What to Drink with Blue Cheese

 With just a few exceptions, blue cheeses are bold cheeses, so when it comes to pairing them with beverages you must take care that the accompaniment doesn’t get left in the shadows. In addition to classic wine pairings, blue cheeses can pair with a wide range of beverages including brandy, beer, and even coffee.  

 

Classic Wine Pairings 

 For beverage pairing as well as integration on a plate or a grazing table, there are some well-known standards, but also opportunities for surprises. Steve Jones, who co-authored Cheese Beer Wine Cider: A Field Guide to 75 Perfect Pairings, says Stilton has a favorite partner in a wine that originated in Portugal. “The classics in beverages are Stilton and Ports. I also love Stilton with Barleywine,” says Jones who owns The Cheese Bar in Portland, Ore.  “Another classic is Roquefort and Sauternes.” The sweetness and big body of those drinks are a perfect foil to the salt and acidity found in the stronger blues.  

 

Brandy

Another favorite pairing of his is a particular French pear brandy with Bleu de Basque, a sheep’s milk moldy from the Basque region of France.  Not all blues are big bruisers, however, and some that are balanced toward the sweet and nutty flavors of the base cheese do well with partners that are also more nuanced. 

 
Bay Blue photo courtesy of Point Reyes Farmstead Cheese Co.

Bay Blue photo courtesy of Point Reyes Farmstead Cheese Co.

Restrained blues such as Cambazola and Chiriboga Blue should work with a delicate rose and light-bodied white wines or beer. Any balanced blue with a restrained attack, such as Rogue Smokey from Rogue Creamery, or Bay Blue from Point Reyes Farmstead Cheese Co., Point Reyes, Calif., pairs nicely with a brown ale such as Bell’s Best Brown from Bell’s Brewery in Michigan, and should work with wines and ciders of medium intensity.  

 

Beer 

Stouts and Porters, with their roasted malt flavors, also complement the creaminess in a full fat blue and can help moderate the acidic “blue attack.” “I Love Smokey Blue from Oregon’s Rogue Creamery,” Jones says.  “It’s a fantastic match with Bourbon barrel-aged stouts.” Those complex brews offer sweetness, chocolate and vanilla, and sometimes a “complementary smokiness.” Jones says. 

About ten years ago I worked furiously for a year or two on a blog at the Cheese and Cheers website.  Most of that involved pairing beer and cheese. It was common practice then and still is now, to pair blue cheeses with dark beers with roasted flavors. While those pairings are natural, I have also found that strong IPAs, like Lagunitas Hop Stoopid and even Belgian strong golden ales such as Duvel and the American Golden Monkey, play nicely with blue cheeses, so long as you remember to match by intensity.  It’s always fun to see if two things with great similarity will complement one another or cancel.  I think blues and bright hoppy beers find some resonance.  In that vein, I have paired smoked cheeses with smoked beers, with decent results. I once helped host a massive beer and cheese pairing event in a friend’s backyard that featured more than 20 cheeses and an equal number of beers. The favorite pairing of that night was Goose Island’s classic Bourbon County Stout with Bayley Hazen Blue, a Stilton-style blue from Jasper Hill Farm. 

 
Rogue River Blue photo credit: Beryl Striewski

Rogue River Blue photo credit: Beryl Striewski

Coffee 

There are currently a couple of truly fantastic blues produced in the U.S. that go beyond our expectations for cheese. Rogue Creamery’s Rogue River Blue and Sequatchie Cove Creamery’s Shakerag Blue are both wrapped in leaves that have been soaked in spirits. The cheeses are exceptional, to begin with, but they are transformed by the treatments and end up tasting of things like chocolate, bacon or sassafras and anise. To me, they behave like a sweet pastry, so I enjoy them with coffee, or a beverage reminiscent of coffee.  

David Phillips