and it was phenomenal. I agree that the beer on its own is way too sweet.

I just discovered this and didn't know where else to put it! I have a good HB nut brown ale and just found out that it is great paired with these:

German Chocolate cake and Old Slug Brown Porter. Heavenly.

Deep fried pickles with a highly Columbus-hopped saison.

Use the Zymurgy 'Springtime in Amarillo' recipe but replace Amarillo with Columbus:
7.0 lb (3.17 kg) Belgian Pilsner Malt
4.0 lb (1.81 kg) German Wheat Malt
0.5 lb (0.22 kg) Aromatic Malt
0.5 lb (0.22 kg) Turbinado Sugar
1.25 oz (35 g) Amarillo Pellet Hops, 8.4% AA, 60 minutes
0.50 oz (14 g) Amarillo Pellet Hops, 8.4% AA, 20 minutes
1.00 oz (28 g) Amarillo Pellet Hops, 8.4% AA, 0 minutes
your favorite saison yeast

OG: 1.062
IBU: 46
SRM: 8

Old Rasputin & spicy Thai curry.
Regards, GF.

Lagunitas Cappuccino Stout and Whoppers malted milk balls.

"Lightly smoked" sardines in oil with HB Dry "Big Dark Stout". Wow!

Today I slammed a small glass of orange juice just before sucking down 22oz of Stone IPA. My belches tasted incredible.

Cackalacy by Fullsteam and sushi. The ginger in the beer makes it all work well. So maybe not that odd.

Makes sense. Sushi around here usually comes with pickled ginger.

It's a pallet cleanser so it works.

agrazela said:

I slammed a small glass of orange juice

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steady on!

A local bagel/deli run by a Brooklyn family makes a pastry called a raspberry cigar and it has some pecans in it...turns out, it's really good with my hb nelson sauvin hopped IPA. Yum!

I made a pretty simple saison recipe recently, using harvested Belle Saison yeast and Citra hops. I opened a bomber tonight and, on the second pour, I went and made myself a hard salami and colby jack sandwich with Duke's Mayonnaise. Now I wish I had another bomber ready to go. This pairing just worked! I have no clue why, but it just did.

I'll certainly vouch for the pickles and beer.

Oh, I followed up with dessert. Weyerbacher Imperial Pumpkin and Oreo Pumpkin Spice Cookies...happy diabeetus, ya'll!