I sampled numerous food and beer partnerships during last month's Savor: An American Craft Beer & Food Experience event, some good, other very good and some, well, let's just say unfortunate.
Then there were the two or three that simply blew me away.
One of this last set was the New Holland Brewing Dragon's Milk Oak Aged Ale with Maytag Blue cheese, and another was the Schlafly Reserve 2006 Bourbon Barrel Aged Imperial Stout and fudge stout brownies. But the most impressive pairing was also, for me, the most unexpected: Stoudt's Pilsner with a Christopher Elbow Spiced Artisan Chocolate with a citrus center.
It shouldn't have worked. Of all the beers that marry wonderfully with chocolate, pilsner is one of the least likely. But in this instance, the tart citrus center of the chocolate captured deliciously the bitterness of the beer and, as I said at the time to Carole Stoudt, took the beer further north in Germany. (The Stoudt Pilsner, which by the way is a lovely beer, is decidedly Germanic in style, but with a hint of Bavarian helles thrown in for fun.) It was a combination I would not even have considered making, and yet it was positively delicious. Confounding matters further, the same chocolate also made a very nice partner to Clipper City's Loose Cannon Hop 3 Ale, a hoppy-fruity-malty beast of a beer.
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