The Best Beers To Pair With Lobster for Summer 2023
Good beer can be relished in so many ways. Like wine connoisseurs enjoy pairing the best wines with delicious meals, beer connoisseurs like to do the exact thing with their favorite beer.
Written by CraftJack | Updated | 4 min read
While wines can be combined with endless types of food, beers often don’t have matching food pairings. Yet, this one food isn’t fried chicken or french fries that goes hand in hand with a pint of beer—a lobster.
Lobsters are considered to be a delicacy in most parts of the world. They’re not the most inexpensive meal globally, but it pays off each time you get one. For that reason, we must be wise in choosing the drink to pair with the lobster because a poorly selected drink can ruin this savory dish.
After all, the point of ordering or preparing a lobster is to treat and spoil yourself, so it’s always worth it to spend a little extra time picking an excellent beer to complement the taste of your meal. This article will look at the five best beers to pair with a lobster to make the most fitting addition to the delicious meal you’re about to have.
Just thinking about lobster has us wondering if you could open a beer with a lobster claw. Hmm.
Anyway, the beers!
Belfast Bay Lobster Ale
Was there even a doubt? Of course Lobster Ale would be on this list. Even if it didn't go well with the dish, it would have to be on here because of its name alone. And, better still, it's from Northern Maine (way past Bar Harbor).
Thanks to Belfast Bay Brewing for this delicious copper ale.
Fresh Catch
Narragansett's Blonde Ale is touted by the brewery as being supremely refreshing, which is why we think it pairs well with plate of cooked crustaceans. Gansetts have been brewed for 130 years and enjoyed by seaworthy fisherfolk for every one of them. Fresh Catch is a comfortable reward for surviving the harsh environs of the sea.
The Wylam Jakehead IPA
This IPA beer from Newcastle, England, has a distinctive bronze/amber color and a bright citrus flavor. Downing on the beer, the dominant taste is that of pineapple, blended with grapefruit, orange, and mango. The Wylam Jakehead is a remarkably juicy beer with fruity sound tones that result in a supremely drinkable beverage.
With a taste just as satisfying as the aroma of the hops that are loud and clear, this IPA is a fantastic option to pair up with a lobster. The juiciness of grilled lobster with freshly squeezed lemon goes particularly well with the bright and stimulating taste of Wylam, which makes it the perfect craft beer to accompany your delicious meal.
Pivo Pils By Firestone Walker Brewing Company
The Pivo Pils is another hoppy pilsner with a clean, crisp flavor and floral and herbal notes that go well with any lobster or lobster roll. This beer is a dry-hopped pilsner with a bready malt scent, golden color, and dry finish. And although it’s a flavorsome beer to drink by itself, its herbal and floral notes make this beer pair so well with freshly seasoned lobster. The clean, light savors go perfectly well with lobster prepped with herbs like parsley, dill, or lemongrass.
Named after the Slavic word for beer and greatly inspired by the dry-hopped Tipopils from Birrificio Italiano, Pivo is a drinkable beverage you should consider getting if you’re planning to have a lobster for lunch or dinner.
Allagash White By Allagash Brewing Company
Allagash White is a wheat beer from Portland, Maine, the unofficial home of the lobster roll. In that manner, this beer makes for a perfect match with freshly caught lobster off the coast of Maine.
Other than being the ideal accompaniment for buttery lobster rolls, wheat beers are also the perfect complement to any buttery lobster dishes as the telltale aromas and flavors of wheat beer provide a citrusy and zesty punch to the palette, which is soothed out with bites of steamed or boiled lobster smothered in butter.
However, because wheat beers already have that robust citrusy flavor, consider taking a sip of your White before you decide whether to squeeze so extra lemon juice over your lobster, as the combination of the two can sometimes get a little overpowering.
Samuel Adams Porch Rocker By Boston Beer Company
While we all know that Samuel Adams puts out some fantastic summer seasonals, the Porch Rocker is our pick because it's a unique German-style Radler that mixes Helles, bright beer with lemon. So thanks, Boston.
A bit heavy on the carbonation, this refreshing beer is excellent for the heat, incidentally, when lobsters are in prime season. Although beer purists and enthusiasts are correct in noting this is technically not 100% beer, it still makes a great pairing with lobster dishes because of its pronounced citrus flavor.
If Porch Rocker isn't available, try a Cold Snap.
Saison dell'Aragosta by Oxbow Brewing Company
A seaside saison brewed with Live Maine Lobster. For real. This is a collab beer between Oxbow and Birrificio del Ducato of Parma, Italy.
Once again, this 4.5% saison is brewed with real lobster. To put it another way, this beer has more actual lobster in it than most of the lobster rolls you get at the local Summer Shack.
That's Saison dell'Aragosta, one of the best beers you can pair with lobster, because it is brewed with actual lobster.
Wit's Peak by Athletic Brewing Company
If you want a light beer without the bite, then try Wit's Peak, a non-alcoholic witbier from Athletic Brewing out of Connecticut. Hints of citrus and coriander are all we really need when we're washing down gratuitous amounts of tail meat.
Plus, the artwork on a can of Wit's Peak is a treat.
Original Pale Ale by DL Geary Brewing Company
Geary became New England's first craft brewery back in 1983 and has been making quality beer in the fine state of Maine ever since. Why it's on this beer-lobster-pairing list is because not only does it taste great when your cracking open some claws, but it's label proudly sports the magnificent (and delectable) creature right there on the bottle.
In Conclusion
Whether you like your lobster boiled, grilled, steamed, in a roll, or served whole, it’s one of the best meals in the modern culinary world that deserves a good beer pairing. Of course, this list is by no means exhaustive, but hopefully, you’ll find a beer for you in this article that tickles your fancy.
Photo Credit: https://unsplash.com/photos/LbP7lC4sQcs
Kevin Fagan is the Content Manager at LobsterAnywhere. He is a New-Englander that likes to (try to) cook gourmet food at home.