Super Bowl Beer and Food Pairings That Beat the Halftime Show

It’s time to celebrate again! Super Bowl Sunday is February 12, followed quickly by Valentine’s Day. If you’re finding that your energy for hosting the crew and whipping up a bounty of snacks so soon after the Christmas crazy is lagging, you’re not alone. At this point in the year, it’s tempting to put your head down and slog through until summer rather than putting on pants just for some Rotel cheese dip. 

But thanks to Blake Tyers from Creature Comforts’ Catalyst Division, there’s a new good reason to invite people over to watch Rihanna’s halftime show: Creature Comforts beer and food pairings for some serious (and seriously easy) Super Bowl appetizers. The Athens, Georgia, brewery often collaborates with local chefs to create pairing menus. Tyers says they’ve seen the atmosphere shift from fitting a beer to a particular menu to the opposite. Now chefs are trying the beer first and then designing a menu or dish around what matches those flavors. 

“Most recently, I was at a beer dinner in Atlanta, and the chef actually incorporated the beer paired with each dish in each dish,” Tyers said. “The reason that works is similar to wine, but there’s actually a little bit more versatility with beer than wine just because the flavor range is a little bit bigger. You have alcohol, you have acidity and bitterness, and those all kind of balance each other, as well as residual sweetness.”

With that in mind, Tyers and the Creature Comforts team have offered not only a guide to beer and food pairings for everything from fast food to snacks to a full meal but also recipes from local chefs designed with Creature Comforts’ flavor profiles in mind. Your Super Bowl party will never be the same.

Beer and Food Pairings to Up Your Hosting Game

“If you look over to Europe historically,” Tyers says, “the reason why you see some parts that are more wine driven and some parts are more beer driven is strictly an agricultural point of view of what grew there back in the day.” 

Places that can grow wheat and hops because of the climate, like Belgium, Germany, and England, also produced and developed foods that went well with beer.

Tyers elaborates: “If you think about classic German food or classic Belgian food, you have a lot of rich meals that might use animal fat in some way or another, or reduced stocks. You see those kinds of thick stews, you see fried things, you even see greens, whether it be peas or some of the leafy greens that are grown in more colder climates, like kale for us.”

“In England, you see a lot of the malt flavors driven there to pair well with a lot of classic English foods like roast beef or cooked meals or pies and things like that. So I think over time, it’s kind of a chicken-and-egg, what-grows-together-goes-together kind of thing.”

Tropicália–IPA

This is Creature Comforts’ number-one-selling beer, with hoppy aromatics and a juicy mouthfeel. Although pizza is this beer’s classic pairing, Tyers says anything with a citrus component, like fish tacos, or a spicy tang, like Vietnamese or Thai dishes, is also a natural match. IPAs tend to clash with anything sweet, so keep it savory. Other great ideas:

• Khao soi, a northern Thai noodle dish, combines coconut milk and red curry with ginger, garlic, and lime for a perfect fusion of spicy and citrusy.
• Mexican cuisine, with its mix of chiles, umami, and nixtamalized corn tortillas is a no-brainer, and Adam Beauchamp’s recipe for chilaquiles below makes a great homemade dish to accompany a six-pack.

Drink With

Tropicàlia Chilequiles

Athena–Berliner Weisse

Creature Comforts does beer and food pairings for staff events, and once for a “convenience store” theme they paired the Athena with strawberry Nutri-grain breakfast bars. “It tasted like strawberry shortcake, and it was awesome,” Tyers says. There’s no need to get fancy to enjoy this organic-local-wheat beer, but of course, you can always kick it up a notch:

• Athena’s gentle acidity complements the saltiness of oysters, and this is the perfect time of year to pick some up and turn the party into an impromptu oyster roast.
• For a dessert pairing, Athena will resonate beautifully with a lemon tart or some lavender blueberry cupcakes. 
• This beer offers seasonal flavors, and the spring version with tart cherry, raspberry, and cranberry pairs exquisitely with chantilly cake filled with berry cream from Publix.

Automatic–Pale Ale

This modern take on a pale ale with citrus and pine notes is the perfect pairing with Southern, African, and Caribbean cuisine. 

• Chef Terry Koval from The Deer and the Dove developed his boiled peanut recipe to complement this beer with an unforgettable spice profile. 
• Try Automatic with jerk chicken, Carolina Gold rice, and peas. 

Drink With

Boiled Peanuts

Bibo Pilsner

“A really good pilsner, in my opinion, should have that kind of herbal spice and that bitterness at the end that makes you want to take another sip,” Tyers says of this effervescent beer that finishes with grassy notes. Eat with it french fries for the saltiness and the crunch.

• Bibo pairs well with cream-based cheeses like Camembert or local farm cheese like Green Hill from their neighbors at Sweet Grass Dairy.
• Or try a heartier pairing such as roasted pork shoulder or paired with and as an ingredient in chili clams from chef Andy Gonzales of The Companion—recipe below!

Drink With

Bibo Pils Chili Clams