This Is The Beer You Should Be Pairing With Barbecue Chips

Whether you're watching the game or sitting down for a movie, an ice-cold beer and a handful of barbecue potato chips is a clear winner in the snack department. While it's easier to simply grab whatever is sitting in the kitchen, there is actually a better way to think about this beer pairing. To find out what that is, we reached out to Chef Jessie Massie, Executive Chef at the Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. Taproom in Mills River, North Carolina.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Massie was passionate about the beer company she works with. "You can't go wrong with pairing [barbecue chips] with a very approachable, all-purpose kind of beer like Sierra Nevada's Pale Ale, which is a classic American-style Pale Ale," Massie told Tasting Table. American Pale Ales (APAs) are similar to India Pale Ales in that they have a light body and crisp taste, but IPAs lean heavily on the bitterness of hops while APAs tend to be a bit more mellow and malty.

"BBQ-flavored chips often have a mixture of smokey, sweet, and tangy flavors with the quintessential saltiness that potato chips offer," Massie went on. There's a sneaky reason salty snacks are offered alongside drinks at the bar which amounts to tricking your brain into thinking it's thirsty so you'll drink more. APAs like the Sierra Nevada are supremely refreshing and light without being quite as timid as, say, a lager or pilsner.

That balance of being crisp and refreshing while also being flavorful makes APAs a great choice for barbecue chips. There are really two things you're looking for in your beer pairing with barbecue chips: You want a drink that will quench the thirst derived from the salt and you want something that's going to be able to stand up to the bold barbecue flavors without being so bold that it drowns the chips out. APAs fit the bill perfectly.

Sierra Nevada recently teamed up with Buffalo Trace to create a bold new brew called "Colonel E.H. Taylor Bourbon Barrel-Aged Bigfoot." While this is a great drink on its own, you likely wouldn't want to pair it with barbecue chips because the powerful flavors inside are going to outperform the chips. At the other end of the spectrum, a pilsner may be the smartest beer pairing for plain potato chips but it can't live up to the intensity of flavor you get with barbecue chips. Hopefully, that gives you a good sense of the outer edges of what we're looking at here.

APAs are right in the middle of the road in terms of intensity. Other good options might include a porter (but probably not something as strong as a stout), a brown ale, or an amber ale. These all reside in close proximity to APAs in terms of their flavor profile.