We recently celebrated our 50th Anniversary here at Holiday Wine Cellar, and to celebrate this momentous occasion, we collaborated with Stone Brewery on a special 50th anniversary beer. In light of our anniversary falling on March 17th, St. Patrick’s Day, the beer that we chose to brew is an Imperial Irish Stout which has been brewed in a very limited quantity.

This beer made its way out to a select few fine eating and drinking establishments throughout San Diego, and when I heard that Pizza Port Solana Beach had it on tap, I had to seize the opportunity to try our beer with their pizza.

Pizza Port Solana Beach

An institution in the San Diego craft beer scene.

I was not too sure how the beer would react with the pizza, and just in case it did not make for an ideal pairing, I included a few other pairing options as well for good measure. Here are the beers that I tried with the pizza, in tasting order:

  • Pizza Port Saison De Mule: a saison with lime and ginger which is light and refreshing with a pronounced lime flavor and a touch of ginger to add a little zip to the mix
  • Pizza Port Chronic: An amber ale with a caramel malt flavor and a strictly balancing hop presence
  • Stone Pale Ale: This is the last batch of Stone’s original Pale Ale, which they are  modernizing with  a revamped recipe. This Pale Ale is more of an English style pale ale, boasting a reserved floral hop presence with a bit of spice, along with a caramel malt flavor and a touch of peach and apricot
  • Stone Brewing Co. Holiday Wine Cellar 50th Anniversary Imperial Irish Stout: Wow, what a mouthful, but so is the beer itself. Staying true to the Irish Dry Stout style, this beer finishes drier than most imperial stouts. This allows the roast character to really shine, imbuing intense flavors of coffee, dark chocolate, and a bit of dark brown sugar.

As for the pizza, I split it down the middle with two varieties:

  • Ocean Beach: Bacon, portabella mushrooms, asparagus, roasted red peppers, squash, and a two-cheese combination of mozzarella and Gorgonzola.
  • Buffalo Chicken: Mozzarella lays down the base with grilled chicken, red onion, and buffalo sauce.

What I was looking for within each pizza variety was a flavor link with the stout. I chose the Ocean Beach pizza because the butternut squash and bacon could link up nicely with the stout with rich, sweet, and smokey flavors. For the other half, the spice and intensity of the buffalo sauce should make for a nice pairing with the intense roasty and slightly sweet flavor of the stout. And off we go…

Ocean Beach Pizza Pairing

I tried the beers with the Ocean Beach pizza first. The Saison De Mule was an OK pairing, the flavors remaining constant and not quite linking with anything in the pizza. The Chronic fell completely flat and my palate yearned for more flavor intensity to stand up to this flavor bomb of a pizza. The pale ale stood up a little better than the chronic with more hop bitterness and flavor, but still came up short.

So it was up to our very own anniversary to save the pairing, and it delivered. While it was not ideal, it worked. The stout served to stand up to the flavors of the pizza, albeit being even a bit overwhelming, as can be expected from such a big beer (it clocks in at 9.5% alcohol by volume). Really though, it was just great to try this beer again; Stone really nailed it with this one.

Pizza Port Beer Pairing

A flight of pizza pairing beers. Our anniversary stout is on the far right.

 

Buffalo Chicken Pizza Pairing

On to the buffalo chicken pizza. It should be noted that the sauce had a touch of heat, but was not particularly spicy – it leaned toward a sweeter buffalo sauce flavor. Still, it was quite delicious, just not exactly what I was expecting.

Despite the faint spiciness of the pizza, though, the Saison De Mule managed to bring out the heat quite a bit. The ginger in the beer I believe reacted with the slight heat in the pizza and they amplified each other, turning the beer into a Jamaican Jerk Saison of sorts. The Chronic fell a little flat again. This beer probably calls for a plain cheese pizza. I actually chose it because a customer mentioned that it goes very well with the pizza at Pizza Port, and I have tried it with various pastas and tortellini with marinara sauce, which made for some excellent pairings. But again, it is probably more cut out for a plain or minimally topped and flavored pizza.

Our anniversary stout was too much for this pizza, overpowering the flavor of it and proving to be one dimensional when the two came together. Stay tuned for more pairings with this beer.

I did, however, find a great pairing in the Stone Pale Ale. The irony here is that when I ordered this beer, I thought that I was ordering Stone’s revamped Pale Ale 2.0. The new and improved version of this beer, with its more intense, west coast-inspired hop flavor and bitterness should offset the heavy dough and palate-coating cheese in the pizza. Such was my thinking at least, which was thwarted by the fact that it was a different beer altogether than what I actually ordered.

It proved to be a happy mistake, though, because this now-discontinued original Stone Pale Ale worked wonderfully with the Buffalo Chicken Pizza. The mango and apricot flavor that I mentioned earlier was brought to the forefront, and the beer was transformed into a juicier, sweeter, and fruitier version of its former self.

And this is the last batch of this beer that will ever be brewed. Isn’t life funny like that? But this inspires to continue the exploration of beer and food pairings. And there will most definitely be another great pairing.