Doughnuts & Beer

It’s National Doughnut Day!  The past 24 hours have given me cause to question some of my own convictions & backpedal a little.  I’ve written in the past on my skepticism of the success of pairing beer with food (with the exception of cheese).  An especially big hole in the argument for food & beer pairing, for me, was dessert.  Rich, sweet desserts have been a really formidable challenge – any sweetness the beer packs is usually way overwhelmed by chocolate, sugar, concentrated fruit, etc., leaving the beer a bitter, hollow shell of itself.

But y’know…I was listening to a salon from Savor led by Dr. Bill Sysak, Stone’s beverage supervisor & the “grandfather of beer geeks”.  He was pairing beers with artisanal doughnuts from a doughnut/fried chicken place in DC (sounds awesome, right?), & it really whet my appetite to give this another try.  I live close to one of the area’s most beloved bakeries, & am really tempted right now to grab a half-dozen fatty, sweet pastries & hunker down with a few glasses of beer.  Keep in mind, I haven’t done this yet – it may be a disaster.  But damn does it sound good!

Okay, the thing to remember is that, yeah, doughnuts are pretty heavy, flavorful foods, so the beers should pack a punch of taste of their own if they hope to not get plowed over.  Here’s an instance where bigger will probably be better – higher ABV, higher volume of ingredients, higher likelihood of matching the doughnuts’ intensity.  I think I’ve also run into trouble in the past with redundant flavors – no matter how big, a chocolate beer will just get squashed by a chocolate doughnut, so aim for complementing.  A couple possibilities come to mind:

--Coffee imperial stouts/porters:  The bitter roast of coffee is the doughnut’s better half, & while there are “regular” stouts & porters with coffee, I think the intensity here will be a must, once again.  Pretty much any doughnut will fit the bill here, but I’ll go for my favorites, a classic, simple cake or sour cream.

--Barleywines:  Especially English-style, which carry a lot more toffee & caramel notes, along with some dried fruit, than their American brethren.  However, I can also see the potential in a hot, hoppy west coast barleywine, with some candied orange & pineapple notes. 

--Thick fruit beers:  You know what I’m thinking – Lindemans.  Sweet, rich fruit with a hint of balancing tartness.  Get a simple glazed yeast doughnut, & a sweet fruit beer, & make a jelly doughnut in your mouth.  Other fruit beers will work, but again, you’ve got to keep in mind to match intensity, & few fruit beers are as intense as these babies – it’s like a flute of sorbet.

--Rauchbier:  Liquid bacon, right?  Grab a maple doughnut & go to town.  I’ve found that a lot of other smoked beers don’t quite have that cured, salty taste that German Rauchbiers do, particularly the Ur-Bock & Eiche from Aecht Schlenkerla.

--Double IPA:  Sounds insane, right?  Super-sweet with super-bitter.  Patron saint Randy Mosher is a big proponent of the “matter/anti-matter” pairing of IPA & carrot cake, taking contrast to new heights.  Personally, I’d go for a doughnut with cream cheese icing to put next to a double IPA.  DIPAs on the citric side can cut the heaviness, & those on the sweet side tend to carry cakey notes that might go well with a doughnut.  Try it out!

Keep in mind these are just a few suggestions – the real thesis of the Dr. Bill presentation was that there really no rules to beer & food pairing, so go nuts.  You might stumble on something transcendent.  With beer, anything is possible.  Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some research to do.