5 Beer And Cheese Pairings You Need To Try

You set out a beautiful cheese tray. You've followed Ina Garten's tips for choosing cheeses, so you start with a soft, creamy Brie and end with a hard, aged cheddar. You think about what you'll serve to drink and naturally your mind goes to wine. But if you want to switch it up and surprise your guests, why not ponder pairing your platter with beer? To know which cheeses work best with which beers, we asked John Montez, the training and curriculum manager at the venerable cheese emporium Murray's Cheese (@murrayscheese on Instagram), to share his suggestions exclusively with Chowhound. If you think the only time you need to wonder about beer and cheese is when picking the right brew for your beer cheese, Montez will prove you wrong. 

As a start, Montez says, "One way I think about pairing is as an attempt to bring out the most desirable characteristics of a cheese." He suggests, for example, that people consider matching the intensity of their cheese with the intensity of their beer. "For bold cheeses with a lot of age, look for bolder styles of beer."

John Montez's favorite cheeses to pair with Indian pale ales — or IPAs as they are commonly known — are English cheddars. These cheeses, he says, tend to have a grassy note. "Pairing them with an IPA that is very floral and hoppy brings out those grassy notes in the cheddar, making it taste even more English," he tells Chowhound. If you aren't a cheddar fan, Montez suggests pairing IPAs with other extra sharp cheeses like Parmesan. And if IPA isn't on your list of favorite beers, Montez suggests an oatmeal stout as an alternative.

"Malty beers are great pairing partners for cheese," John Montez says. The roasted and nutty notes of malty beers makes them a perfect partner for nutty Apine cheeses in particular. The roasted notes, he explains, bring out some of the beer's aromatic sweetness and balance well with the salty and lactic acid flavors in cheese. He specifically recommends Murray's Cave Aged Annelies, which is sweet and oniony, or La Noix D'Argental, a tomme-style cheese washed in a walnut liquor. Tomme-style cheeses are small-batch, semi-soft Alpine cheeses with a washed rind and a sweet, buttery flavor.

A lot of foods go great with lagers, like steak, seafood, and even chocolate. But, when it comes to cheese, John Montez suggests soft, mild varieties. With pilsners, which have a hoppy profile, he recommends soft, ripened goat cheeses. For wheat beers, he suggests cheeses like Murray's High Plains Cheddar or White Label Appenzeller, which can bring out the beer's tropical fruit notes.

For mild fresh cheeses, like burrata and ricotta, Montez prefers a clean and light lager, like Peroni. "The flavors should be clean and refreshing with good strong bubbles to clean the palate after eating such creamy cheeses," Montez says. Even with stronger fresh cheeses like chevre and feta, Montez recommends a mild, but slightly bolder beer, so as not to overpower the cheese. "I would stick with a lager, but you can go with something a little bolder like a schwarzbier. This should add a lovely aromatic sweetness to these salty and barnyardy cheeses." Schwarzbier is a dark German beer with a mild roasted flavor.

A robust beer needs a robust cheese. Since, as John Montez says, "blue cheese is about the most robust style of cheese there is," porters and stouts are the way to go. "Go for a dessert-style beer to bring out the warm spice notes of the cheese and balance the blue cheese's famous saltiness." Although you might not think blue cheese is for you, there are milder varieties that may appeal to your taste buds. Also consider pairing them with sweet jams and honey to bring out the sweet notes in both the cheese and the beer.

Pairing sour beers with cheese can be tricky, according to John Montez. "Cheeses bring their own kind of sour to the party in the form of lactic acid," he explains, noting that pairing a bitter beer with a bitter cheese can make the cheese taste acrid. This is especially true of cheeses with bloomy rinds like Brie and Camembert. For those cheeses, he says, "Look for lighter beers that do not have a very hoppy profile." He suggests sours, festbier, and Mexican-style lagers. Festbier is a pale German lager with a strong malty flavor and light hops.

Montez prefers funky washed rind cheeses with sour beers, particularly if the beer has some fruit in it. "It is all about balancing the funkiness with the aromatic sweetness of the beer." He particularly likes pairing Trappist ales, like a red label Chimay, with an Epoisses, a particularly pungent cheese made in Burgundy. Montez says, "This is a super traditional pairing that dates back to washed rind cheese's possible monastic origins during the Middle Ages. The mild fruitiness of the beer combined with the aromatic sweetness of the roasted malt perfectly balances the funky and meaty notes of the washed rind."