Great Combinations: Beer + Cheese = Notable Taste

For years, wine and cheese have been the ultimate in food and drink pairings. Now, local brewers are working to change that thinking by pairing beer with cheese.

At Red Eye Brewing Co. in Wausau, brewmaster Kevin Eichelberger and chef David Lorio have hosted beer and cheese events and even offer a Wisconsin cheese tour on their menu.

"The two pair really well together. Cheese has a lot of oil and fat, so you want something hoppy with a little bitterness to help lift the oils off the tongue," Eichelberger said.

Eichelberger maintains that the complexities in beer sometimes can match better with cheese than can wine.

"Wine is either red or white, sweet or dry. But with beer, you have more than 200 different malts, 75 different hops, hundreds of yeast strains, and they're all very different in what they contribute," he said. "You can find a lot of different flavors that meld with food."

The trick to pairing beer with cheese is to match the intensity of flavors.

"You want to balance similarities," said David Lorio, chef and general manager at Red Eye. "You'd want to use a heavy stout with something rich like a blue cheese."

The stout Eichelberger brews contains lactose, which complements the cheese well, he said.

"With the stout, you end up with a residual sweetness that counters the sharpness of the cheese," Eichelberger said.

Likewise, lighter beers pair well with milder cheeses.

"A Belgian-style dubbel, like our Scarlet 7, which is really malty, pairs well with a Gouda cheese," Eichelberger said.

"We roast figs that we use in the beer, and it gives it raisiny undertones, earthy tones, that the gouda pairs well with," Lorio said.

To read the rest of the story, please go to: Wausau Daily Herald