Pairing Pumpkin Beers with Chocolate

By David Nilsen

It’s pumpkin beer season! Love them or hate them, these seasonal beers announce the arrival of fall each year, and while the style isn’t as popular as it was 5-10 years ago, there are still plenty of excellent examples to be found across the country (and beyond? Help me out, international readers—do you have pumpkin beers where you live?)

I look at pumpkin beers like any other style—there are really good examples, really bad examples, and a lot of examples that fall somewhere in between. I really enjoy good pumpkin beers, both from a flavor standpoint and because they’re whimsical and fun. If you like them, don’t let anybody give you a hard time about it. Nobody who knows what they’re talking about makes fun of someone for the styles of beer they enjoy. Celebrate those pumpkin beers if you love ‘em!

What Are Pumpkin Beers?

Pumpkin beers can be brewed as a range of base styles, but most commonly they’re brewed as something like an Amber Ale or Brown Ale or an imperial version of either. There are pumpkin Dubbels, pumpkin Stouts and Porters, even pumpkin lagers, but most fit into a standard malt-forward, lightly sweet format. While pumpkin is often used in them (sometimes as a fermentable sugar source), most of the flavor really comes from the spices we most commonly associate with fall and holiday baking, the blend we’ve come to just refer to as “pumpkin spice”. These are the types of beers we’ll be looking at today for pairing with bean to bar chocolate.

The best pumpkin beers, in my opinion, will not be overly sweet and will show restraint with the spices. No one wants to feel like they just inhaled a spiced canister. That said, they will display some measure of sweetness to convey the coziness of the season, and this can help to fill gaps in chocolat pairing by sort of softening the edges. The gentle spices and toasty or chocolatey underlying malt flavors will work as helpful bridges. However, those spices can create harshness with roast, bitterness, or astringency in some chocolates, and we have to be mindful of when the perception of sweetness in a pumpkin beer is not actually backed up by residual sugar. 

Within this range, pumpkin beers offer a lot of flexibility when it comes to pairing with craft chocolate, so let’s look at the options.

Complementary Flavors

One of my favorite complementary options for pairing pumpkin beer with chocolate is to pair a pumpkin beer with a lower percentage dark chocolate made with coconut. The flavors and textures of pumpkin and coconut work really well together, so I will often reach first for a coconut bar like Manoa’s 60% Coconut bar, or Madhu’s Coconut Milk Cashew 54% bar. The coconut and pumpkin meld together harmoniously, and the coconut chocolate further tempers the spice profile of the beer. Creamy, indulgent, and super cozy.

Cozy Associations

I have always loved pairing pumpkin pie with coffee, either after a holiday dinner or on the following mornings as breakfast. There’s even a popular holiday song that backs me up on this: there’s a happy feeling nothing in the world can buy, when they pass around the coffee and the pumpkin pie.

Keeping with the theme, I love pairing coffee chocolates with pumpkin beers. As long as the coffee is not overly aggressive or bitter and the spices in the beer are similarly restrained, this will be a beautiful combination. If possible, select a mid to lower percentage dark chocolate bar or even a milk or dark milk bar with coffee, such as Moka Espresso bar, Chocolats Latour Ginger Latte 45%, Terroir by Onyx’s line of coffee bars, or Manoa’s Kope Coffee bar.

Bright Contrast

If you want to contrast the creamy textures and warm flavors of a pumpkin beer with something brighter, try a dark chocolate with a cherry or cranberry inclusion. We’re already used to these flavors at least being enjoyed at the table together, even if we don’t always have them directly paired. The gentle tartness of the fruit will contrast with the sweetness of the beer and brighten the entire pairing, and both fruits will work with the baking spices in the beer as well. Bars like Ritual Candied Orange & Cranberry 70% or Moka Origins Tanzania Cherry are excellent choices.

You can get even more beer and chocolate pairing guidance with my Pairing Beer & Chocolate zine:

Other Fun Pairing Options

If you just want an indulgent textural pairing, reach for a plain dark milk bar. The smooth texture will make the beer feel like a silky pumpkin dessert, and then you’re just drizzling chocolate on top. Bars such as Latitude Dark Milk or Maverick Dark Milk are fine examples.

If you want to lean into the sweetness of the pairing and highlight those rich dessert flavors, you can pair with a bar that uses caramel, toffee, maple, or another dark sugar as an inclusion. The dark sugar will pull forward the malt character of the beer, provide obvious sweetness, and offer a fuller foundation for the gentle spices in the beer. Bars like Violet Sky Maple & Vanilla, Zotter Salted Caramel, or Omnom Caramel are good options.

Finally, while they can go off the rails if something is out of balance, you can create really fun contrasts with chili chocolate or smoked chocolate. Chili can pop against the pumpkin in fun ways, and the smoke can evoke the comfort of having a slice of pumpkin pie in front of the fireplace. Just be mindful of choosing a beer with gentle spicing and a bit of sweetness to prevent harshness in the pairing.

Now go grab a pumpkin beer, some chocolate, and celebrate the arrival of autumn!