By now, you understand that beer is delicious and cheese is delicious. What do you get if you put them together? Perfection. Beer and cheese go together wonderfully! Just look at any big football game party or wedding reception, and you’re sure to find them both. I love cheese, and I love beer. But the question remains: which cheese pairs best with beer? Let’s break this down.
Pairing a beer with cheese is like pairing a man to be married to his soulmate. Eating cheese alongside a beer can be delicious. Although there are no all-inclusive rules when pairing a beer with cheese, some guides or principles need to be kept in mind.
What Cheese Goes Well With A Bottle Of Beer?
One of the best things about beer is that it pairs well with almost any food. But some foods go better with beer than others. Cheese is one of those foods.
Beer and cheese go together like feathers and glue. So it’s no surprise that the question of ‘What’s the best cheese for beer?’ is constantly on people’s minds. Whether you want to impress your friends at a restaurant or enjoy some cheese in with your beer at home, this article will help you choose what cheeses taste best with beer.
1. Pepper Jack
Pepper jack is a sweet, creamy cheese that often finds its way to our plates. It contains pepper, herbs, chilies, and other awesome flavors. The paper jack can be paired to every beer type, including good and poor beers.
Pepper jack is often used in Mexican cuisine and grilled cheese sandwiches, but it also pairs well with many other foods. If you’re looking for an easy way to spice up your next beer pairing, try matching a creamy pepper jack with an IPA or pale ale. The beer’s sweetness will mellow out the heat from the pepper while bringing out the creaminess of the cheese.
Moreover, one of the best pairings can be seen when you pair pepper jack with a Scottish-style ale. The phenolic feature in some examples of the beer seems to provide a nexus to the smoky and spicy flavors of the cheese, even as the malty sweetness enveloped the vegetal spiciness, which commences a stylish dance that fuses the two cultures in a top-notch and surprising manner.
2. Goat Cheese
Goat cheese can be made in various varieties. Fresh, creamy, and spreadable varieties often have a tart, awesome and distinct flavor. Many people kick off this cheese, saying it is light and won’t pair well with beer.
The truth is, goat cheese can pair well with beer that has a scent of alcohol spice. Goat cheese’s mild, creamy flavor makes it an excellent pairing for almost any beer. It’s very light and smooth, so it doesn’t overpower the beer or make it taste strange. Goat cheese goes especially well with cream ales and pilsners.
However, the best goat cheese pairings can be seen when paired with American-style pale ales, German-style pilsner, Belgian-style strong ales, Saisons, and tripels. Semi-firm goat cheese can also best be paired with maltier German-style doppelbock or clove from German-style hefeweizen.
3. Blue Cheese
Goat cheese is made from goat milk, and it is entirely creamy, nutty, and earthy, with a distinct feature of Penicillium Roqueforti mold. There are a lot of nexuses to pairing blue cheese with beer. You can close your eyes and randomly point at any beer in the cooler, and trust me; it’d make a perfect match.
Blue cheese has a strong, sharp flavor that doesn’t go well with every beer. It’s best paired with dark beers like porters and stouts. Blue cheese also pairs well with red wines and port wines which makes sense because they’re both aged in barrels ????
One essential key fact in finding a perfect match for blue cheese is looking for a beer with similar or equal impact. Therefore, goat cheese can best be paired with quads and tripled, IPAs, Baltic-style porters, and even barley wines and imperial stouts.
4. Feta Cheese
This is a very popular and regular cheese in most snack stores and restaurants. Feta cheese has an awesome flavor that does not intimidate other ingredients but works for hand in hand with other meals or dishes.
Feta cheese is a Greek cheese made of sheep’s or goat’s milk. It has a crumbly texture and is often used in salads and sandwiches. Feta cheese goes great with beer, especially lager beers. This is because the lager beer will complement the saltiness in feta cheese.
Feta cheese also goes well with Belgian-style blonde or Belgian-style witbier beers. However, both beers mentioned above are light but filled with many awesome qualities so that they can be best paired with feta any day, any time.
5. Parmesan Cheese
Parmesan cheese is a nutty, fruity, and sharp cheese with a creamy texture. It is known for its slightly salty flavor. Parmesan cheese is well known for its sweetness when paired with pasta marinara, but that is just the tip of the iceberg compared to its sweetness when paired with some beers.
Parmesan cheese is a great choice for pairing with beer. It’s salty, so it can help balance the flavor of darker beers with heavier bodies. It also has a milder flavor than some cheeses so that it won’t overpower your beer. It also pairs well with rich, creamy dark beers, like stouts and porters. The saltiness of the cheese will cut through the bitterness of these brews and balance out their sweetness.
Parmesan works best when eaten directly after drinking your beer, so try to eat it within 15 minutes of finishing your beer. This way, you’ll get the full flavor impact of both ingredients.
6. Cheddar
Cheddar is a firm, crumbly British cheese with a sharp and extra sharp taste. Aged cheddar is believed to be slightly bitter, earthy, and creamy. Concerning the food pairing saying goes thus; “if it grows together, it goes together” beers like British bitters, porters, Scottish ales, stouts, and browns can make a perfect match for cheddar cheese.
The classic cheddar is an absolute must for pairing with British ales. The sharpness of the cheese cuts through the malty sweetness of these beers and balances out their higher alcohol content.
Cheddar needs a dance partner that can keep up its intensity. Therefore, British ales are the best pairs for cheddar cheese. British ales can keep up the bitter, nutty taste of aged cheddar.
7. Havarti
Havarti is a whitish sweet, acidic, and creamy cheese. As a result of its creamy soft texture, Havarti tends to envelop the plate and makes clear a relatively long finish. Havarti can be paired best with sweet flavored beers.
Havarti goes well with light-colored beers such as pilsners or wheat beers. It pairs well with pale ales, porters, and stouts as well.
Therefore, dry stouts, Pils, IPAs, and the German Berliner Weiss would find a perfect spot with Havarti cheese. For my dear Adventists, for a rare taste, you can pair Havarti cheese with a turkey sandwich with a Grodziskie, which is highly carbonated and tastes lightly and darkly smoked. Try it, and you’d be thanking me a million times.
8. Manchego
Manchego is a popular Spanish cheese with some wonderful dietary attributes. It is not too light or heavy; it is slightly light for aged cheese.
Manchego pairs well with dark, malty beers like porters and stouts. It also goes well with pale ales and IPAs. Its light saltiness makes it an excellent cheese to pair with a beer with a hint of sweetness to balance out the bitterness of a hoppy brew.
Manchego is a cheese made from sheep’s milk, making it a great pairing with beers with a malty richness or sweetness. It has a nutty, earthy flavor and a creamy texture, making it an excellent choice for beer.
9. Brie
Brie is a crunchy creamy cheese with a neutral flavor. Its neutral flavor gives room for a wide range of pairings. However, with a neutral flavor, most beers can go down well.
Brie pairs well with beer because of its soft texture and mild flavor. It works well with many different kinds of beer, but it’s particularly good with pale ales and IPAs.
So, please go for a beer that can cut through Brie’s neutral flavor. Bohemian or German-style pilsners, IPAs, Belgian tripels, or weissbier can make wonderful pairing partners for a crunchy brie. We recommend serving Brie with a sweet or fruity beer, like an imperial stout or a strong Belgian ale.
10. Gruyere
Gruyere is a Swiss cheese made from cow’s milk. It has a nutty, buttery flavor with a hint of fruitiness. Gruyere melts easily and is used in fondue, quiche, and pasta dishes. You can also use it to top burgers or as a cheese sauce for chicken or vegetables.
Gruyere is similar to French Comtè, with a slightly salty, creamy, and sweet cheese. Interestingly, gruyere practically begs for a direct pairing with beers with rigid malt and spicy hops.
It can be paired with beers with malty and thick flavors such as English bitters, Scottish ales, German-style doppelbocks, and American-style ales. Gruyere’s rich flavor will stand up to the maltiness in these beers, creating an amazing union between two great tastes that taste great together!
Rounding up, different cheeses go better with different beers; there are some guidelines you can go by. The sharper the cheese, the stronger the beer you should pair it with. A full-flavored beer can stand up to a strong cheese like cheddar or gouda, while a milder beer calls for something mellower.
There is no perfect cheese and wine pairing, but I have provided insights to help you find just the right cheese to complement your favorite beer. Cheers.
