Pairing Doppelbock with Craft Chocolate

By David Nilsen

Craft chocolate can pair beautifully with craft beer, and today we’re going to discuss pairing recommendations for a style of beer that’s often brewed as a winter seasonal.

Doppelbock is a strong German lager style that can be brewed year-round, but is often released by U.S. craft breweries as a winter or early spring seasonal. That’s because the world’s very first Doppelbock was brewed for a holy feast day that fell on April 2, and has often been associated with the Lenten season.

A Brief History of Doppelbock

The ancestor of modern Doppelbock was first brewed by the monks of St. Francis of Paola, whose monastery near Munich received permission to establish a brewery in 1651. Some years later they began brewing a beer in honor of the father of their order and served it during an eight day festival in his honor in early April. This became a celebration that, from all accounts, most of Munich turned out for, not least of all to enjoy the hearty beer the monks had prepared. The beer was called Sankt Vaterbier, or “holy father beer”, and in time became known as Salvator.

The beer was brewed with a large volume of malt but was poorly attenuated, meaning much of the fermentable sugar in the beer was left unfermented. The result was a thick, sweet beer of only moderate alcohol strength that would have been quite hearty and comforting at the end of a Bavarian winter. The monastery eventually sold the brewery to the state, and in time it became a private company. The style of beer the monks had pioneered was imitated by dozens of breweries and became quite popular in the 19th century, eventually becoming the modern style we know as Doppelbock. The lineage of that original beer lives on as Paulaner Salvator, one of the best Doppelbocks in the world.

(For much fuller accounts of the history of Doppelbock, I encourage you to check out the excellent work of beer writers Jeff Alworth and Mark Dredge.)

The Basics of Doppelbock

Doppelbocks today are much stronger than those early examples, generally coming in between 7-10% ABV. While they are no longer as sweet as the under-fermented examples of old, they do still give an impression of sweetness from their rich malt foundation, though they should be well-attenuated. The finish should be mostly dry and not leave any cloying sweetness on the tongue. Doppelbocks are all about malt character with little emphasis on hop or fermentation flavors. Prominent flavor notes include dark bread, bread crust, and toast, with accents of dark fruit, caramel, and occasionally cocoa. 

While pale Doppelbocks exist, they are most commonly brewed darker, ranging from deep amber or copper to dark brown. The ample malt bill provides the style with a thick, mousse-like head of foam. 

In addition to Paulaner, excellent German examples of can be found from Ayinger, Wiehenstephan, Augustiner, and Andechs, among many others. Excellent American examples from Troegs and Bells are widely available. If you live in Ohio like me, keep your eyes out for Masthead Zungenbrecher this time of year.

Pairing Doppelbock with Chocolate

The malt flavors of Doppelbocks work beautifully with dark chocolate featuring flavors of dark sugars, dried fruits, nuts, or gentle spice or smoke. Seek out dark chocolate made with alternative sugars such as maple, sweet inclusions like toffee, or gentle wood smokes like pecan. Single origin bars in the 70% range with lower acidity and notes of spices, earthiness, nuts, dried fruits, or caramel or related flavors can work well. 

Because of their low hop bitterness and the presence of malt flavors our brains associate with sweetness, Doppelbocks can seem sweet, but in reality there isn’t much residual sugar in well-made examples. Chocolates that have bold flavors or high acidity can cause harsh interactions because of this sensory bait-and-switch. Mild chocolates can get washed out by the style’s high alcohol content and rich maltiness. Avoid white chocolate and plain milk chocolate, acidic or bold single origins, bold smoke or spice inclusions, or bright fruit inclusions.

As an example, let’s look at a recent pairing using Masthead Zungenbrecher. While this beer has limited distribution, the pairing will work with whatever Doppelbock you can find.

Zungenbrecher has notes of raisins and light caramel with unspiced sticky bun dough and dark bread dough, all in a dry body with minimal but noticeable hop bitterness to balance the malt. I paired this beer with Qantu’s elegant Maple and Maras Fleur de Sel 60% dark chocolate bar. The resulting pairing was like maple-drizzled figs on rich, crusty, lightly salted dark bread.

I’m eager to hear what pairings you come up with with this guidance, so drop me a line or tag me on social media!

In my Pairing Beer & Chocolate zine, which you can order from beantobarstool.com, I give pairing guidance like this for dozens of beer styles, helping you find great pairings for styles you might not expect to pair well with chocolate:

Or click the image below to order David’s Pairing Beer & Chocolate book!