Menu
Drinking a fine artisanal beer with a dessert is an extraordinary experience and a real treat for the senses. I really enjoy drinking a stout and appreciating its chocolate and coffee taste or a british amber ale with its nutty and malty flavour. I also love Belgian fruity-flavoured Iambic beers, and honey beers so flowery and delicate. I believe that all these special flavours make these beers particularly well suited for drinking with traditional and innovative desserts.
Close your eyes for a moment and imagine yourself eating a chocolate cake with a cup of coffee. The roasted flavour of coffee blends deliciously with the aroma of chocolate and is combined with its smooth creaminess.
The same happens when you drink a glass of stout with your chocolate cake. And if the cake is warm, you will find the contrast with the cool (not cold) beer very pleasent. Indeed, some good stouts taste of coffee and well-made stouts also have notes of chocolate and liquorice or caramel from the blend of roasted malts. Personally, I have tasted super good ones and I believe that the practice of adding in chocolate powder, coffee or even lactose is un-necessary, when a stout is brewed with good roasted malts, with skilled brewing techniques and with the right dose of passion.
However, stouts are beers that I highly recommend with chocolate cakes! Here are some tips on which desserts to pair with a fine craft stout and a recipe that will delight you: birramisu!
Chocolate cake is not the only dessert to be enjoyed with stout.
I love cheesecake and my preference isNew York cheesecake, with a hint of lemon to make it just slightly sour. When I travel in the US, I always drink great stouts with cheesecake and when I return to Switzerland, I order a stout every time I get my hands on a cheesecake. Cheesecake and stout combine perfectly together in the mouth. The sensation is that of tasting milk chocolate with a splash of coffee.
For the same reasons, a fine stoutwith roasted coffee aromas goes very well with chocolate bars. If tasted together with beers, a white chocolate bar would be comparable in taste sensations to cheesecake and a milk chocolate bar would be equivalent to a chocolate cake. When I organise beer and food tasting events, I often offer a Gianduiotto together with our Liberica stout.Gianduiotto, named after Gianduja, the traditional mask of Piedmont, is a very fine chocolate mixed with hazelnuts from Piedmont, with a flavour very similar to the famous Nutella. The hazelnut flavour of this chocolate is a great match with the roasted notes of the stout.
Cooking with Stout: Tiramisu and Birramisu
Tiramisu has been a popular dessert in Italy and around the world since the 1980s. I absolutely recommend enjoying it with a good stout. The beer bubbles would wash out the greasiness of the mascarpone cheese and each bite would be as delicious as the first. The coffee and chocolate flavours of the stout match those of Tiramisu.
There are many Tiramisu recipes and I especially like those that contain a little of alcohol in the coffee in which the ladyfingers are dipped: for example, Marsala wine or Rhum.
In recent years, with the craft beer revolution, tiramisu has found a worthy sibling in beer: Birramisu. Various beer styles, including IPA and Pilsner, can be used as ingredients either mixed with Mascarpone cream or blended with coffee used for the Ladyfingers. My top choice is stout. Here is a recipe you can try yourself.
Prepare your Birramisu with the stout Liberica
Step 1
Whip the egg whites until stiff with a whisk to create a voluminous foam. Add the egg whites thus whipped to the yolk and mascarpone mixture, mixing the cream from the bottom to the top.
Step 2
Prepare the coffee and wait until it is cold. Pour the cold coffee into a large bowl. Add the stout beer and mix. Soak the ladyfingers on both sides, quickly, to prevent them from getting too wet, then arrange them on the bottom of a rectangular baking tin, side by side.
Step 3
Cover the ladyfingers with a layer of cream. Repeat the operation until you run out of ingredients, finishing with the cream. Leave to chill in the fridge for an hour and, when ready to serve, dust the surface with an even layer of sifted cocoa.
Step 4
For a complete beer experience, use only the stout (300 mL) to soak the ladyfingers. This is for true beer lovers, especially if you use a good craft beer. Also, you will avoid the side effect of caffeine, which will keep you awake during the night.
Stouts are great to drink with desserts that would traditionally require a cup of coffee. Chocolates, chocolate cakes, cheesecake and tiramisu are just some of the delicious desserts waiting to be accompanied by a great beer. It is worth it!
Let us know in the comments below what you think of our suggestions and how your friends enjoyed the stout.
