Like craft beer, artisanal cheese is an affordable luxury with price points that make it accessible to just about anyone. While there are no hard and fast “rules” for pairing cheese and beer, and many pairing suggestions from experts are driven by personal taste, these suggestions are always a great place to start when thinking about your own pairings. Here, we asked cheesemongers Cody Cook and Travis Hines of Fort Collins, Colorado, cheese shop The Welsh Rabbit for their recommendations on successful beer and cheese pairings.
Match Intensity
The first thing to consider when pairing cheese and beer is the same principle that holds when pairing any food with beer—match the intensity of the beer with the intensity of the flavor of the cheese. The flavor curve of cheese tends to be the inverse of beer—while beer oxidizes and typically mellows in intensity as it ages, the flavors in cheese tend to become sharper, funkier, and more focused as cheese matures.
Lighter beers, such as pale lagers or wheats, pair very well with lighter fresh cheeses such as fresh mozzarellas/burratas or chèvres. Strong beers such as Belgian quads, imperial stouts, and barleywines can stand up to older, more pungent cheeses.