Both beer and pastry have huge culinary followings. But at first glance, the two don't seem a natural fit. The guests at the San Francisco Baking Institute's (SFBI) recent beer and pastry pairing event beg to differ, and after two hours and 13 pairings, the beer and pastry combination won a lot of converts. Raj Dev, a certified sommelier, hosted the Suds & Sweets event at SFBI's retail arm, Thorough Bread and Pastry, San Francisco.

Finding the right matches

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Photo by Renata Foucre

Beer has long been considered wine's rustic sibling. But with microbreweries around the country embracing the artisan movement, craft-brewed beer is becoming as complex, nuanced and worthy of thoughtful consumption as fine wine — and it is often priced accordingly. Each craft-brewed beer is unique, reflecting the special techniques and brewing style of the individual brewer. The best beers merit pairing with sophisticated food, and often match pastries and desserts beautifully.

But designing a tasting program can be a daunting task, given the countless possible combinations of different types of beers and savory and sweet pastries. It took three sittings and more than 35 beers to find the right matches for the selected pastries at the SFBI event.

In successful pairings, the beer enhances the pastry and the pastry enhances the beer. Some pairings work because similar flavor notes tie the two together. For example, pairing a fruit-based dessert with a beer with similar fruit notes, or a caramel-flavored dessert with a beer that also has caramel and toffee notes, is a step in the right direction. Other pairings work because dissimilar flavor notes complement each other in familiar ways. A beer with coffee, caramel and toffee notes may pair with a chocolate dessert, a combination that recalls a favorite confection, while another beer with spice notes pairs with a fruit pastry, reminiscent of a comforting fruit pie. Still others succeed by contrasting different flavors and textures. With its natural bitterness and acidity, beer can provide a foil to an otherwise too-sweet dessert. Conversely, the sweetness in the dessert can highlight the grassy hops flavor of beer.

When trying to find pairings, keep an open mind and experiment. Sometimes, combinations that sound great on paper don't work out, yet what seems like a mismatch ends up being a winner. When developing your own tastings, enlist local experts, including distributors and aficionados. They are usually more than happy to help you prepare for and promote your event.

Gibassier succeeds paired with beer

For the Suds & Sweets menu, Dev chose six beers and six pastries. He structured the menu in a staggered progression, so each pastry was matched with two successive beers and vice versa. This staggering of beers and pastries allows guests a side-by-side comparison to help them decide which beer pairs best with which pastry.

A pastry that was particularly successful and interesting when paired with beer was the gibassier, a traditional, yeast-raised provençal celebration bread made with olive oil, anise seed, candied orange peel and orange flower water. The formula and method are provided.

Maudite, a Belgian strong red ale from Unibroue Brewery, stood out when paired with the gibassier due to its citrus, spice and bread nose. The beer's spice highlighted the anise in the gibassier, and the bready, malty nose of the beer matched the yeast flavors in the pastry.

The gibassier also was paired with a triple-style Belgian ale, Tripel Karmeliet from Bosteels Brewery. The biscuit-like nose and lemony finish of the Tripel Karmeliet married well with the candied orange peel of the yeasty gibassier.

The variety of artisan pastries and craft beers in the United States has never been broader and the quality never higher. Pairing the two for a bakery tasting offers the food lover one of the best values for drinks that can pair beautifully with food, even when that food is as unexpected as pastry.

More pairing possibilities

To ease guests into the idea of enjoying beer and pastries together, Dev started the event with a simple pairing of a savory pastry and a drinking beer with wide appeal: parmesan-herb gougères and Tripel Karmeliet. Both the pastry and the beer exhibit biscuit notes that complement the gougère's buttery cheese and herb flavors. The cheese puff helps smooth out the beer, as the fat on the tongue cushions the beer's bite.

A decadent caramel napoleon was the second pairing for the Tripel Karmeliet. The beer's dry, lemony finish provides a pleasant contrast with the rich caramel mousseline cream in the dessert. This dessert was then paired with a second beer, Floris Apple from Brouwerij Huyghe. Apple juice is co-fermented in the beer to create this Belgian witbier ale. The combination of strong green apple and spice notes in the Floris Apple pairs nicely with the caramel dessert, making a fun combination reminiscent of caramel apples.

The next course featured a simple puff pastry apple galette with the Floris Apple beer. In this case, bringing together similar flavor notes did not harmonize for everyone, as some tasters felt the sliced apple of the pastry distorted the Floris, creating an unpleasant, artificial apple flavor (“Jolly Rancher,” said one participant). Some tasters felt Trois Pistoles, a strong, dark Belgian-style ale from Unibroue Brewery, worked better with the puff pastry, as it not only cut through the sweetness, but also was improved by the pairing.

The fourth pairing featured an indulgent tart of chocolate crémeux, glazed with a layer of dark chocolate nestled in a chocolate pâte sucrée shell lined with salted caramel. The robust chocolate and caramel flavors of the dessert stood up well to the highly carbonated Trois Pistoles, bringing out the beer's chocolate and caramel notes. The tart was then paired with the vintage-dated 2007 Samichlaus Helles from Brauerei Schloss Eggenberg, an oak-aged doppelbock lager with a warm, cognac-like finish. It took a dessert with strong flavors to stand up to the strong beer.

The fifth course — carrot cake with toasted walnuts and cream cheese icing — was paired with EKU 28, a doppelbock lager from Kulmbacher Brauerei, and Maudite. The light carbonation and raisin and spice notes of EKU 28 were appropriate for the tender cake. In contrast, the Maudite's assertive carbonation brought out the spice notes of the cake.

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