Pairing Craft Chocolate with Witbier & Hefeweizen
By David Nilsen
Craft beer and bean to bar chocolate can pair beautifully together with just a little bit of planning and intention. Today we’ll talk about how two similar styles of beer perfect for summer can be paired with craft chocolate.
Belgian Witbier and Bavarian Hefeweizen are both standard strength wheat ales with expressive fermentation flavors, and while they hail from different national traditions, pairing guidance for both with chocolate is pretty similar.
The Basics of Witbier
Modern Witbier traces back to the 1960s, when a former milkman named Pierre Celis revived the dying style. Low-strength wheat ales or pale all-malt ales have been brewed in different places across Europe for centuries, but Witbier itself was extinct by the mid-twentieth century; no examples were brewed in Belgium or anywhere else past the 1950s.
Pierre Celis wished to revive the style, but had no experience brewing and could work only from memory, extant brewing records, personal anecdotes, and his own flavor preferences when reconstructing the recipe. The beer he created was brewed in the town of Hoegaarden, and the eponymous brand was born. Years later it was purchased by the world’s largest brewery conglomerate (AB-Inbev, parent company of Anheuser Busch), and laid the pattern for a style that has maintained a low-level popularity in America, Belgium, and elsewhere ever since.
Does modern Witbier taste anything like the beers that preceded the style’s original extinction? Who knows, but the best versions today are delicious, and Witbier was the first style that made me realize I loved Belgian beer many years ago.
Witbier is usually around 4.5-5.5% alcohol, and features a soft, fluffy mouthfeel from the presence of unmalted wheat and a high carbonation level. The beer is cloudy but generally not opaque, and the best examples shimmer like antique gold in the glass. Modern Witbier is usually spiced with coriander and orange peel, spices that complement the gentle but expressive fermentation character of the Belgian ale yeast that ferments it.
Expect flavors of gentle fruit—citrus, lime—the ineffable herbaceous quality of coriander, soft banana, a touch of breadiness, and the faintest note of clove or nutmeg.
Great examples include St. Bernardus Wit and Vidett Extra White in Belgium and Allagash White and Avery White Rascal here in the U.S., among many others.
The Basics of Hefeweizen
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Hefeweizen enjoys a longer unbroken history in its homeland that Witbier, Wheat ales have been brewed in what is now southern Germany for centuries. The right to brew them was, for a time, reserved for the royal family. Eventually the Schneider Weisse brewery purchased the rights to brew wheat ales in the early 19th century, with other breweries joining them in the following decades.
While there are several German wheat ale styles, the most popular and common is Hefeweizen. Hefeweizen is brewed with an ale yeast strain that is known for producing an ester called isoamyl acetate—which tastes recognizably of banana and is even used in artificial banana flavoring—and a phenol called 4vinyl-guiacol—which most commonly comes across as cloves. Combined with the bready malt and wheat flavors, the beer is expressive but laid back, providing interest for the palate but encouraging another tall glass. The beer is usually a bit hazy, and its high carbonation combined with the wheat’s high protein content lends a tall stand of foam to a proper pour.
Great Hefeweizens include Schneider Weisse Original Hefe-Weizen and Weihenstephaner Hefeweissbier in Germany and Troegs Dream Weaver and Live Oak Hefeweizen here in the U.S., among many others.
Pairing with Chocolate
Despite the intriguing flavors of these beers, they are fairly light bodied and delicate, and they get bullied around by bolder chocolates. These two styles are fantastic for pairing with the smooth textures and delicate flavors of many craft white chocolates, particularly white chocolates with gentle fruit or coffee inclusions. I’ll give an example with each style.
Seipp Brewing Bavarian Hefeweizen from Chicago is a drier, lighter version of the style than many American examples, with light floral clove notes, quiet banana, and slightly elevated perceived bitterness for the style.
Triangle Roasters Latte White Chocolate with espresso and milk provides a lovely pairing here, with the coffee providing a crisp, nutty contrast to the banana notes in the beer, and in turn being deepened by the clove spice of the beer. This is a great summertime pairing, and while I’m saddened Triangle Roasters is no more, a bar like Solkiki Yirgacheffe Coffee Redskin Peanut White Chocolate could similarly work very well.
Mother Stewart's Witbier from Ohio offers delicate flavors of orange peel, herbal coriander, subtle banana and clove, and light breadiness in a light but pillowy body.
Paired with Nostalgia Chocolate's Pineapple Coconut Milk White bar, this laid-back beer adds a foundational breadiness to the tropical flavors of the chocolate. The coconut and coriander dissolve into each other, and because the pairing is so light, even the low alcohol of this beer adds a spiritous note to the piña colada flavors of the chocolate.
While both of these beers are geographically limited, you could use any well-brewed Hefeweizen or Witbier in place of these selections.
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.