The Important Rule To Remember When Pairing Beer With Chocolate

Beers are crafted all over the world, and connoisseurs pair different beers with everything from cheese boards to the complex flavor profiles of whiskey. With certain wines, chocolate is an exquisite pairing, but chocolate and beer might not be a pairing that immediately comes to mind. The two are an ideal match, as we learned from Rich Higgins, certified sommelier and former brew master. Higgins is also a master cicerone, the highest level of certification for a person who has proven their superb tasting ability and an encyclopedic knowledge of beer. He shared with Tasting Table his expert opinion about which beers pair the best with different types of chocolate. "It's tempting to focus first on fun flavor combinations (for example, milk chocolate plus the tangerine-y aromas of a pale ale)," Higgins told us, "but actually the most important consideration is matching sweetness levels." 

An important rule to remember is to go with a beer that's as sweet as the chocolate because a sweeter chocolate will make the beer taste watery and bitter. So your favorite pilsner or West Coast-style IPA wouldn't be an especially tasty choice. For dark chocolate, Higgins recommends savory beers, like stouts and porters or a German schwarzbier ("black beer"), which "bring their own toasty, chocolatey and coffee flavors to the party." But if dark chocolate isn't your thing, milk chocolate's caramel flavors pair well with an amber-colored beer's nutty and toffy flavors.

White chocolate is a great divider — it's definitely love or hate — and chocolate lovers debate whether white chocolate is actually real chocolate, but as Rich Higgins told us, its sweet, buttery, and floral taste profile "is fantastic with the honey flavors of a sweeter Belgian tripel like La Fin du Monde or Tripel Karmeliet." A Belgian tripel is an especially complex beer with a peppery scent and a fruity finish that's perfect for Cajun or Thai food as well. 

A surprising suggestion that Higgins shared during our interview was pairing beer with chocolate layer cake or other chocolate confections, like chocolate truffles, pralines, chocolate bars, and even M&Ms. Because these desserts are typically sweet and rich, Higgins advises sticking to "rich, sweeter beers, such as a fruity-spicy weizenbock, like Schneider Aventinus, or a Belgian quadrupel, like La Trappe Quad, bourbon-barrel-aged imperial stouts like New Holland Dragon's Milk or Goose Island Bourbon County Stout." 

A weizenbock is an especially inspired choice because its flavor is reminiscent of a caramel-forward bananas Foster with a hit of chocolate and citrus. A Belgian quadrupel is also called a Belgian dark, and its brown sugar and malted taste profile complements its strong alcohol content. Raspberries and cherries are often draped or served with chocolate, and for another dessert-beer pairing, Higgins recommends "a sweet-sour fruit bomb like Lindemans Framboise, Duchesse Chocolate Cherry Sour, or your nearest craft brewery's 50%-fruit smoothie sour."