Did you know that pairing craft beer and pizza is trickier than you think? No? What’s wrong with you? Did you think you could just get away with ordering up your favorite pie and inadvertently pairing it with (gasp!) any old favorite beer?
All along you’ve been thinking it’s a simple task and then . . . wham! The experts at TheDailyMeal.com tell us “pairing craft beers and pizza is trickier than you might think.”
No, it’s not.
But let’s hear them out. Why does The Daily Meal think its trickier than we thought? Multiple ingredients. Unlike, say deciphering the perfect beer pairing to go with the tanginess of some Humboldt Fog cheese, those sadistically clever pizza chefs give us a “whole slew” of competing flavors. What’s a pizza loving guy to do?
According to The Daily Meal, “[m]ore often than not, we pick a regular old light beer because in our heads, it balances out the heaviness of the pizza.”
Uh . . no.
I don’t know about you, but more often than not if I pick a regular old light beer to “pair” with my pizza it’s because the pizza joint didn’t have anything else. In which case I’m probably drinking diet coke. The magical sweetness and bite of which dances playfully off a perfectly spiced red sauce.
To be fair, this . . . ahem . . . article isn’t trying to be too highbrow and we all know it serves as nothing more than click bait. Which is why I’m not linking to it. (And I know half of you just googled it anyway.)
In its own poor way, it does remind us that the exercise of pairing beer and food is not reserved for meals none of us outside a culinary institute know how to make. It IS okay to think about pairing beer and pizza. And to its credit, the article includes this line: “But ultimately, the best part of pairing pizza with craft beer? Trying all the combinations yourself.”
Yes! We have a winner. I subscribe heavily to that principle. In which case, there is no “best” craft beer to pair with pizza. But mentioning that would eliminate the entire point of the article, thus causing mass layoffs for click bait writers.
Assuming you’ve managed to resist the temptation to give the click bait makers exactly what they want, I’m sure you’re nevertheless wondering what the experts* at The Daily Meal picked for the best craft beer to pair with pizza.
Fist up, Margherita pizza: Peroni. Second up, Pizza Alla Vodka: Blue Moon . . . .**
And somewhere a Brewers Association staffer threw up a little in her Avery DuganA IPA.
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*Actually it was just one person, the owner of a pizza joint in New York who is probably a very nice person – and kudos to her for having pizza and beer pairing suggestions at her restaurant. It’s not her fault the click bait makers ticked me off.
** The following four selection did have some nice craft beers suggested.
