It's the time of year where all the newspapers and bloggers compile lists. The Best... The Worst... The Most... etc. My favorite form of this list is when The Best gets tied to food and drink. The best turkey recipe (Alton Brown's brined turkey is, by far, what I consider to be "the best"), the best mashed potatoes, the best stuffing, the best apple pie, and the best beer to go with the most American of holidays, the glutton-fest of Thanksgiving. The trouble is not everyone agrees on what it is to be "the best". One man's taste symphony is another's 5-year-old-kid-that-found-how-to-open-the-piano.
So today, instead of creating yet another list of beers to have on Thanksgiving, I have taken a cue from Metacritic and created my meta analysis of Thanksgiving beer pairings. You can find my complete list of suggestions here.
Topping the list is Belgian Ales. This category covers Belgian beers from trappists to tripels. Perhaps nothing goes better with food than Belgian beers. They are complex enough to have flavors that both complement and contrast a wide variety of foods.
A distant second goes to the neighboring style of Saison. Saison is another good choice due to it's spicy, complex character and crisp mouth-cleansing palate. This is my personal favorite style for the holiday.
Bronze goes to Brown Ale. Another fine choice. Nothing puts me in the holiday spirit like the roasty and nutty character of a brown ale.
This year I will be going the route of a first Thanksgiving style dinner and drinking Crispin's The Saint, an apple cider fermented with Belgian abby yeast and maple syrup. It is delicious, and a nice nod to that first meal.
Good call with the cider.
ReplyDeleteMy pairing of choice was Leinenkugel's Berry Weiss. We didn't have any cranberry product with the dinner so it was a great "substitute."
-tim