Pairing Standard-Strength Porters & Stouts with Craft Chocolate
By David Nilsen
Click the picture to learn more about my book Pairing Beer & Chocolate!
Porter and Stout styles in the 4.5-6.5% ABV range—including American Porter, English Porter, Oatmeal Stout, Milk Stout, Irish Stout, and some American Stouts—all have origins in the British Isles. Some are brewed by U.S. breweries in their classic form, and some have been adapted into uniquely American styles on their own. Despite difference between these styles, they follow similar pairing guidelines with chocolate.
These styles are dark in color and feature various roasty flavors and aromas from the presence of roasted malts. These grains are roasted similar to how coffee beans and cacao beans get roasted, and take on many of the same flavor notes—coffee and chocolate are two common flavor descriptors for these beer styles.
Some examples show a touch of sweetness, the specific roast flavors will vary, and individual examples differ in their intensity of hop aroma and hop bitterness. Despite these differences, most beers in these styles will cast a wide net in pairing situations and can work solidly with a wide range of chocolates, making them good to have on hand for impromptu pairings. The trick here is transcending the good pairings to find the great ones.
Before we look at specific pairing advice for these Porter and Stout styles, let’s get a few exceptions out of the way:
Irish Stouts are quite dry, and some examples have a fairly high level of bitterness that can make them difficult to pair with chocolate. If you run across an example with elevated bitterness, it will likely not make a great chocolate pairing beer.
Guidance for stronger examples of American Stout aligns with that for Strong Porters & Stouts. I’ll be posting about pairings with these bold beers soon!
Guidance for hoppier examples of American Porter are better off following pairing guidance for Black IPAs in this blog post.
Pairing with Chocolate
Challenges: While the roast profiles of these beers will bridge to many chocolates, the varying levels of roast intensity, dryness, and hop bitterness can make dialing these in a case-by-case issue. Also, because might be used to associating flavors like chocolate, coffee, and burnt caramel with sweetness, it can be difficult to gauge how sweet these beers really are.
Seek out: Look for single origin dark chocolate bars in the 65-75% cacao range, particularly those with a classic chocolatey, nutty, and/or caramel-forward profile, such as Ghana. While pairing these beers with these bars won’t be mind-blowing, it will result in familiar, comforting, and easy combinations. Also, look for milk or dark bars with coconut, maple, nut, berry, or salted caramel inclusions, all of which will work well with underlying chocolate-like notes of these beers.
Avoid: Stay away from high percentage dark chocolate bars, most fruit inclusions, bold herb or spice inclusions, and anything boldly acidic. All of these bars have characteristics that can cause harsh bitterness with the dry bodies, roast flavors, and hop bitterness possible in these styles.
Example:
Great Lakes Edmund Fitzgerald Porter from Ohio and New Holland The Poet Oatmeal Stout from Michigan have their differences—the former has a drier body and higher hop bitterness, the latter a more milk chocolate-like foundation with low bitterness—but both pair wonderfully with XocolATL Spooky Mermaids, a 60% bar from Atlanta made with coconut milk and sea salt.
The coconut pulls forward the chocolate notes in both beers, while the creamy mouthfeel tames the hops in the Porter a bit. These are both simple pairings, but delightful.
While this next beer is a bit of an outlier in its style, I must share the pairing that first knocked me silly with how beautifully beer and chocolate could pair together. Both the beer and the chocolate are now retired, but the memory of this pairing lives on in my memories.
Ommegang's Beekman 1802 Goat Milk Stout from New York had aromas of milk chocolate and coffee with cream, and an underlying warmth that brought to mind flannel and hay. There was a gentle sweetness and a whisper of warm, comforting earthiness.
I paired it with The Salty Cow from Patric, a 58% dark milk bar with crunchy sea salt. It was a luxuriously smooth bar with its own subtle, earthy funk from the salt. Together they made their own Pinterest board of cozy, rustic refinement, and would have made a sublime pairing for the world’s most contemplative fall hayride.
Final Thoughts
The versatility of beers in these Porter and Stout styles make them great beers to have on hand for pairings, and good choices if you’re hosting friends for an in-home beer and chocolate pairing. If you don’t have specific courses planned, one of these styles will work with a number of different bars and allow your guests to find some easy combinations, even if they aren’t the single most memorable pairings of the event.
Let me know what pairings you discover between craft chocolate and standard-strength Porters and Stouts!