Beer and Pizza, a Marriage Made in Reno

Beer and Pizza, a Marriage Made in Reno

At a reception last night for the Craft Brewer’s Conference, I was struck by how two of the food stations had longer lines (by a significant margin) than any of the others: Piece and Marion Street Cheese Market. Both of these popular food vendors serve cheese products, which frequently go well with beer, but the former serves that cheese on pizza, which seems to go less well with beer. Wine, of course; beer, why?



Earlier that day, I was talking with my barber, Emil Messina, who mentioned that he, too, always drinks beer with pizza. This struck me as strange as Emil comes from Palermo and grew up in a neighborhood where he says everyone made their own wine (typically each household had a barrel downstairs where the family vintage was kept). In Italy, “all we drank was wine,” he said; but here, in the USA, it’s beer, at least with pizza.

I asked a cheese monger, Lydia Burns of Marion Street Cheese Market, and a beer seller, Andy Jenkins of Two Brothers (pictured below) if they preferred beer with pizza. Lydia pointed out that there’s lots of different types of pizza, which is true, of course, though she concurred that the acids in the regular cheese and sausage pizza probably didn’t mesh well with beer. Andy (pictured below) also felt that pairing traditional cheese and sausage pizza with wine was maybe a better option, but he speculated that the reason for the unnatural (to me) union of beer and pizza is due to “moving parties of the 70’s, you know, where you have a bunch of friends over to move your stuff from one apartment to the next, and you buy beer and pizza to keep them going.” In addition to Roller Disco and The Captain and Tennille, there’s no doubt a lot we can blame on the 70’s.



I believe beer and pizza is an American thing, and it’s possible that pizza, for many years our country’s “favorite ethnic food,” became popular here a few decades before wine became popular, and as alcohol of any sort is good with pizza, beer is what people had on hand so that’s what they drank. And as Andy says, it’s an inexpensive way to fill a lot of bellies with food and drink that are definitely consumable – if not optimal – together.

Now, this unsavory, and I would contend, fundamentally uncomplementary union is enshrined in tradition. Red sauces with cheese, for whatever reason, seem more appropriately paired with wine (which seems to match the acid in the sauce while cutting the richness of the cheese), and this may even be related to the relatively miniscule number of distinguished beers – or any type of beers -- from Italy. Of course, as Lydia mentioned, there’s a lot of different types of pizzas and a lot of different types of beer, so there are some pairings that probably work better than others (e.g., a more bitter beer might help balance the cheese). Overall, though, consuming beer and pizza is doubling down on yeastiness, and the result, for me, is less distinguished flavors and, ultimately, blotation.

This is, of course, an issue of taste. During those wacky 70’s, when The Wife and I were managing a half-way house, I used to drink a big glass of milk with pizza, and this was judged to be crazy even by people clinically diagnosed as not right in the head (now, the thought of milk with pizza sounds revolting). So I’m not saying it’s wrong to drink anything with anything, just that when most folks give it a moment’s thought, beer and pizza are maybe not the perfect pairing they’re so often assumed to be. Given the best possible beer pairing and the best possible wine pairing for pizza, I believe wine would have the edge. At least for me. Today.

David Hammond wrote:
I believe beer and pizza is an American thing, ....

Beer and pizza are certainly popular together here, but I think that's the case in Italy as well. The first generation Italian restauranteurs I know claim that wine lists in Italian pizzerias are for tourists, and that Italians more commonly drink beer with their pizza.

Either one works for me.

I find taste benefits in both the beer and wine with pizza camps. Generally, I prefer beer. In fact, the new pilsner that I just picked up from Half Acre (Zucker Esel Pilsner) tastes like a perfect pizza beer for me. Generally, a mildly hopped pilsner I think works quite well.

As for pizza & beer being an American thing, I'd guess that the Germans and Czechs would have something to say about that. They've been eating pizza for a while (especially in the Czech Republic) and both countries consume far more beer per capita than we do. (I think the Czechs win this title by a longshot, more than double what we drink here).

Best,
Michael

eatchicago wrote:I find taste benefits in both the beer and wine with pizza camps. Generally, I prefer beer. In fact, the new pilsner that I just picked up from Half Acre (Zucker Esel Pilsner) tastes like a perfect pizza beer for me. Generally, a mildly hopped pilsner I think works quite well.

As for pizza & beer being an American thing, I'd guess that the Germans and Czechs would have something to say about that. They've been eating pizza for a while (especially in the Czech Republic) and both countries consume far more beer per capita than we do. (I think the Czechs win this title by a longshot, more than double what we drink here).

Best,
Michael

I'm thinking hoppier beers probably do work better with American-style cheese and sausage pizza, and it's that type of pizza I had in mind. I could imagine a no-sauce pizza of, say, fried salami on a pretzel base, drizzled with olive oil, that would be excellent with just about any beer.

I didn't mean to imply that b n' p is an exclusively American thing, and with the Czechs, it may be the case that beer is more plentiful and thus more likely to be served with everything (an extension of my theory that beer and pizza gained a foothold in the US at a time when wine was far less common). I'm assuming you saw Bourdain's visit to Prague -- much brew was consumed.

David Hammond wrote:I'm thinking hoppier beers probably do work better with American-style cheese and sausage pizza, and it's that type of pizza I had in mind. I could imagine a no-sauce pizza of, say, fried salami on a pretzel base, drizzled with olive oil, that would be excellent with just about any beer.

There's definitely a point of diminishing returns on the "hoppiness" in beer when it comes to pairing with any food, especially pizza. A little, applied thoughtfully is good, in my book. This is why I liked the new Half Acre pils so much. I do think German and Czech lagers generally work quite well with pizza for the same reason.

On the ale side, I like the milder ales with pizza (Three Floyd's Pride & Joy immediately comes to mind). The recent American trend of intensely-hopped ales, while I think it has its place, is no friend of pizza on my palate.

I believe beer and pizza is an American thing,

"Pizza e Birra" is an "indissoluble marriage" in Italy, too, at least according to the Peroni people:

http://www.momentiperoni.it/specialiper ... peroni.php

. . . altho they do blame American soldiers stationed in Naples duering WWII for introducing the couple.

jbw wrote:

I believe beer and pizza is an American thing,

"Pizza e Birra" is an "indissoluble marriage" in Italy, too, at least according to the Peroni people:

http://www.momentiperoni.it/specialiper ... peroni.php

. . . altho they do blame American soldiers stationed in Naples duering WWII for introducing the couple.

Aren't most Italian marriages technically indissoluble?

My dad was with Fifth Army fighting my mom's side of the family during the Big One -- I've got a call into him to ask about his between-battle boozing habits/pizza preferences.

Got to say, Peroni has been a consistently unsatisfying brew (ditto Moretti), with or without pizza, though I did speculate with Andy that maybe mediocre beer and mediocre pizza would pair just fine.

David Hammond wrote:maybe mediocre beer and mediocre pizza would pair just fine.

I think you've hit the nail on the head here. Maybe craft pizzas & craft beers are relatively new things here, so appropriate pairings for both are still being figured out.

Dominos pizza and Miller Lite, on the other hand, have been around for ages, and I would guess those two and their ilk comprised the original pizza-and-beer marriage in the U.S. One is the cardboard of pizzas, the other is the water of beers...neither has any strong flavors, both come from a can, and both are cheap, plentiful, and easy to procure. Sounds like a match made in heaven (or perhaps purgatory?) to me.

Khaopaat wrote:Dominos pizza and Miller Lite, on the other hand, have been around for ages, and I would guess those two and their ilk comprised the original pizza-and-beer marriage in the U.S. One is the cardboard of pizzas, the other is the water of beers...

You're way too kind in your assessment of both.

As already noted, there are an awful lot of ways to make pizza. I think it's fair to say that some are perfect for wine (red or white, depending), others more for beer.

I tend to favor beer in most cases. I find that the acid in tomato sauce along with trad. toppings that may include green pepper or broccoli, don't work all that well with a lot of wine.

A pizza bianco can be lovely with various whites or light red. Wild mushroom pizza without much tomato element is great with red.

But I find that various beers, from hoppy lager to carmel ambers, can work nicely with the yeastiness of the dough, the spiciness of various sauce and sausages, etc.