Pair your desserts with the perfect beer

You’ve been drinking beer all meal long. Then the dessert course arrives, and drink options suddenly switch to coffee, port or ice wine. Bring back the beer! With all its allowable ingredients, different styles and varying flavors, beer can enhance any dish – even dessert. There are two basic rules for pairing a brew with food. First, match intensities; if the dish overpowers the beer or the beer overpowers the dish, you won’t get the most out of the pairing. Second, decide if you want the beer to complement or contrast the food. Pairing a beer whose flavors and aroma match those of a dish will create harmony. However, you can set up a pleasant contrast by pinpointing a specific flavor that the beer and the dish have in common. Whether you’re in the mood for decadent chocolate, poached pears or Grandma’s cookies, there’s a beer to make the final course memorable.

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Cookies 
Like craft beer, cookies come in a wide range of styles, ingredients and flavors. An American brown ale, with its softer sweetness, slight hop bitterness and roundness, works well with sweeter cookies, including chocolate chip, snickerdoodle and peanut butter. The richness of a Doppelbock, Weizenbock or Belgian dubbel provides a great backbone to oatmeal raisin, gingersnaps and other savory bites that hold warm baking spices.

Complementary beers
Chimay Red Cap, Schneider Weisse Tap 6 Unser Aventinus, Ayinger Celebrator Doppelbock

Contrasting beers
Big Sky Moose Drool, Civil Life American Brown, Schlafly American Brown

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Chocolate
Chocolate is one of the more versatile foods to pair with beer. A porter complements softer, sweeter chocolates, while a stout can be a best buddy to heavier, darker chocolates. For contrasting flavor, consider fruit and fruit-forward beers. The dark fruits of a Belgian quadruple work well, as does a fruit lambic, whose vibrancy and tartness help to tone down rich chocolate.

Complementary beers
Left Hand Milk Stout, Sinebrychoff Porter, Founders Imperial Stout

Contrasting beers
Petrus Oud Bruin, Lindemans Framboise, Trappistes Rochefort 10

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Fruit-based desserts
For fruit pies, poached fruit and other fruity desserts, you have to be more particular with your beer selection. Fruit beers aren’t necessarily the best marriage for fruit-based desserts since the flavors can compete and cancel one another. For a complementary pairing, opt for a beer that holds the same fruit undertone as the dessert. For a contrasting pairing, seek out a beer that has a spice in common – cinnamon or nutmeg, for example – with the dessert.

Complementary beers
Traquair House Ale, Panil Barriquée, Verhaeghe Duchesse De Bourgogne

Contrasting beers
2nd Shift Hibiscus Wit, Deschutes Jubelale, Perennial Artisan Ales Abraxas