I’m hosting my first larger stout tasting (15-20 bottles, BCBS, Surly, C/KBS, Darklord, etc) - wondering if anyone had recs on food/snack pairings, etc? This won’t be a dinner, just hanging out → I’m the “amateur” beer guy of the group, the rest are “pros”, so gotta bring my A game
Personally, I like dark chocolate and pretzels. Plenty of cheeses also work. I’d also have some non-stouts in the lineup to break things up. The high alcohol and heaviness can get tiresome. I usually go with a sour or fruit beer of some sort to break things up.
Salted potato chips sound good for contrast and resetting the palate, but I’d also want something lighter. Chocolate and other desserts would make me not want another sip of stout. The beers you’re talking about have so much richness, calories, and in some cases, sweetness, that I’d be trying to counter that, not add to it. Pretzels and mustard seem like a great choice, maybe along with crackers/vegetables and hummus. A tasting like this is a lot different than having 6-8 ounces with dessert.
At professional tastings, the only food on the table is oyster crackers. They work pretty well as palate cleansers. You might want to have a nice top-notch Pilsner (Hill Farmstead or Suarez come to mind) on hand so when folks get tired of all that over-the-top crap, they can drink something rational.